鞆の浦

I just finished scanning and resizing the first 15 pictures from my black and white film, and i am so tempted to post them (or most of them) right now!
But i have a post all ready to go from yesterday, so i should probably post that first. But the other one is so exciting for me! They don't look nearly as good on a computer screen, obviously, but there are still some really cool ones. Crooked, but cool!
But first things first.

Our second, and last, day in the country side was even better than the first.
We got up kind of early, or early enough to hang out with Izumi's husband for a little while before he had to go to work*, and have a nice shower and Izumi's signature fancy breakfast (seriously, she makes the best breakfast).
In the afternoon, when everyone was ready, and the worlds laziest baby finally decided to get up, we headed to a small village about half an hour from Fukuyama that Izumi had been telling us about.
Apparently, Hayao Miyazaki, one of my big heroes and my imaginary grandpa, lived there for a few months while writing the movie Ponyo, and the village heavily inspired the movie.
It was kind of a secret, though, so it wasn't like you saw Ponyo references on every corner, but they were there. Pretty magical.
But the most magical thing about this village? Huge hawks, just floating and circling around in huge numbers, like seagulls! I was stunned, and i wish i'd been able to capture that in film. Maybe next time.

On a bus with wooden floors

On top of a hill there was a museum, and we went in to see a fantastic Hinamatsuri exhibition

 Fishing villages are generally pretty magical and this was no exception

Or at least i think so!

 We had luch at this cute little restaurant that seemed more like a living room... the owners granddaughter was doing her homework and he made her lunch... so sweet

 There was something to look at everywhere

 He made me a special meat free udon with an egg

After lunch we took a ferry to a nearby island



 Akari just slept most of the time

As soon as we saw this onsen next to a big hotel, we knew we had to go back there in (much) warmer weather

 Sometimes you just need your butt hole steamed, you know?

 We only had time for a brief walk away from the beach and hotels, but it was a damn nice one

 Actual nature

And just cause they're much nicer, here are my instagram pictures from the trip!
(1. Nozomi 2. Ekiben 3. Cute sign 4. Cute baby 5. More cute baby 6. At the shrine 7. Good morning 8. Really misplaced tall building in the fishing village 9. Harbor view 10. Ponyo! 11. The whole day shifted back and forth between shitty and awesome weather 12. "Haven't i seen that two seconds ago?" you may ask. No, this is slightly different 13. This however, is the same as above... what? It's a really nice picture! 14. My treasures collected at the beach)

After we got back from the village, we picked up our stuff from the house and it was time to go home.
But we have already made plans to go back to our secret island in April for a weekend of awesome food and hot spring bathing.

If you're one of those rare not-on-instagram people (i'm sure there must be a few left?) you can still go on the web version and check all of my pictures from Japan.
I've tagged them all (at least i hope it was them all) with this tag: #amalieinjapan, so they're super easy to find.
Go here to check them all out!

*I promise there'll be pictures of him too next time we visit!

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