One quarter of our Japanese adventure done…rainy morning coincided with day off so watched ‘Totoro’. Later, forces split with Heidi & boys exploring local town of 蒲生町 and Brad off to find hills to cycle. Mixed morale.

JOE DIARY ENTRY-TODAY: Today we went to a park with an obstacle course and a tiny Woodpecker that was 5 inches and stood 1m away AND there was a Peregrine AND crows that stole our Mochi (ed. crow managed to overcome many bags to find food…boys amazed by this) and ate our bread.

BRAD DIARY ENTRY-TODAY: Cycled to a lake and walked up a hill for panoramic photo…top of hill surrounded by trees so had to climb tree and take panorama photo in highly precarious position! Worth it to see how volcanic local geography is…loads of 4 to 500m hills very steep up and down. See how the various hills I’ve cycled join together. Impressive smoking sakurajima in distance.