Big Adventures, Little World

The Division 4 State League Grand Final was played last night at Pasadena Stadium between the North Adelaide Rockets and the Western Magic. With the Rockets dominating the Northern Conference all year, and the Magic beating out big favourite, Forestville 2, in the semi final, It was sure to be a big match up. In the other semi final, North held off the last Southern Conference team in Flinders Uni, who had been a force all year.

North would go into the game as favourites, having beaten the Magic in their two encounters during the year and also on a 11 game winning streak. However, the Magic were with their full squad and on a streak of their own, and having beaten some tough oponents, it wasn’t going to be easy.

The crowd showed the great anticipation everyone had for this game with over 150 turning out to cheer their teams on. While the Magic brought loud voice and chants, the North supporters easily matched them with their voices, pom poms and giant banner.

North got out to a great start, finding open shots and playing great defence which so them go into the first break with the lead. The Magic weren’t giving up though, and fought back tirelessly, only to have North up their defensive pressure and go on a 10-0 run which saw the lead out to 16. Magic fought back to decrease the lead slightly but half time, but a lot of people were sensing the damage had already been done.

The Magic had other ideas, coming out of the half time break with energy to try and diminish the lead. They got the lead back down to 4 points before North called a timeout and made some much needed substitutions. North finished off the quarter strongly going into the last quarter with a double digit lead. This was no reason for them to slacken off though, with the memories of the previous year’s Grand Final still in their minds where they nearly blew a double digit lead going into the last quarter.

North knew what they had to do and came out to give their all in the last quarter, running it out, playing exceptional defence, and playing a great team game to take the lead to close to 30 points with five and a half minutes to play. They then cleared their bench with the 5 players who built the unassailable lead coming off, for the 5 from the bench to come in and finish off the game. The Magic never gave up and fought back strong, but North were not going to relenquish their lead, with the final scoreline reading 84-70.

By we, I don’t mean Belinda and I, she won’t be home for another week and a half. By we, I mean me and Totoro. He rode the plane, the train and every other form of public transport with me. He even had his own seat on the plane and watched Kung Fu Panda. I think he was getting some tips for himself.

After a bit of trouble at the airport, not knowing where one of my bags was, (which turned out to still be at Ben’s), I got my ticket and headed through to catch the long flight home. The flight didn’t actually seem too long, probably because I kept falling asleep. I did watch Kung Fu Panda 3 times though because I was falling asleep, and it wasn’t movies on demand so I couldn’t fast forward to where I was up to in it. Grrrrr!

Eventually got back to Sydney, stopped and grabbed some duty free items, then heading through customs and off to the domestic terminal. Unfortunately all this took way longer than expected so I missed the flight from Sydney to Adelaide, which meant I had a 3 hour wait for the next one! It worked out ok though, as that allowed me some time to get Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which I had promised to Dung.

Made it back to Adelaide about 1.30pm and first thing I wanted to do was go back to Japan! It is just too damn cold in Adelaide. Coming from nearly every day over 30 degrees, and at least 80% humidity, this just wasn’t right. Take me away to where the sun is out and where I don’t freeze when I walk out the door!

We were both so excited to be visiting Totoro at the Ghibli Museum, you could not hide the smiles on our faces! As we walked down the streets to the museum, there was signs every hundred metres or so, some with Totoro himself on them. So naturally we had some photos with them. The walk was about 1.2km according to the sign posts, but knowing how inaccurate some of these sign are in Japan, it could have been more. We got to the museum to be greeted by a giant Totoro!

Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photos, well, not inside the museum at least. We took as many as we could though. The idea behind not taking photos is they want it to be a place that lives in your memory, kind of like Totoro.

Once inside, we started to wander, which is the recommended way to see the museum, as there is no sets routes. The plan is just to walk around and lose yourself in the place. After we had seen a couple of the rooms, we went to the movie theatre to see a short movie, which can only be seen at the museum. While I couldn’t understand it, as it was in Japanese, Belinda was translating for me. And there wasn’t much dialouge and what there was, was pretty basic as it is a children’s movie afterall. I did manage to understand little bits of it by myself though.

Once the movie had finished we continued to get lost and try to find our way to see everything in the museum. We think we did eventually, and after a couple of hours there, we were done. Then came the task of finding our way out, but not before we had stopped at the gift shop, where I got my own Totoro, who had his own seat on the plane on the way home!

After we stopped for something to eat, and a coffee (Yes, I drink coffee now), we headed back to the hostel, used their internet, planted another koala, grabbed our bags, and then we were on our way to send me home.

Our last day in Fukuoka was fairly uneventful, as we wandered the streets, checked out a few local sites like the Fukuoka Castle Ruins before we made our way to the airport to fly back to Tokyo for my last night in Japan. I continued my crazy sleeping patters by sleeping on the plane and in no time we were back in Tokyo. It still continued to amaze me, and I must have been like one of those clowns at a carnival that you put ping pong balls in their mouths. My mouth would hang open as I turned my head back and forth looking around, taking in the sites, buildings and atmosphere.

Our hostel was a little different than the others we stayed in, with a shared dormitory room, with guys and girls. Each person had there own box to sleep in, which was about 2 metres long by 1 metre high and wide. See below:

I had Bel repack, and shove in as much as she could to my bags, and then it was time for some broken sleep before the big adventure the next day to The Ghibli Museum.

A day trip from Fukuoka to Beppu was the plan for today, and we had a 2 hour train ride to get us there. I won’t bore anyone with those details as I’m sure you all get the idea by now. So we arrived in Beppu, found the Information Desk, where they spoke excellent English (Score 1 for us!) and found out how we went about finding the natural hot springs, or Jigoku, meaning “burning hell”. We got our info and a day pass for the pass and off we went.

Welcome to hell! We found the springs, with the coolest of them being about 70°C! Some of them were once used to cook food in, and a few are still used today to boil eggs in. There were 8 spring in total, and we visited them all.

The first was Yama-Jigoku, where amongst the steam rising from the ground there is a range of animals from a hippo, chimpanzees and even an elephant! It was so hot walking through just a little of the steam, but gave us a taste of what was to come. Next we went to Umi-Jigoku, which has vivid blue water with eggs boiling over it and surrounded by beautiful gardens. Another feature was a small hot spring where you could put your feet in which was good for cuts and other things. It was very relaxing, but hot, so we only left our feet in for a short time.

Next stop, after a short walk, was Oniishibozu-Jigoku, where hot gray mud is continually bubbling. After a lot of photos of the bubbling mud which looked like ooze, we found another spring to put our feet in, supposedly good for some other reason this time, and sat for a bit to relax. We left a koala by the spring and were off to the next one. Kamado-Jigoku features a bright red demon watching over it and had a range of different types of Jigoku. The next one we visited was a breeding ground for crocodiles and alligators as the hot water made it perfect for them. Not only that, but the steam coming from the ground produces enough pressure to pull one and a half train cars! Finally, before getting on the bus to see the last 2, we stopped at Shiaike-Jigoku, which has creamy white water which spouts from the ground clear, but then mysteriously changes.

The last two to see were Chinoike-Jigoku, and Tatsumaki-Jigoku. Chinoike-Jigoku was a little disappointing, as the steam was supposed to be red from the clay that was boiling, but unfortunately it wasn’t for us. Also, half of it was closed off for maintenance, including the part where you can put your feet in the red water. Tatsumaki-Jigoku was really cool, and we got there just in time as it is a geyser that spouts boiling water into the air every half hour.

We got on the bus back to the station and we were looking up when and where we could get buried in a bath of sand, when we passed it on the bus! So we jumped off and in we went. What an amazing and weird experience! You get undressed and put a robe on, then lay down in hot sand, then have people shovel the sand all over you and bury you in it up to your neck. You then lay there for 10-15 minutes. The sand gets quite heavy which makes it a bit harder to breathe, but nothing to bad. Then you start to feel your body pulsing which is a little strange, and then as you have been there a couple of minutes, you start to sweat a bit. With beads of sweat running down your forehead and no way to wipe them away, it is very difficult, so best just to try not concentrating on them. Once the time is up, you just kind of brush the sand off of you and just stand up, with the rest falling to the ground. You head inside, was the sand off, have a hot bath and head back out and your all done. That is what it is like to be buried in a sand of bath!