April 15, 2008

Iwaya Beach, seeing former neighbors for the last time, a beautiful Japanese girl and a Kuru-kuru sushi restaurant

In the morning we went to Iwaya Beach located at the northern shore of the island of Kyushu. It was a very short drive of about five minutes from our friend’s house. We collected some shells and, of course, I went looking for mermaids’ tears and got lucky as well.

Thomas at Iwaya Beach

Rare flowers called hamayuu

But there was also a lot of trash as well – too bad.

Speaking of trash – Japan is becoming more and more conscious about pollution. This even applies to discarded cigarette butts with the following poster explaining why NOT to throw them indiscriminately.

Environmental sign

That morning I asked my brother Thomas to take a few pictures of Sakura Fujita, my friends’ daughter. The older daughter, Momoko, had already left the house that morning to take the train back to Fukuoka to attend university. (Sorry, Momoko, I would have liked to get some photos of you, too!!)

Anyway, both the photographer and the model seemed to enjoy their shooting session so much that a lot of photos were taken.

In the afternoon we went back to my former neighborhood once more to say our final good-byes. Below are some photos taken with my local friends,

Nakasan Itaisan Toshimasan

In the early evening we went to a Kuru-kuru sushi restaurant and then spent the rest of the night at home.