Start of Golden Week

So, I escaped the Politicians of Tokamachi and headed to Niigata. The drive up was easy enough. On teh Friday night Kate took us to Hallelujah, a small restaurant whose walls are filled with rack upon rack of vinyls and CDs. Apparently, as well as knowing a thing or too about cooking, the owner is a bit if a music fanatic.

On Saturday we hunted down an art gallery in Niigata. The first choice was closed but Tourist Information recommended the "Niigata Bandaijima Art Museum" in the Toki Misse building. Having lived in London, I was surprised to have to pay to enter, but it's not a bad little gallery. The art is mainly by Japanese artists from late nineteenth century to modern day. There are some works by foreign artists, including a piece by Monet. I sketched and bought postcards of a few of paintings that caught my eye.

Toki Misse is a tall building in the dockland area of Niigata. There's an observation floor at the top and I sketched teh view of Sado island from there.


Today we took a walk down the beach to Niigata Aquarium. I had been here during the Hull/Niigata exchange and, though we didn't have enough time to make going in worthwhile, I was surprised that the area around the aqauarium was exactly the same as it had been twelve years ago. It brought back loads of memories of that time, which was really cool. I'm going to try day trip here sometime and see if I can remember anything else.

Later this the afternoon I headed back to Tokamachi. Deb's family are over in Japan for a quick visit so Debs had organised a dinner at Naru. It was nice meeting them, but strange to hear Debs slip into her brummie accent more often than normal. They'd only been in Japan for three days but already they're impressed with everything they've seen. Tomorrow they're off to Fuji before coming back for the Kimono Festival on Tuesday, so Debs is working her car as hard as I did mine when my brothers were here.

So, a nice relaxing start to the holiday, and I still have a week to go!