16:38:41 We spent the latter part of the afternoon on a tour of the local supermarkets, trying to find one that sold lasagne sheets. On the way there was a nice sunset, which I thought it necessary to capture.
16:46:07 Here it is again, with a bit less in the way. Although, in a sense I think the silhouette of the cables adds something to it. This was a particularly poignant sunset, thinking about it, as it would be the last time we'd see the sun in 2002. When it rose again, it would be 2003.
17:09:26 In the supermarket (we did manage to find lasagne sheets in the end, although they were a bit camouflaged). This here is a bag of "Sally", which I assume is some kind of courry spice or something. I took a picture because of the bizarre bit of poetic English on the bag, although it is very difficult to read from this picture...
17:09:50
...still pretty difficult to read here. Thanks to the magic
of photo editing tools, I was able to read the text eventually.
Here it is:
Our life is surely turned into
rhythmical one by some spices -
excited experience, amazing grace etc.
We do pray to realize it in food.
- It's our philosophy.
20:12:38 Back in Chie's family's flat now. I had decided to cook for the family. Thus the requirement of lasagne sheets, which you can just about see behind the kettle. Also note the giant pepper mill my brother got Chie for christmas.
20:18:21 Me, preparing to take my lasagne out of the oven.
20:18:37 Yep, it must be about ready by now.
20:22:01 Mmmmmmmmm vegetable lasagne.
20:29:54 The Moriwaki family enjoying my vegetable lasagne. Although I say so myself, it was actually very nice!.
23:47:18 Later on, remembering it was in fact New Year's Eve, me and Chie went for a bit of a wander about Hiroshima to try and find somewhere that was doing New Year's type things. This here is part of a Buddhist temple. The log here suspended by two ropes is used for ringing the bell, which the nice people who ran the place very kindly let us have a go at ringing.
23:54:02 Very blurred picture! Apparently Japanese people tend to do Buddhist things before midnight, and Shinto things after midnight.
23:54:21 A slightly scary picture of me and Chie with the bell tower behind us. We were trying to get a picture as close to midnight as we could, but I wasn't sure if the clock on the camera was exactly right, so we didn't really know when it actually happened.
23:59:17 The gatehouse on the way out of the temple courtyard. Traditionally, the bell in these temples has to be rang 108 times, once for each of the earthly sins. Doing so actually takes a fair while and a lot of effort. This might explain why the people in the temple were so eager to let us help out. Anyway, as it was now around midnight, it was time to head for a shrine and do shinto stuff instead...