Japan trip - Day 2

We got up early that next morning… actually we woke up a lot earlier than we had planned to, it seemed like the jet lag would leave its trace after all.

We didn’t have breakfast at home, we just packed everything and left for the Bus stop. 
We took the train to Osaka and then got in the bullet train heading to Kyushu. 

Inside the Shinkansen

My breakfast; onigiri and some tea

We had a bite on the train, onigiri and just laughed and chatted the whole way through. 

We were all very impressed with the slogan for this coffee as it was advertised as being extremely delicious so dad got us all a cup even though it was super expensive. It was good though. I love taking photos of everything i eat and drink.

This was amusing, Sonic train from Kokura to Yukuhashi. The head rest is also shaped like a console controller.

They sure love their V's. This is my sister in law, i adore her, can you tell?

We got off at Yukuhashi station and I just followed my father in law. 
We then reached this small restaurant and he told my husband that he should be the first to enter and that I should follow him to be introduced. 

The restaurant, oh the anticipation.

The restaurant belongs to my mother in law´s sister. She owns and manages this place (Dompuku restaurant) for 45 years and its specialty is sea food and the famous, utterly expensive and exotic delicacy: Fugu. 

The balcony inside the restaurant with people rushing to get everything ready.

The notorious fish, fugu.

For those of you who do not know, Fugu is a fish that has very toxic parts which that, if consumed, can cause death. Only experienced cooks can prepare this fish and also only people will permission to do so, can purchase it. Unfortunately from time to time, someone will catch Fugu and attempt to cook and then eat it at home and this has resulted in death by poisoning. It is considered to be so tasty and so special that it is said to be worth all the hassle and this also makes it an expensive thing to eat.  
Feeling very awkward of course but being greeted in a very enthusiastic way, we put our things down and started to prepare all the gift bags for all the family sections that would soon arrive, a total of 9.

We weren’t even finished when people arrived… all in one go. An extremely awkward parade of people checking me out and smiling of joy for seeing my husband again after all these years took place. I admit that I never felt so observed in Japan before, it was really strange but it was family so... 
We then followed everyone to the back of this (apparently) small restaurant to discover a huge tatami floored traditional room. It was just packed with people I didn't know and there were a ton of rows of tables. As I was preparing to sit next to mom, dad directed us to the last table, the only one placed in the center and the only one set for two. I froze.

We sat and dad started making a small intro/speech and then it was time to eat. 

This is what my view of the room was like. There it is, almost all our family in Japan.

The white fish in slices is the fugu, it was eaten as sashimi but later we also had it fried. That crab was for us two, you heard it, they frigging gave us an entire crab.

There was a ton of food as you can see and even more to drink. Soon everyone started coming over with a "special" or "rare" bottle of sake so I could try some (apparently someone gave away that i can drink a bit) and I ended up with a big headache the next morning haha.

This was hot sake with a fugu tail in it. It tastes awesome except if you leave it untouched for a while and it gets cold it will start to taste fishy... literally i mean.

Ok so basically if you notice all the small cups you'll see how many different types of drinks I was constantly being given. Except for the never ending beer there was that tall clear glassm the tiny little cup next to it and the hot sake with the fish tail. Nuts.

After a bit (was chatting with different people at that time and feeling more at easy slowly) my husband's older sister who is a part time musician sang a song that was dedicated to us. She's special and the whole thing was loud, funny and at the same time super emotional and I ended up crying like a baby and this considering that my japanese is very poor; incredible.

There was some serious performing going on.

Then this parade of gifts started, it was adorable. My husbands cousins all brought something. 
After taking a bunch of group photos (felt like a special snowflake haha) someone came in with the cutest cake ever! I remember thinking it looked delicious and it tasted even better, sooo good!

She made a drawing of us, i thought it was adorable and its going to go on my wall.

Some of the familly members: yes one of my husbands cousings married an Australian and there's even someone who worked for 7 years in Spain.

I found this to be adorable! There's little Fugu in the tatami awww....

Our cake, doesn't it look delicious? And this is an "informal"party that's what they told me. I can't imagine if it was a formal one. o.o

After a bit people just had to get going so we all went to the doorway and waved goodbye, one by one and got into the car dad rent for the next day. 


I don't remember anything from that car ride, i dozed off and only woke up when we got to the hotel. We arrive and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was great, i always have fun with the amount of different dishes there are on the table and always think about how much of drag it must be to clean them afterwards.

Food

The Japanese parade of dishes.

These are interesting... they are congratulation letter aka envelopes with money in them. It is custom for people to give money to newly weds. I love the envelopes! I'm taking them all home with me.

After that we went up to our room, had tea and opened our presents.　I guess we can call them wedding gifts. It still seems odd to me since we didn't have a ceremony before but that's what they are. We were given a frame, the artwork, a very gorgeous necklace that one of the cousins made, two adorable teddy bears and a huge bento box.

The lounge area of our room. I think dad went a bit over board with the reservation, the thing was huge.

After that it was time to sleep and day 2 was gone.