Thursday 18th August - Chichijima... or not. Today we were supposed to catch the ferry to the island of Chichjima. However, we got completely confused over the departure time. We arrived what we thought was over an hour early. It turned out to be fifteen minutes too late. We've been planning this part of the trip since before we left the UK, and it had cost a fair amount to go, so you can imagine how upset we were. Luckily they managed to get us on the next ferry in three days time so all was not lost.

Friday 19th August - around Tokyo. It rained pretty much the whole day so we didn't do anything other than wander round a shopping mall. 

Saturday 20th August - Earthquake information centre. Having experienced a couple of tremors now, we figured it was probably a good idea to head here! The tour is entirely in Japanese so we were just talked at for a lot of it. However, it was interspersed with hands-on experiences to make it more interesting. First up was the smoke maze. They simulated a waiting room that we all sat in. Then an alarm went off and we had to enter a smoke-filled corridor and get out. To make it more realistic, several doors were locked so we ended up seemingly trapped for a minute before Chris found an unlocked door. Next we got to experience a level 7 earthquake. In a mock kitchen we had to crawl under a table and wait out the violent tremors. When the tremors stopped we slowly crawled out, only to be hit by an aftershock! Lastly we had a go with a fire extinguisher in the fire safety demonstration. We learnt some interesting things about how the Japanese have adapted to living with earthquake, such as the array of devices you can by to stop furniture toppling over and the fact that gas meters automatically cut off if the earthquake is a category five or higher.

Sunday 21st August - Ferry to Chichijima. Yes, we actually managed to catch this one! We are sleeping in a dorm, which means we're sleeping on a blanket the floor in a room with fifty other people - cosy! We left a grey, rainy Tokyo and the weather has steadily been getting clearer and warmer the closer we get to the island.

Though the boat trip is long and, for the most past, very boring, we have got to see some amazing things. At night it is pitch black out here, so we fumbled our way out on to the deck for some stargazing. It was awesome. Not only were there a million stars, but the Milky Way was stretched out across the sky above us. It was breathtaking. And if that wasn't enough, we even got to see a shooting star! The next day we were accompanied by a flock of brown boobies. As we watched they swooped and dive for flying fish that skimmed the waters below us. It was a real nature-programme moment!

Monday 22nd August - arrived in Chichijima. It is so beautiful here, absolutely perfect. The main town seems to consist of a main road with shops and hotels, and then not much more beyond it! It's quiet and peaceful and everyone is really friendly... and highly amused by the fact we can't speak any Japanese!  We guessed that there would not be much english spoken as we only saw one other westerner on the ferry.

In the evening we climbed up the road to the weather station which, on the most western part of the island, is perfectly placed for watching the sunset. It was a bit too cloudy to see much, but it was still pleasant.

Tuesday 23rd August - snorkelling on Chichijima. Though the day started off grey and rainy, strong winds soon blew it away, leaving us with lovely sunshine. We rented a snorkelling set each and headed to the beach just north of town. The beach was beautiful - bright white sands and crystal clear waters, surrounded by cliffs and palm trees. It couldn't have been more perfect. There were only a handful of other people there as well, so it was nice and quiet. After wrangling with our masks and snorkels (neither of us had ever done it before) we were out swimming through the coral. The water in the bay doesn't seem to get very deep so the coral was nearly alway just out of arm's reach. We saw a dozen different species of fish, it was so exciting! Proper tropical ones as well - bright yellow fish, fish with zebra stripes, brown fish trying to hide in rocks, it was amazing! 

In the evening we went for sushi - well what else were we going to eat on a Japanese island! As the menu was entirely in Japanese, we just asked the waitress for her recommendations. She brought out some interesting things, including sea turtle. Yes, we ate raw sea turtle! It is hard to describe what it was like. It wasn't quite fish or meat. We wont be in an hurry to try it again though. We went for a walk after dinner and came across what looked like the whole village doing a tribal dance. There was someone on a stage leading it and a few professionals dotted about the crowd and then lots of people and families all joining in. It looked like they were having loads of fun!

Wednesday 24th August - snorkelling again! We headed to a different beach and donned our snorkels and flippers once again. Set in a large bay the water here didn't get too deep till quite a way out so it made for some gentle snorkelling. We saw quite large fish not to far from the shore. Out in the middle of the bay is a rusting shipwreck left over from the second World War. Lindsay swam right out to it and was engulfed by a shoal of pretty stripey fishes. It was just like something from TV, with all the fish swimming in and out of the wreck and all about her. 

Thursday 25th August - left Chichijima. All too quickly, it's time to leave. But not before we fit in one last bit of adventure - swimming with dolphins! We took a boat trip out to some nearby islands where we got to see a pod of four dolphins swimming along the coast. They were beautiful and as we were in a small boat we could see them really clearly. Then, after a yell from the captain, Lindsay and some others dived into the ocean to swim with them, armed with snorkels and flippers. The dolphins weren't remotely interested in us though and dived down into the deep as soon as we entered the water. Still, Lindsay got to see the four dolphins swimming away against a dramatic backdrop of dark blue water. We boarded the boat and chased the dolphins along, managing two more dives before we left them to it.

We then headed to a bay our captain referred to as an underwater garden as it was filled with corals and fish. He moored the boat out as sea and we both dived in for a look. There were loads more fish compared to the snorkelling we'd been doing before, it was brilliant! And so many different species of fish too. Every time we turned around there was something new to look at.

Eventually it was time to leave and catch the boat, but what an event that was! Loads of islanders turn out to wave the boat off. There were people in grass skirts doing traditional dancing, people banging drums, men in smart white navy uniforms waving their caps, and out to sea half a dozen or so of the tour boats filled with people followed us as we left. What a lovely send off!

Friday 26th August - arrived back in Tokyo. Having left the beautiful island in glorious sunshine, we were brought back to Tokyo with a thud - the heaviest rain we have seen on our travels! Thunder, lightning, the works. As we pulled into harbour we could see sunshine and blue skies from the back of the boat whilst barely being able to make Tokyo out through the rain at the front of the boat!

Saturday 27th August - Meiji Jingu shrine. We went to the park here to visit the shrine and stumbled across a massive festival! We're still not entirely sure what it was in honour of, but dotted about the park were a few stages where troupes of dancers performed. There must have been an average of thirty people in each group, ranging from small children to old ladies. They were all dressed in modern versions of traditional clothing and dancing to modern versions of traditional music. Each group would run on, perform for about five minutes and then run off to another stage to perform again. The dances were really entertaining and great to watch, they were so energetic though, we don't know how they managed to to several performances in thick clothing on such a hot day! Eventually we managed to draw ourselves away to look at the shrine. Japanese temples, in comparison to Chinese and Korean ones, are very simple and unadorned, to the point where, from a tourist point of view, they are a little dull. Just a lot of dark wood structures and that's about it. Even the shrines themselves lack the gaudy gold Bhuddhas and bright carvings of other shrines. 

In the evening We saw a spectacular fireworks display. Well, as best we could anyway. The display is set up in two locations on the river, a couple of bridges apart from each other. However, the river is surrounded by office blocks and apartments so unless you've managed to hire a boat and watch it on the river, you're stuck trying to view the fireworks between buildings. And then you can only see one lot of fireworks and have to content yourself with just listening to the Bangs of the other lot. That said, from what we could see of them, the fireworks were amazing. 

Sunday 28th August - Back to Shibuya park. This is where the festival yesterday was. We managed to pick up a Japanese leaflet about it all and worked out from the pictures that there were stalls selling things and parades going on so we went back to see it all. There were two parades on different streets, but featuring the same dancers. As with the stages, they seemed to run from one parade to the other. We realised that this was all on top of the performances on the stages. They must have had to learn several dance routines for this event - four or five as they paraded up the street and another one for the stage. When you seen how well choreographed and perfectly timed the routines are, and how much energy goes into them, its pretty impressive stuff! They must start practicing for next year as soon as the festival ends!

Monday 29th August - Imperial Gardens and the origami centre. This has been on our to-do list the entire time we've been in Tokyo and would you believe it, the gardens are closed on Mondays! All the days we've spent in Tokyo and we have completely missed out on the gardens, doh! Oh well, at least there was still the origami centre to look forward too. Disappointingly, this turned out to be little more than a shop selling origami paper and books. Still, they had a few amazing origami models dotted about the place and the ladies there made us an origami frog each as a present. 

Tuesday 30th August - home! Just a twelve hour flight to go...

Sayonara!
Chris and Lindsay