Today Alice and I went to visit Julie, a friend from Church who used to live with her family in Japan. She offered to give us advice on places to visit etc so we were delighted to be able to visit her house and get some ideas for the trip. From the outside it was an ordinary English house but as soon as we stepped through the door and left our shoes at the entrance we were taken into a strange Japan meets UK interior. There were various items of furniture such as sliding bookshelves and dark wooden drawers made into the shape of stairs, souvenirs from the various places they'd visited, paintings mostly from Asia and books wrapped in origami paper. We sat down with some green tea and Japanese snacks after having a brief tour of the house. Julie showed us all the various bits and bobs we might come across on our travels and then brought out some useful maps and photographs. We spent the afternoon and early evening organising and hearing about places to visit. She seemed just as excited and enthusiastic as us about the trip (maybe even more so)! Afterwards, she told me that I just HAD to try their toilet (imported from Japan, obviously) which was an "interesting" experience to say the least. There were so many confusing buttons and worrying diagrams that I spent almost 15 mins looking for the "flush" only to find that it was behind the seat; totally normal and western-looking.
Alice and I laughed about the toilet and chatted about the trip on the way home. We ate pasta bake with my family and I showed Alice (I even introduced her to Toffee and Fudge). We've planned to get our JR passes tomorrow in London - I can't believe how fast everything has gone since I initially bought the ticket. It's so thrilling and I just can't wait for everything to fall into place. God, I hope it does.
