Dan has finally arrived in our Japanese home. After two days of travel and a whole lot of plane food, he touched down in Tokyo on Friday.

Making his way to Yamaguchi was not without its challenges, as he managed to find the only delayed train in the whole of Japan, thus missing his connections. This leads to a vaguely hysterical wife, sitting at our local station for hours thinking he has fallen asleep on the Shinkansen and is now in Korea…thanks to my sister for coming to the rescue with her wonderful UK phone credit!

Day one, he was thrown into the deep end as we spent the afternoon at the famous Shimonoseki straights firework display. They take fireworks extremely seriously in Japan. A 45 minute firework battle commenced. We had fireworks the shape of smiling cats (obviously…) hearts and just some big old boomers! It was wonderful and helped us celebrate Dan’s 30th in impressive fashion.

Next up…the Yamaguchi steam train adventures!