We caught the bus to the local town of Kutchan, a sprawling and not very pretty place with wide roads set out in a grid system so all the roads were long and straight with little indication whether you were at the town centre or on an industrial estate. None of the buildings were particularly old but nothing seemed to be built with any attempt at style and overhead power cables seemed to complete the dismal scene.
Of course we found somewhere to have lunch helped by a lady in the coffee shop. She walked down the road with us for several hundred yards and pointed out a sushi restaurant, chattering away in Japanese as we walked! We had some excellent sashimi (raw fish) – very fresh and delicious. We also had tempora and what was described as fried tentacles (squid, I assume) washed down with beer and green tea. The cost was just under £10 a head. The chef was delighted with us because, I assume, we ate so much. He enthusiastically showed his various dishes and even demonstrated the proper use of chopsticks when he saw we were making a hash of picking our food up.
