Tourist town

Today we headed to Yufuin, a touristy mountain town. Although it is set in beautiful surroundings it has become a bit of a trap for tourists - lots and lots of shops selling things to take home for others.
However despite that we managed to feed the local entertainment - the carp and also managed to find a man who my father made friends with while we were there in May. He is a man who draws portraits of people and when my father wandered past last year he was called into the man's little tent to have his portrait painted for free - the man telling him that he was so sick of painting Japanese faces.... So today I took the photo my father took of the man and also a photo of the painting he drew to say thank you which resulted in Beth getting her portrait painted for free too! Not a 100% true likeness, but not too bad either. I think like many of the places you visit here in Japan it is the people that really make or break the place and he seems to be one of the many nice ones. He is interested in going to New Zealand so I said that he was welcome to stay with any of my family.... yoroshiku!