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Published: April 23rd 2008
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Our School Embarks to Kamakura!
With Yugawara to follow....
NOTICE: I lost my pictures for this one as well, but I was able to get the pictures from my Teacher's camera at least.
During the last few weekends, my culture class went on a trip to Kamakura.This place had quite the amount of pretty tourist attractions to gander at. I feel its best left to photographs to explain my experience when its this kind of thing. Ill just share anything else worth mentioning.
It was an optional trip if u weren't taking the class for credit so only 4 of us went. It was a Saturday morning.We took the train for only an hour before we arrived at Kamakura. We crossed a long bridge on foot that led out to an island. The island was extremely mountainous with stairs every which way.As we made our way to the temple path, there was a little booth handing out flyers of some sort. My teacher, Tanaka-san, handed me a copy and explained its contents. I couldn't believe the things he told me! The document contained clues to the locations of pieces of a fabled Dragon armor of legend. It was
a scavenger hunt! I personally found this kind of thing really amusing, being the nerd that I am, haha. So our quest began.
The helmet was the first thing on the list. The clues were vague pictures or close-ups of the location. It was rather easy since you would see a bunch of people huddled around the locations but it didn't spoil the fun to much. After all the clues were gathered, we headed to the reception desk to claim our prize. I couldn't believe what is was....a small can of Fanta....what a sham. I guess its more about the journey than the destination, or the prize waiting for you. Well at least I was amused. That night we stayed a really nice traditional hotel (ryokan) complete with a wholesome dinner and breakfast.
The following morning consisted of some more temple hopping, until we called it a day around 6pm. The moral of this untold story is Japan is truly a beautiful country unlike anything I've ever seen.
The following weekend was one spent with Jason in Yugawara. It was his host mother's old country house which was currently unoccupied. We arrived together that Friday night. Yugawara
is another quaint mountainous town. Jason and I stopped to get some dinner before we called in a night. There was alot in store for us the following day.
That morning we woke up and hopped on a bus to Yugawara mountain(yama). The bus dropped us off at the summit. There were many beautiful mountains surrounding the city but this particular one really stood out. It was covered with white and purple plum (umei) trees. It was a breath-taking site..I cant believe Japan has these kind of trees just growing everywhere. About half way up we realized how foolish we were for not preparing ourselves appropriately with some drinks and snacks. There was a little picnic area around the half way mark where we plopped ourselves down for a breather. Then from the corner of our eyes emerged this nice, old man with oranges and riceballs! We graciously accepted his offer and scarfed it up quickly. Man I love this country.
With our new-found energy we took on the rest of the mountain. I didn't realized how out of shape I was. This climb was pretty harsh on my lungs. After an hour elapsed, we finally made it
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Heading for the top. to the top where Jason and I collapsed. But we were rewarded with a gorgeous view of the surrounding mountains the city below with the ocean shore stretching out as far as the eye can see. We sat there for a while taking in the scenery realizing how lucky J and I were to be doing these kind of things together; living our dreams together.
Later that night we checked into a public bath and soaked like big frogs. This particular sento had a new sort of bathing experience I had never seen. You would enter this glass room that had a pool of water up to about your ankles. But from the ceiling, a huge wave of gushing water would come crashing down on you. I looked at the ground and saw some familiar grooves with another jet of water coming from the wall behind. So basically you would sit down here while having gallons of water being hurled at you from above and behind. It was like being under waterfall with a fire hose being sprayed at your back. It was relaxing in a massagy sort of way but i could only take so much. I felt
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Pretty mountain side. like i should do some sort of training in there but unfortunately there weren't any sensei's to watch over my training.
Since there was a full moon, J and I went to the beach and shared our thoughts over a bottle of sake. We stayed as long as the cold would let us and headed back home, finishing the night with some music and a movie. That morning... we headed back home and went our separate ways ending another delightful weekend.
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