Ah, the third day. I was excited to be involved in this. But, first things first. We had breakfast, the main unusual thing being a hard-boiled egg that was boiled in the onsen. It's apparently quite common to do it, and we did see a place where people picked them out. But onsen eggs just sound odd. We piled onto the bus around 9 am and went to pick apples and make mochi. I was especially interested in apple picking. Family, we need to start that tradition. Nagano is famous for its fruit, especially Fuji apples, peaches, blueberries, grapes and chestnuts. We got to the apple orchard and listened to speeches from Shin-san, the apple workers and a city representative. Then we split into groups of about 10 people and went with a volunteer. We were
... read more
