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Published: June 27th 2006
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Last Tuesday, we went to our study tour in Fukui prefecture. Its in the north. It took us about 2 hours to get there by bus. We took 3 buses and my friends and I were in the English translation one, but there was no translation coz the guide cant speak English much. It probably takes less than 2 hours to get there, but because we kept stopping in service areas (there is no gas station "come together" culture here), it took so much longer. The drive was pretty fun, Travis brought his portable boom box and we were just playing music all the way and chatting. Our first stop was Eiheiji temple. Its this buddhist temple where the training is really tough, we went around the temple, and they showed us a video of the training of the buddhist monks. They are silent monks that spend most of their time in meditation. They have this prayer thing where they sit in a line and they have to reflect and one monk will be walking around with a stick. Theres a certain change in your posture that means you've fallen asleep already. Even if its a really slight change, the monk
lovely photo of Eiheiji
arigato Travis Oniichan can tell and he will walk over to you, tap you on the shoulder softly with the stick and then you will bow and he will hit you hard on the shoulder. Its crazy, good thing the teachers here don’t do that.
The temple is on the top of a mountain and its really pretty, We walked around the temple while a monk was giving us explanations about it. We spent about 2 or 3 hours in the temple, I got a lot of good photos, it was really impressive.
After that we went to the Onsen Hotel. It was a fantastic hotel. We had a traditional room, where you sleep on the floor on futons (mattresses) and the doors are made of traditional japanese paper (these are the Japanese sliding doors) and the floors covered in tatami (japanese straw mats) when we arrived and settled in our rooms, there's a lady who served us tea and japanese pastries made of red beans. We were also given yukatas (light kimono) to wear and an over coat. Shelly and Sophie wanted to go to the onsen (hot spring) so much so we went there. It was soooo beautiful and luxurious, There
was a big pool of hot water inside and you can go outside to an outdoor natural pool, behind it is the forest and theres a river along it so we could hear the rumbling of the river while we relax in the hot spring. They were also playing very relaxing music and there were candle lamps all around the pools and it was such a great way to unwind. We were all naked of course, haha. so i think ive seen all the female foreign students of gaidai naked now!
We couldnt stay in the onsen for a long time because we were due for the dinner party by 630 pm. we went to the grand dining hall where there were rows and rows of low tables and pillows and just the most fantastic food. We all had a small bowl with soba, a plate of sashimi, crabs, a bowl of hotpot cooking on the table itself and beside each individual table is a small stove where you cook the rice. I ate so much because aside from whats already on our tables, Japanese ladies keep coming in with more food, It was crazy, I think I had about
the rotombori in the ofuro
once again... This ryoukan rocks! 7 or 8 different dishes, no joke.
After the dinner our sensei asked us to perform some songs on the karaoke, he would call a country and the representative of the country should come up and sing something. UK was called and because Shelly was the only English person there, she called on all her colonies to come help her sing so Travis and Robin from America, and Crystal from New Zealand came to sing with her. She kept insisting that Philippines is a part of her colony through the Americas but I argued America never really officially colonized us. hahahah They sang Let it Be and it was so funny, coz Robin was the only one we could hear, and totally defeated the purpose of making the UK delegate sing, but it was still good. Then Switzerland and Austria sang next and Jan and Philip sang My Way with the other Swiss and Austrian students, I was wondering if i should bring out my gun and shoot them already! (it’s a running joke in the Philippines that you shouldn’t sing My Way in karaokes because factual records show that there are more people killed from singing My Way than
from bar fights.) HAhaha Then the French went to sing, Sophie, Ninon, Chris and Benoir sang Michelle, because it was the only one with any french on it. Shelly persuaded me to volunteer to sing, she, Crystal and Sophie volunteered to go up there with me as I’m the only Philippine student there (Ian, the little idiot, didn’t go) I said yes and we sang Paraiso, I taught them the part where they should sing "Paraiso" and I will sing the rest. But I think they didn’t get it right coz every time I would say paraiso, they would sing paraiso too and i kept signaling to them to stop singing, and finally when it was their turn to sing Paraiso, they messed it up and everyone burst out laughing. They were so quiet before listening and then they were laughing so much, and i was laughing so hard too I couldn’t sing. I cut the song short because i was laughing so hard. It was a great time and I’m pretty sure we’re gonna laugh about that for months on end.
After dinner, i stayed with my room mates, the koreans and we chatted a bit in broken japanese/english/korean
and with the help of my electronic translator and this dictionary of English, tagalog, Korean and Japanese that I had. Anna was starting to get real good in pronouncing Tagalog words.
The next day, we had breakfast, which was HUGE! It was unbelievable that they serve all these little bits and pieces of food, that you wouldn’t think you’d get full on but after an endless serving of them, you just blow up. We left the hotel by 930 am and it was sad because i really liked the hotel and i wanted to stay there longer. We then went to this village, Yunokuninomori, where you can make and buy the products of that area. We saw glass blowing, gold leaf making, music box making, soba making and so many other crafts and industries. We spent a long time in the village; hopping from one store to the next, thought most of the time, we just stayed in the playground and fooled around. Crystal and Sophie started playing on this upside down u-bend bars (I don’t know how to call them) and Jan stayed on the spring horse or something and Travis just climbed up on this net-like tower looking
picking momiji
Crystal and I pick off red maple leaves from the tree tent, I dunno. Hehe I tried the flying fox, and well, I still don’t know if I flew or what. We went around the place and found this bird cage with peacocks in it. For some reason, Shelly formed the idea that she can communicate with birds and started making these weird bird sounds that just cracked us up like crazy. I think she actually got a peacock to answer her. Hahah. Later on, we saw this sign of an exhibit of Jan’s favorite poet who is also a calligrapher, I think, and we just yelled at him to take notice of it. We had a lot of fun in that place, but goodness, we were so tired, we were practically falling over ourselves. Soon, it was time to go home, We went back to the bus to head home to Gaidai. Everyone was so tired that we just slept all the way back.
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