Hello everyone! Sorry this post took sooooo long to get out! I kept thinking to myself, I really need to update my blog, but I’ll do it when I have time! But then when I actually got time, I totally forgot about it. So that was a major flake out on my part. But things have slowed down a lot here now and I may actually get a chance to catch you all up!
So we left off with Golden Week.
For those of you who don’t know what Golden Week is, it is the week that a bunch of Japanese national holidays happen to fall on. So because there were a bunch of those, they just made the whole week a kind of “spring break” for everyone.
Unfortunately everyone at my office had already made plans for Golden Week and were all going out of town. I had never had the chance to make plans so 1. I had no money to do anything, and 2. I just got to Japan the week before. But luckily one of the Japanese Teachers who was also new to the school invited me with go with her and her parents on a day trip somewhere which ended up being to the next island over called Shikoku. It was only about 30 minutes away from Kurashiki by car and you go over the longest bridge in the world. (I’m pretty sure it’s the longest bridge in the world.) The bridge is called the Seto-Ohashi Bridge. It has this little stop in the middle where you can park and eat food and take photos. It was like a rest stop and a tourist spot all in one. We ate processed fish on a stick in varying flavors. I ate the bacon and cheese flavored one. I figure if I’m going to try something new and strange, bacon and cheese will inevitable make it super delicious.
Next we went to Risturin Park which is a huge Japanese garden where some of the trees there are 350 years old. I was impressed by it. The day was pretty hot too and I had started wishing I had a parasol or something to keep the sun off my head, but I don’t think that far ahead so I just had to deal with being hot. But at the park I ate quality dango for the first time and got it in Sakura flavor and red bean paste on top. It was delicious. The garden was absolutely beautiful and I always find myself wondering what the atmosphere of the garden would be like without the ridiculous amounts of tourists in it. Ha ha!
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| Dango with red bean paste, it looks like poo but it was yummy! |
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| feeding the Koi fish |
After the garden we took off again to go to a temple on top of a mountain. But on the way there we stopped to look over the edge of the ledge because that was also a historical site. (I swear, every branch and leaf in Japan is historical.) This was a historical battlefield where different Samurai clans would clash in battle during the feudal age in Japan. (Think the film The Last Samurai, only way earlier in history and without Tom Cruise.) The air was really fresh there too and I could have sat there for a good hour just breathing. The temple (or is it shrine? I get confused.) was also crowded with tourists, but very pretty. I bought a cute purple charm from them and it’s supposed to be for protection. Then we walked around the side of the mountain top and tossed clay discs off the edge trying to hit rings that were set up. It was a lot of fun and everything was just so beautiful! There is just so much to look at in this country and it’s all beautiful! Anyway, after the temple visit we were all pretty tired and went back to Kurashiki from there.
During the week I also paid a visit to my local mall called Aeon Mall (pronounced as EEon Mall) just to look around and see what they had. It’s a pretty small mall especially compared to the malls back home, but it had a lot of cute stores and there was plenty to look at. I found a studio Ghibli store and practically squealed with excitement! I really love Totoro and there was a ton of Totoro stuff! I bought a phone charm. I also went to the historical district that day too it’s known as the Bikan here. It was SUPER crowded and I’ve never seen that many people in it before. There were extra vendors all over the place and in the sidewalks. It was really entertaining to see. I visited the O’Hara Western Art Museum. It was pretty interesting, and they had a couple of other collections too in various places on the property. The place was really quite large but each individual collection and its building were all pretty small. I also went to the Bikan's historical informational building. It was really just someone's house turned into an information spot. But I met these people who had rented one of the rooms to sell their artisan works in and they invited me to sit with them and.. attempt to chat. Ha ha! The old man who called me over liked my vintage 1940's hat because it looked a little like a baseball cap and then we talked about being right handed and left handed and stuff because I signed the guest book and I'm left handed and people in Japan always freak out when they see me write. They were very funny and the man gave me a tiny flower pot before I left and I took some photos with him and his family because they were really nice and really funny.
On a different day, I went to the next town over with Osama and met one of his friends named Tomoyo! She is a really funny girl and she helps me a ton! But that day we were getting together to play tennis and then visit a dairy farm and get some fresh ice cream. The day was super fun because I really suck at playing tennis but I’m enthusiastic about it so there were lots of poorly hit balls and running to pick them up when I missed. But I didn’t hit any over the fence this time and I think that is something to be proud of!
The dairy farm was pretty awesome too, there was a miniature petting zoo (aka pet some goats and look at some rabbits and cows.) and the ice cream was more like gelato and it was soooo tasty! I tried salt ice cream for the first time too and I was expecting it to be really gross, but it was really good! It was the perfect amount of salt in the flavor and I liked it so much I went back for seconds!
The rest of my golden week consisted of visiting shopping areas around Kurashiki to see what was where and resting. I had been fighting a really intense cold the whole week and the last two days of my break were dedicated to sitting around and doing nothing except a little cleaning. It was nice to just be lazy for a couple of days and rest up.
And that was my golden week! Sorry it wasn’t too terribly detailed, but I’ve kind of forgotten a lot of the details now. It’s my fault for not typing this up sooner! Ha ha oops!
Next up: Random antics and getting caught up to now!
Also have a Panda-like pastry. It was delicious and adorable:
