04/07/2019
This week has been a busy one! I started Japanese class this week, it's once a week on Tuesdays. I am not sure how much Japanese I will actually learn, but I think it will be a good opportunity to meet people and will push me out of my comfort zone. It's definitely not a beginner class, as they kinda already expect you know how to speak and write some Japanese. Not all the teachers speak English, so we will see how it goes! I have been working on a presentation that I have this upcoming Friday, April 12th. It is a midterm presentation that is supposed to be about 30-35 minutes long, with a 10 minute period for questions. I have quite a bit more work to do on the presentation, as I have been stuck on an issue in my code for a couple days now. Hopefully, I can solve it this week and do well on my presentation! The weekend was very busy as well! On Friday, I had a movie date with Alex. I picked the movie this week, called "The Highwaymen". It is a Netflix original about Bonnie and Clyde. It was from the Texas Ranger's point of view, so it made them out to be cold blooded criminals, rather than a desperate love story. I didn't know how it would end, so I was pretty nervous the whole time. I was also shocked at how many people loved Bonnie and Clyde when they killed so many people.
At 7:45 am on Saturday, Denny, Terry, Will, Diego, and I all traveled to Yoshino in Nara prefecture. Diego is an intern student from Spain and will be here until June. He seems very and and has a very positive personality, so I think it will be nice to have him around. Mount Yoshino is supposedly known for the thousands of cherry blossom trees that bloom in the spring.
It is about an hour and a half train ride from Kizugawa. We hiked about 6.5 miles to the summit to see the trees. However, many were still not in bloom. I am not sure if they already bloomed and we missed them, or if they are just slow this year. It's hard to tell because the cherry trees at the park across the street are in full bloom, but there were very few blossoms on the mountain from what I saw. However, the view at the top was still totally worth it!
It reminded me a lot of the smokey mountains, but that could be because that is the only place that I have really hiked. It was a lot easier hike than the ones that I did in Tennessee with Alex, but it definitely is a longer one. I was pretty exhausted when we got to the top, mostly because my feet had blisters on them and we were at 17,000 steps by that point. I would not recommend hiking for a long period of time in converse. They are great shoes, but my toes have blisters all over them and I started to wear a hole in them. I still need them to last me at least four more months until I get back to the United States! In retrospect, hiking boots would have been a lot better but I had no room to pack any, nor do I own any. After spending 20 minutes at the top of the mountain, we decided to hike down to get lunch.
There are many Japanese people that live on the actual mountain, so in the middle of the hike there were quite a few food options! I honestly don't understand how they all live on the mountain because the streets are so narrow only one car can fit on the road. Japanese driving would stress me out too much. ALL of the streets are SO NARROW, and adding mountain curves to it would be terrifying. It also is in the middle of nowhere, and the nearest train station is at the bottom of the mountain. It was definitely a touristy area though.
We settled for vegan Indian food because it was already almost 3 o'clock and it was the first thing that we saw. It was actually really good, a little expensive though! We all got the same thing, a chapati Indian wrap. Afterwards, I had some sakura ice cream, which is cherry blossom flavor. They put a cute little white flower on it, and it was super yummy! I don't know how to describe sakura flavoring, but if I can find the sakura kit kats before they go out of season, I will bring some back!
It took us about half the time to get down the mountain because a lot of the roads were very steep. We had to stand on the train for about 45 minutes before we actually got a seat. The total distance was 13.1 miles. Terry made a joke that we almost walked a half marathon...not realizing it was exactly the same distance as one. We were all too tired to cook dinner, so we stopped at an udon shop for noodles and tempura. I finally got home around 8:30 pm and just laid on my bed. I was too tired to even move for 30 minutes. I decided to shower and then rest up for church in the morning.
Today, I was a little bit late for church. The express train didn’t come on time, so I took the local train, which stops at every stop. It takes longer to get to the station, 5 stops instead of just 1. Church was really nice though! I talked to a family from Germany and an American named Johanna. She was so sweet and we were able to relate a lot about the challenging life style here, our passion for science, and longing to return to America. She moves back this Tuesday and I won’t be back for another 4 months. It was really nice to talk to her though!
Afterwards, I called my friend Emily and showed her some cherry blossoms near the river in Shintanabe. They were so beautiful and It was really nice to catch up with her! I finally headed back home because my blisters were bothering me from walking again. I made soup for dinner and watching the “Bonnie and Clyde” made in 2013. It has a completely different perspective from “The Highwaymen”, but I thought both were really good! I have just been relaxing after the movie finished because I am honestly exhausted from this weekend and I know the week ahead will be very busy. It has been warmer here and I hope that you are all enjoying warm weather back home as well. Miss you dearly! Enjoy the pictures!
