03/17/2019
Yes, there was an earthquake this week! It was the first time I experienced one. I honestly thought someone was shaking my desk chair and realized everyone else's was shaking too. It only lasted for maybe 10 seconds. There was an announcement on the loudspeaker indicating that everything was okay and that there were no major issues. Later that evening, we took a limousine bus to Kyoto for our welcome party! We arrived an hour early in the city so we walked around a few of the stores near Kyoto Station. We stopped in Namco, which is basically an arcade full of claw machines so it is almost impossible to win anything. There was a game that is similar to rock band, but with a drum instead of a guitar. We each played a song, I played 'USA" with Eriko-san. She chose it because it is a J-Pop song about America. It was a lot of fun! At 8 pm we went to the restaurant, where everyone from our team was there. It was a very fun evening! We ate several types of Japanese food, but unfortunately I cannot remember the names. It is so difficult to remember Japanese words. We all drank some Japanese beer and talked until around 10 pm. Each intern had to stand up and say a few words about being thankful for the opportunity to work at Omron. Nakajima-san expressed his excitement and appreciation that we decided to intern in Japan. We didn't get home until midnight, so I was pretty tired for the rest of the week.
Eriko was only here for one week, so on Friday Terry, Chiou, Eriko, and I went to get udon and tempura. It was nice to hang out together before she left, she was so nice! The rest of my evening was very low key. I just did laundry and cleaned, along with talking to Alex for a little while.
On Saturday, I had a video date with Alex. We watched Dawn Wall, which was about free climbing el capitan in Yosemite. It was a really good movie, although I could never climb anything like that. After the movie, I went on a brief run before meeting up with Terry. We went to Mount Inari, where over a 1,000 torii gates. We started walking up the mountain through the torii gates.
However, there was another path that seemed to deviate through a bamboo forest up the mountain. We hiked through the path until we reached the top of the mountain. On the way, there were several graveyards with little figurines in them. It honestly gave me the creeps because so many people were bowing to the gravestones and figurines. Apparently, they are praying to their ancestors. At the top of the mountain there was a shrine/graveyard, I was hoping there would be a pretty view. There was a nicer view further down the mountain. Once we reached the top, we went down the path with all of the torii gates because we went up a different route. I honestly enjoyed the nature portion of the mountain more than the gates, even though those were the main attraction.
On the way home, we almost got on the wrong train, but I caught our mistake and we caught the right one! Once we got back, I made udon at home and it was really good!
