Capsule alley:
Inside my capsule:
I don't know where to begin now. Quite a bit has happened since my last post. I had the opportunity to help Pat teach one of his classes, and realized that I do in fact want to be a teacher. It was a joy, especially when I went to go help out the younger children who were a little behind. They were so shy, but I finally got them to fully repeat the english sheet we had given. It was a nice sense of accomplishment. Here is the class:
After that, I went to the local bar Paper Moon and met some of Pat's friends. They had some good spaghetti and whiskey there.The next day Pat, a fellow JET named Morgan, 2 girls named Miyuki and Teiko and I set out to go see Geibikei, a large gorge. The scenery along the way was so beautiful. Rice fields are a lush green that give a stark contrast to the sky. I don't think I can properly capture that in photo though, but I tried.
Anyhow, we got in this large boat, reminiscent of a gondola, pushed by this driver here:
To get an idea of how deeply chiselled this gorge is, in the centre of the photograph below is one of the "gondola"s. On the way back, the driver would sing an enka song written about Geibikei as you sat and enjoyed the scenery (or as I did, sweat buckets).
We arrived at the furthest point allowable for the boats to go, and walked along to an area where you would buy charms and throw them into a small hole for good luck. I got pretty close, but didn't make it.The pathway:
Pat and I posing in front of the sign that has the character for lion (on Pat's left) just because we're leos. Go superstition!
After visiting Geibikei, we travelled along to Yuugendou, a limestone cave. It was used at one point by Japanese Christians when they were prosecuted in the 1600s or something close to that. Either way, it was really fun to go and explore, as there was one other couple in the whole of the caves.
Here I am, posing:
A 2 second exposure I did that looks nice small, but actually sucks at normal size:
The gang:
The awesomely old toilets:
After visiting Yuugendou we walked a short distance to see an area dedicated to those japanese christians who were killed. Here are little statues with supposedly hidden crosses contained in each carving:
For my grandma: Hydrangea are native to this area and create pretty bushes that compliment the statues etc. nicely.
We found that this area was actually closed as there was no one at the ticket booth, and no cars around. We decided to explore into the cave anyways and came out to a pathway that was blocked off. It seems there had been a landslide at least 2 years ago, so our trek up the side of the mountain was perilous with stairs completely destroyed and guardrails uprooted:
We were half expecting to find a decomposing body. Instead we found a lookout point where we took a photo of the 3 of us. We couldn't go all the way up (where there MUST be an abandoned shrine) because the 2 girls were waiting at the bottom. Climbing with high heels probably wasn't on their list of things to do.
And so ended my day. Now I plan on exploring a shrine nearby on my own, as Patrick has gone to his work until 4pm.
