はじめまして- 留学生の冒険談: Kosai Temple pictures

Alright, so quick recap of Friday's adventure in the Kosai Mountains:

The bus was a little late that morning, so I almost missed the train I was supposed to take (we had to figure that one out on our own, the only thing Suzuki-sensei gave us was the kanji for the train station we were supposed to get off at). I was grateful I'd bought a train ticket before in Japan so I knew how to use the ticket consoles, but without Di-chan's help with reading kanji I would have never made it to the train. Di-chan is Chinese, so she has a slight advantage over the rest of us since she already knows the meanings of the kanji, she just has to memorize the new pronunciations.

Suzuki-sensei and a bunch of his friends drove us from the station and then after a short wait, we began to climb! It was fairly easy at first, gently sloping upwards, and then we hit our first peak. It wasn't too bad in terms of steepness but the loose gravel and dry powdered dirt and leaves made it somewhat slippery. Suzuki-sensei just gets more and more mind boggling amazing (he speaks five languages, plays Taiko, and also plays jazz drums - he's memorized 2000 different songs....-and swims five times a week at school) - he beat everyone to the top of each peak and was still ready to keep going :p

At the very top we ate lunch, hoping we'd beat the rain back down the mountain because hiking while holding umbrellas is no fun. We had the whole peak to ourselves and then a large group of very adorable children (preschool or kindergarten, I think) joined us for lunch. OHMYWORD if they weren't the CUTEST children I've ever met!!!

The hike back down was shorter, only about a 30 minute walk but we kept stopping to see the historical sites of temples and shrines and were shown how you would traditionally pray at a Buddhist temple, which was very interesting.

After walking through three temple complexes and meeting a priest walking his dog, we walked around rice paddies and farmers' fields to get back to the parking lot (sadly my camera had died by this point) where the children from the mountain top were waiting for their bus to take them back home. They were so cute! "Where did you come from?!?!?" because we came back a different way than they had :D