In The Mountains

I have just seen one of the most beautiful places I have ever been blessed enough to set foot on. Today has been such an exhausting day. We started bright and early, meeting up at 8am to take a four hour bus ride out to the gorgeous city of Nikko.

As we pulled into the city we stopped for a quick lunch of Udon (large Japanese noodles, usually served in bowls of soup) before taking a short walk to the Nikko Shinto shrine. Shinto is the traditional religion of Japan. It’s beliefs are based on the idea that there are various gods representing elements such as wind, water, the forest, the river, the mountain and so on. They build shrines to each God in order to elicit blessing from them and stave off curses. They also believe that when they die they become Gods as well, and so they build family shrines in order to worship the spirits of their ancestors.

At the front of the shrine you first use a spring of water and a ladle to wash your hands and rinse out your mouth, so you can enter the shrine “clean”. From there you can wander in and around the different buildings and statues. In front of each one you can make wishes to the Gods by bowing twice clapping twice then bowing once while making your wish and throwing a coin into the shrine.

It was a beautiful shrine set into the back drop of a forest mountain. Even the city had the back woods old-town feel. The buildings were small and compact, blending in with the atmosphere of the place. Huge trees shaded the many walkways, and snow was still piled off to the sides of the paths. At one point we came across a box that you could put 100 yen into and pull out a fortune. We all decided to do it out of curiosity and had our friends translate the characters for us. Mine was a “so-so” good luck one as they described it. Dr. Namora went into a little more detail for me saying that it said, I should be careful not to spend too much money, that if I make a wish it had an 80% chance of coming true, and that my love life was looking promising. It was entertaining if nothing else to read the little fortune which I immediately tucked into my wallet for safekeeping.

Up a few hundred stairs we found the shrine to a famous general who was buried there. As we walked around the monument we came to the hollow trunk of a 600 year old tree. The students translated the sign in front of it saying that it was said to be good luck if you prayed to the tre and then shouted your wish into its trunk. Cythia, Shannon, and I decided to go for it, and elicited smiles and a few laughs from our Japanese friends, as we wished for help in our schooling and health to our families.

After we finished exploring the shrine Dr. Namora gave us a choice. We could head back to the school now, or we could drive another hour up a winding mountain road to where we could see a huge waterfall. We chose the waterfall :D

As it turned out we had to buy tickets to ride an elevator to the base of the waterfall, since there was no path to walk down, and the mountain was windy and snow-covered anyways. So a quick ride 90m down we walked out onto a platform and looked up in awe at the crashing waterfall in front of us. It has been a long time since I have seen a waterfall like that. It was so beautiful. As the freezing cold water crashed to the rocks below scattering puffs of snow into the air, Icicles clung to the mountain face, and the cold blue river flowed away below. It was simply spectacular. I could have stood there for hours admiring the sheer power of mother nature, but alas the biting fierce wind drove us to make our way back up the mountain and onto our bus, tucked in and warm for the long ride back home.

We made it into Tsukuba around 8ish and stopped at what appeared to be a Japanese steakhouse. It was a little on the more pricey side, but as I dug into my sizzling plate of chicken, sausage, and beef it was the perfectly scrumptious way to end a beautiful day.

For the Love of Science

Science is one of the great masterpieces of humanity, and today I got to pay homage to the brilliance of those who’ve come before me. Our first stop on our tour for the day was JAXA; the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Association. Basically NASA but for Japan ;) We were given a tour of the facilities by a sweet Japanese lady who spoke fairly decent English. As she showed us the steps Japan had taken from the start of its space exploration period up until now I was reminded of all the reasons I really love space.

My favorite part of the tour? Getting a glimpse at the isolation room in the astronaut training zone. As we looked into the small apartment-like space, our guide explained how when they had narrowed the candidate down to 10 they put them all in this area for two weeks, cut off completely from the outside world, in order to test their abilities to get along with these same 10 people in long isolation.

I’d like to think I could handle a challenge like that ;D

From Jaxa we took a trip to AIST, where all of Japan’s most innovative new technologies are being researched and produced. As we walked among the showcases we were treated with examples of some of the fun and cool new technologies being worked on. Of course what was one of the first things we got to see? Robots duh! Everyone want to see robots ;P

As cool as it was to see how much they were progressing down the road of robotics, I gotta say it kind of creeps me out….. I like humans….. haha I say go humans! But all the same it’s awesome work and can lead to many improvements in our everyday lives.

In addition to the robotics we got to see several other things, including new security technology and new green screen techniques. After being shown around we had a little break where we could wander the showroom and examine the various projects on our own.

For dinner we were taken to what I can only describe as a pancake house. Only these weren’t you’re ordinary pancakes. Here you ordered bowls full of egg and flour and various veggies and meats and then you mix them up and lay them out on a square griddle in the middle of your table and cook it to perfection. We ordered several bowls and then divided each pancake between us so we could all try the different kinds. A couple of my favorites, were one that tasted just like pizza, and another that was a sweet red bean pancake that came with a yummy warm syrup.

As I curl up for the night I begin to get a little nervous about how close it is to being time to leave this beautiful place.