NOVEMBER

I can't believe how fast November went by, it seems like Halloween was just a couple of weeks ago, and I don't even remember the beginning of November - good thing we have a lot of pictures to remind us :)

The first weekend in November was a long weekend, so we made a couple day trips to the mountains around us, Mt. Akagi and Nasudake (dake means volcano!). Mt. Akagi is famous for onsens, hot springs, and there are a lot of them. We found one that was very interesting, we walked in and paid and then the lady just pointed in the general direction of upstairs so we ventured up but unlike every other onsen we've been to the actual changing and bathing area was not clearly visible, after much slinking about cause we didn't want to be the stupid foreign people, we found the women’s area and I left Denis to find the men’s on his own. He eventually did, and from the pictures in the brochure his was, as always, way cooler than mine, since mine was about regular hot tub size, maybe smaller, and there were three other naked Japanese women in it...but I would rather have a small tub than talk to someone while bathing naked like Denis had to. It was a very pretty drive, although we found what seemed like all the pig farms in Tochigi, translation - it stank! The next day we went to Nasudake, It was a really nice fall day, the leaves were changing colour and the sky was blue, we took the ropeway up to almost the top of the mountain with the intentions of making the 45 minute up to the top to see the steam coming from the active volcano, but it was REALLY cold up there and REALLY windy, so we walked a little farther up, took some pictures, met a crazy Japanese man who insisted we be part of his group photo, and then went back down. Nasu is also famous for onsens, being an active volcano there is a lot of hot water and so in this little tiny town, there are 21 onsens - all of them sulphur onsens, so it was pretty smelly but the onsen we chose was great. Very old fashioned, mine for once was better than Denis' and it was the perfect day.

The next weekend my students threw a party for me, since I had to change classes and someone else was taking over their class, it was really fun. A lot of food and a lot of drinks and of course the night ended in karaoke and in my drunken state I was extra enthusiastic and my throat was so sore I couldn't speak for the next two days.

Finally the long awaited 23rd annual Ashikaga CoCo Wine Festival was here. This winery in Ashikaga provides jobs to mentally and physically handicapped people, but they make a pretty good wine and lots of other products. Grape seed oil, bread, cheese, they grow mushrooms...but every year they have a harvest festival and invite everyone to come drink wine on the hills, there is music and food and lots of alcohol. For 2000 yen you get a corkscrew, a glass, a pin and a bottle of red or white or sparkling grape juice (needless to say no one in our group picked grape juice and when someone gave us a bottle on their way out we traded it in for more wine). It was a ton of fun and it was an absolutely beautiful day. But the party didn't stop there, we came back to our apartments and after Leigh dropped and smashed two bottles of wine we were left with only two. One to drink while we attempted to play a card game but did more spilling and cleaning than playing and Casey, Leigh and Alison drank on the way to the ramen shop by themselves. Needless to say they were far more wasted than they were, falling over and knocking down the screen separating the table space onto an unsuspecting couple eating their ramen...it was ridiculous, Casey passed out on the floor and we, with strong encouragement from K-chan, the ramen shop owner and Casey's friend, drew a mustache and unibrow and started to write profanities on his face but he woke up.

We had one day of work and then we got six days off, so we flew to Hiroshima, and went to see the floating Torii gate in Miyajima about a 30 minute train ride and 10 minute ferry from Hiroshima (declared one of the top three sights in Japan, though we disagree). There are tons of deer on Miyajima and they are very tame, so we hung out with them for a bit and then moved on. The leaves were changing colour and it was absolutely gorgeous, there were a ton of people there after walking through a park loaded with yellow, red, orange, and green trees and we took the ropeway to the top of the mountain to see the sights. When we got to the top we were pleasantly surprised to see monkeys! After a 30 minute hike we reached the top and there were more deer. We watched the sunset and took the ferry back to Hiroshima. We walked around a little, had dinner and then went back to our hotel room, a real bed and a great view. The next day we went to the Peace Memorial museum and it was very sad, very touching and very honest. There were pictures taken on the day that are too gruesome to describe, there were clothes from people who were killed that day and weird things like fingernails, or skin, or hair that had fallen out from people who survived. They were pictures of what Hiroshima looked like before and what it looked like after, there were explanations and pleas for peace. After we walked through the Peace Memorial Park and saw the eternal flame that will stay lit until there are no more nuclear weapons, we saw Sadako's crane memorial, the girl who had cancer from the bomb and tried to fold 1000 cranes to receive a wish but died before she finished. There was a group of children there who had brought more cranes and said a prayer, we rang the peace bell and marveled at the A-bomb Dome.

Then we took the Shinkansen to Kyoto, found our ryokan (pronounced dyo-kan) and went to sleep. The next day we woke up and walked and walked and walked. We went to the Golden Pavilion, a temple covered in GOLD! It was GORGEOUS - definitely a must see for anyone coming to Japan and Denis's favourite sight yet. The leaves were changing colour making it all the more beautiful. Then off to Ryoanji, the famous rock garden, very quiet, very interesting, very...zen. Then we went to another temple in search of more leaf changing photo ops, and another, and another and then we went downtown to eat and search out geisha. We walked and walked and walked and though we found food, we had less luck finding geisha. We returned to our ryokan, grabbed our onsen gear and went off walking in search of the onsen recommended by our Lonely Planet book. After way more walking than we thought we finally found it, we soaked, relaxed and took the bus back to bed. The next day we went to Nara, to see the seated Daibutsu. It was great, and there were a ton of dear, who were believed to be messengers of the gods - yes Marc, those are messengers of the gods you are eating - and you could by deer food for 150 yen, but we cheaped out and showed our affection by petting them rather than feeding them. After more walking and a lunch near a pond in a park full of people painting and sketching and a lovely Japanese lady who gave us some candy we headed off to Osaka to see the city at night since we were only planning on being there for the day before our flight. We went to the top of a really tall building with an outdoor observatory and watched the sun set over the Osaka delta, beautiful. Then we walked around some more interesting areas of Osaka and saw the Osaka tower and a lot of more questionable establishments...and then went back to Kyoto. Our last day in Kyoto was spent in search of geisha and souvenirs and we found them both! But when you see a geisha you had better be ready cause they walk FAST, really, really fast and they disappear quickly...but I caught a couple! Our last day we went to the Osaka castle and walked around the huge park that surrounds it, although it started to rain 4 hours before we had to get to the airport but, it's not much fun to be wet so we went to the airport to see if we could get an earlier flight...no such luck but we enjoyed some Starbucks and the final day of the sumo tournament in the Arrivals area...it was a great way to spend the day.

So that’s it, whew... one week till Denis's birthday and only three more weeks of work till our two week Christmas vacation in Okinawa!! Merry Christmas Everyone.