Manza Hot Spring Pt. 2

This morning I left Manza around 9:00 of course I had to have at least one dip before I left. This is the inside bath, I actually preferred the outdoor bath. The view of the mountain from the outdoor bath was spectacular but there were a couple of other men in the bath so I put off taking any pictures.


From Manza I decided to drive to Kusatsu another famous ski resort and spa. To get there I had to drive over Shirane Mtn. 白根山 there is a large volcanic crater at the top, there was a huge line of people hiking to the top so since I had seen in albeit many years ago I continued the drive and the sights were spectacular.

There was even on place where I could see the snowcapped Japan Alps. Unfortunately it was not at a very good place to stop so I didn't get a picture. This was actually one of the highlights, I really enjoyed the onsen but the beauty of nature on this beautiful day was breath taking. And It was above the tree line so the views were very interesting.

Celebrity Look a-like!

I've seen this a couple of places and it is pretty funny.

Manza Hot Spring

We had Friday off so I decided to take an onsen run. I left the house at around 9 and I didn't think it would take that long but I got to Manza just before the 3:00 check in time. The last time I was here was a little over 10 years ago when I went with Nerima church people and we had a conference at the Manza Onsen Hotel. Above Manza there is a volcano and alot of the area looks alot like picture below.
I stayed at Manza Tei 万座亭 a really nice hotel just across from the Manza Onsen Hotel that I had stayed at before. Many places won't let you stay by yourself on a weekend but they had a special offer for men traveling alone so I stayed here. You can see that I had a great time relaxing in the bath.

I was able to get a number of shots in the bath with out anyone around, since I was eating alone I finished before most people and headed directly to the bath and just as I had guessed it was empty.


The meal, as usual at a hot spring, was wonderful and of course too much although I ate it all. One of the most interesting items was tempura chrysanthemum. It was just normal tempura, the taste wasn't anything unusual, I thought it might be rather aromatic, oh well. I usually take pictures of the meal but silly me I forgot my camera both meals. Anyway the bath was wonderful and they even had a massage room and it worked out that after my first dip in the bath I had enough time before supper to work in a massage, foot and body. The foot massage was nice even though a little painful at times. In all I was in the bath 5 times; before supper, after supper, at 2am, before breakfast, and after breakfast. Have to get the most for my money. Got more to say and will post later on tonight.

Natsukashii

Sunday waiting for the bus to go to the station on my way to church I spotted these morning glories in full bloom, and they reminded me of home. I sure that it was because we often had this flowers planted and growing arond the back porch at home. In Japanese the feeling I had was "Natsukashii" or feeling reminiscent about something. I guess this is not a very often used word in English but the Japanese just seems to fit the feeling.

This week is a very easy week at school, we have parent teacher conferences going on so the homeroom teachers have a lot on there plate, but for me the only thing on the agenda is club and sitting in a room for one hour and giving students advice on how to improve their English. Yesterday only one student came in during the hour I was on duty. I think that most of the teachers see this as really not being very productive, but the school insists that we do it. The best thing is that for our efforts we get Friday off, yeah!! So I'm taking the opportunity to go to Manza Onsen. I have been to this hot spring once before but probably 10 years ago. Hopefully I will get there early and enjoy a couple of the baths in the area before I get to my hotel. I'm looking forward to being totally relaxed by Saturday.

Gator

So what do you see in this gator?

If you see God then I guess saw right. If you want to read the whole story go to the Wittenberg DoorThere are a few other interesting articles you might want to check out while you are there. I always get a kick out of some of the stuff they have there and especially the "God Stuff" videos.

Today was the second day of our school festival and I am exhausted. I played one tennis match and it wore me out. Luckily I won. The typhoon missed us and went to the Japan Sea, so we got really heavy rain just as school started but by 9:00 it had stopped and it didn't rain the rest of the day which was nice, but the humidity was oppresive. Maybe that is one other reason I'm so tired right now.

Old Friends

Got an e-mail from "The Country Parson" today directing me to a newspaper article talking about his barefoot lifestyle. I had to laugh and I can just see Karen rolling her eyes at him. But knowing Brian that has certainly not been a deterent to him. Anyway, give it a read. I'm sure that going barefoot is probably good for us but I'm sure that it would be frowned on big time here in Japan, I mean not having shoes to take off at the door would mean that you bring all the dirt in with you on your feet. This is a country where people wipe there pets feet after taking then for a walk, imagine the horror on peoples faces, I have been scolded for stepping in the entrance way in my bare feet. Anyway Brian if you read this keep on walking!

Matsuri

I'm a little late getting these picures up but on Labor day weekend my drum group spent most of Sunday afternoon playing at a local festival in Jiyugaoa.



This years preformance was well received and we even got to move from this parking lot to the main bus lottery in front of the station. All the ladies have added the spashes of color on the black to reflect the image of Jiyugaoka, a very fashionable area especially for women.

They had the big drum out infront of the station, during this time my teacher had said that after his solo I should join in and do a solo of my own and then we would syncronize at a certain point and finish off together.

Well I didn't hear all of the conversation just the part where I was supposed to join in and finish off together, so as the teacher and our group leader were waiting I just continued to play the base line. Actually I am looking at the leader int this picture and wondering why aren't we doing the ending yet. I found out afterwards they were both waiting for me to jump in with a solo. Oh well it all worked out anyway.

Hottarakashi Onsen

Yesterday I took my second excursion to Hottarakashi Onsen a great hot spring in Yamanashi about 80 miles from my house. It takes about 2 hours to get there just getting out of Tokyo is a good one hour. There were too many people there so I didn't get any pictures this time. There are 2 different baths, kochinoyu and achinoyu, litterally transated the bath here and the bath there. I had been to achinoyu before so I tried kochinoyu this time. It was a little smaller but I think in some ways it was a little nicer. The view of Fuji from here is nicer, although I just saw a faint shadow of it. And the lower bath was surrounded by plume grass and cosmos. The evening draw here is to see the city lights below. It was actually really nice and I was hoping that we would get a glimpse of the full moon but it hadn't shown its face by the time I left. I think this is going to be my stress get away place. I would be nice to go there spend the night and come back in the morning, they are open an hour before sunrise every morning and from pictures I have seen it is really nice then.

Yellow Lines

Today was a rather busy day, not in the fact that I had a lot of work to do but a lot of busy work. Most of my free time today at school was spent getting all the things done to go to a tennis coaches mtg. today after school. I had a bunch of papers to fill out and get ready before I could go and doing that in Japanese of course takes time. Luckily some of it I could do on the computer which was a life saver. Well I made it throught the day and to the mtg. and then on the way home I got pulled over for crossing a yellow line. The first thing they ask me of course is do you speak Japanese, inside I'm yelling no of course not, but of course my answer was a weak grunt saying yes. Now I know that if you are lucky and you feighn ignorance sometimes they will let you go, but I wasn't going to push my luck. So anyway now the trip for the school is putting me back ¥6,000, maybe I should have the school reimburse me. We can all wish can't we. Well I'm off to drums, probably still not fully recoverd from Sunday but at least it is some exercise.

Back to the Grind

I haven't written anything for awhile so I thought I might just do a quick entry and add a few of my favorite pics from the summer. This years Florida program went very well and we all had a good time. Like I mentioned before it was nice to spend time with Masa, this year he went with us to all the attractions so I had someone to hang around with at all the amusement parks. He graduates this year and I'm sure will be greatly missed at Warner Southern.


While Drew was here I spent all my blog time on the page a created for him. Just in case here is Drew's page I will keep it up awhile longer at least untill I know he has gotten his pictures off of it.

One of the places we visited was Kamakura, actually it was a really nice trip. We took a rickshaw ride, something I have wanted to do for quite a while. It was interesting but a little expensive, although I did get a coupon for a discount on a future ride good for 3 years.

In Kamakura we ate lunch at Yoshimoto's, a little coffee shop/bar. They went out of their way to welcome us and were overly concerned for Drew wondering if he would be able to eat what they put out for us so they gave us some extra food. This place has a set lunch menu and when you come in thats what you get no questions asked, they just start bringing it to you. It's just a bit away from Kamakura station but a little out of the way, but worth the find. The master even did some magic for us.


I highly recommend a rickshaw ride if you ever have the time, Ryo our driver really worked up a sweat. He really seemed to enjoy what he was doing and it was an enjoyable afternoon.


So anyway I say all of this to say, I did have an enjoyable and relaxing summer, but now it is back to the grind. I had a busy weekend before classes started on Monday and maybe that is why I'm a little tired. Ok maybe I should say a lot tired, this month is a busy month with School festival, but we do get one extra day off on the 19th. The last week of the month we don't have classes because we have parent teacher mtgs. So those 3 days even though I have to be in for work I really don't have anything to do. Maybe I can rest up.