mountains!

I had a fun weekend packed with site seeing. I took the train out to Nishi-iya (near Nishi-yama on the map in my "Pre-Japan" post) and met up with my friend Justin. I met Justin during orientation. He's from Arkansas and studied economics along with Japanese. But don't worry Eddie-fans, Justin is just a friend. He has a serious girlfriend. Just thought I'd get that out there since he'll probably be mentioned on here a lot.

Anyways, I was able to see and experience practically everything in Nishi-iya. Nishi-iya is gorgeous because it is in the heart of Shikoku's massive mountains. There's a river running through the mountains too. For anyone that knows anything about Japanese history, this area was where the Heike clan found refuge after being overpowered. We went to a Heike "museum" but I'm not quite sure I knew what I was looking at. We went to the famous vine bridge in the area and it looks really old and cool, but we read that they rebuild it every three years for safety reasons. So it's not actually that authentic when you think about it. On the side of the road there's a statue of a young boy going to the bathroom over the side of the mountain into the river. That's always mentioned in the tourism pamphlets, and it was really funny, but it was just on the side of the road. Kinda random.




We also went to three onsens. Onsens are Japanese style bath houses. I'll explain more about them when I have time and internet access at home (to post pictures), but basically I bathed naked in a hot spring hot tub at the top of a mountain with Japanese women that I didn't know (genders were separate). Pretty awesome.
This was the elavator we took up to the top of the mountain.

This was the women's onsen.

This is the indoor one. This is wear you undress beforehand and redress/primp afterwards. Blow driers and nice facial creams are provided.

No one was in here so I was able to take a pic. It's kind of hard to see but the shower area is on the right. You sit on a little stool and wash yourself. The hot spring water is near the window. It's a really big hot tub.


We also went to Kochi City which is on the central southern coast of Shikoku. We visited the Kochi castle, and ate a lot of food. I took 103 pictures this weekend, so it was well documented. I'll post a few as soon as I can.




Today I team taught three classes. The third-year students were loud and quite rude. The teacher just let it go and went on with class despite the constant banging on the window and talking that was going on. But from what I've heard the classes at my technical high school are much worse. hmm. We'll see.

One thing to note before I go is the Asian mullet. I just can't get over it. The majority of the Japanese girls have them. The hair on the top isn't super short or anything, but the back is a tad longer than I'm use to. The hair that is longer is only one layer thick. I don't know if I'm describing this accurately, but be on the lookout for it once I start posting pictures from school events. Next weekend Seto JHS is having an all day culture day, and I've been asked to come.

Despite the fattening food, I've lost 6 lbs since I got here! It's probably all the biking though.