I haven't had a chance to post about the last week until now, so here we go.
Last weekend was yet another 3 day weekend, but we had that typhoon on Wednesday, so everyone was kinda shattered/or fagged out (to use some British slang), so we decided to rest on Friday instead of beginning the trip right away.
The trip we'd planned was to visit Oze National Park for the second time and check out some waterfalls we didn't have a chance to see last time, and also to climb Shibutsu-san, a mountain about 2200m tall (that's about 1km shorter than Yarigadake, for those keeping track) which is on the 100 Famous Mountains of Japan list.
We made it up to Oze with no problems, even though we entered the park from the north this time instead of the southeast. The trouble began when we started hiking. Despite several days of rest after Yarigadake, both of us were walking slower than usual, and Michi also slipped and fell on the muddy trail several times, with some nice bruises to show for it. Additionally, everyone remember that typhoon I mentioned earlier? Well, it wasn't only Tokyo that got hit by it: the trails in Oze were mostly fine, but some of them were heavily erroded, blocked by fallen trees or tumbled down rocks, or just turned to pools of mud thanks to the rain.
It slowed us down so much that on the first day we decided to skip the first of the three waterfalls we'd planned on seeing. We made it to our lodge, which was right next to a section of rapids on a river and sported its own hinoki onsen, a spa where the tub is made out of Japanese cypress wood.
The next day we hiked across the park to the exit/entrance on the southwest side, the same exit we'd used when we left Oze the first time last year. We got to see the other two waterfalls we'd planned on, but ended up quitting Shibutsusan before we started it. We were both tired, and we both wanted to go home as early as we could. We'll probably come back with her mom and dad next year.
In other news, I've been going over the readings, posting stuff on the discussion boards, etc, etc for my class. It is challenging to fit in the time to read everything, respond to it, reflect on it, post something about it, and keep up with my daily schedule of work, planning for trips, and helping Michi with her homework.
I've spent most of today typing up three short essay responses to the first homework assignment, which is worth half the grade for the class.
Cheers,
