Are we there yet? Why yes in fact we are!

I know you will be sad to hear this, but this is the final post about my trip. Just think of all the other exciting things I've done that you haven't heard anything about yet! Next morning was another Japanese style breakfast and then we departed to go to Takaoka. If you remember from other posts Takaoka is the city at the end of the Himi Line. So I had been to the city before but it didn't matter because two of our three activities for the day were places that I hadn’t been before.

This is the room I shared with the other girls.

First stop was Zuiryuji Temple. It was very big and interesting particularly because, unlike many other temples I have been to, we were able to walk into the area where the monks lived hundreds of years ago. I think my favorite part was the kitchen. Also, it was interesting to take the English tour and learn fun facts. For example, the roof of one of the buildings was made from lead so that if there was ever a war the it could be melted down for bullets.

The buildings are arranged so that it's kind of shaped like a body.

This is where they would store rice. It was huge and the lid was really heavy.

This was pretty cool. As we were leaving I looked outside and saw a monk (or whatever they call them) blessing this car.

Next we went to Shinminato Kankosen to ride a boat around the bay. I always love riding on boats so this was pretty fun and relaxing. After the boat ride the area we were in was near a park so naturally we went and played around for a little while. There was also a small local festival so we explored and got some food. I was very happy because several students from a Himi JHS (one of Alex’s schools) recognized me from the English Speech Contest and came up and spoke English (and Japanese) to us for a while.

This is not the boat we road on unfortunately.

Our last stop was Aeon Mall. I’ve been to this mall several times and we didn’t have a lot of time to really shop so we decided to go do purikura. Purikura are photo booths were you get to choose the backgrounds and decorations for the pictures you take. There is a time limit to everything so if you don’t know what you are doing you can end up with some weird looking photos. I think ours came out pretty well.

Aeon Mall

Finally we made our ways home. I got dropped off at the Takaoka train station to catch the train to Himi. Overall, I had an awesome trip and got to see a lot of the stuff in the prefecture that I wanted to see…and it was free!!! I hope you have enjoyed hearing about the exciting adventures available to you in Toyama Prefecture.

One last note, the week of classes after the vacation I had both students and coworkers come and say they saw me on TV. I’ve been in Japan for about two and a half months and I’ve already been on TV twice (that I know of) and in the paper several times as well. I’m practically a Himi celebrity :D Ohohohoho

Part 3 of Part 2 of the 3 Day Tour

Oh man I’m falling behind and I’m still mid-story about my three day weekend. As I mentioned, the tulips in Tonami were beautiful, as you will see in my pictures. Also fun, we got to eat tulip ice cream. I don’t know if that was just a name they called it or if the ice cream was actually supposed to taste like a tulip. Either way, it was delicious! And now more pictures of flowers than you probably want to see.

Tulip Gallery

First stop: tulip ice cream

Special year round, indoor tulip garden. The mirrors were a cool touch to make it seem much larger than it really was.

Inside the museum part was a very cool display of hundreds of different tulips grouped by color.

Me and the giant tulips

A display that was a 3D projection showing what a blue tulip would look like if they ever genetically engineered one. I was trying to make it look like it was floating above my hand.

A cool display in the museum.

The other flowers they had in a garden outside.

I'm pretty sure those are pineapples.

Yes, those are giant Dutch clogs. Snazzy, right?

The souvenir I bought myself. A handmade glass cup shaped like a tulip. It actually has several different colors (you can sort of see the yellow right about the stem) but I forgot to take a picture until after I had poured in my wine...we'll just call this an action shot.

After that we headed to the Fukumitsu Hanayama Onsen Hotel. Here we experienced a traditional Japanese style hotel (ryokan) and dinner. As soon as we arrived we decided to relax in the onsen but first we were told we should try the special “sand bath” they had at this place. I had no idea what they meant by sand bath but we soon found out that guys and girls get their own room to strip down and put on a special robe and then everyone goes to a room that feels sort of like a sauna but the floor is covered in sand.

When you arrive the attendant tells you to lie down on the sand and then covers your body in more hot sand. It was very hot and I was drowning in sweat by the time I sat up about 20minutes later. It was a unique experience but I don’t know if I really feel the need to repeat it anytime soon. I asked what the purpose of this was and was told that it was supposed to be good for your skin and to help with diets. I’m pretty sure that just means you sweat so much of your water weight into the sand that you are actually several pounds lighter. I personally enjoyed the normal onsen we went to after rinsing the sand off much more.

Our traditional Japanese dinner was delicious. It was in a room with tatami mats and we each had our own little table with lots of different foods to try. There were some rather unique dishes including squid served in its own ink. After dinner we spent the rest of the night relaxing and hanging out.

Everyone in yukata and waiting to kanpai (toast) before eating.

The meal that was waiting for us. More was brought out as we were eating.

One of our servers.

Squid cooked in its own ink. A novelty and not too bad flavor-wise either.

The results right after eating the inky squid. Attractive, I know.

Dessert. A small cake and a lemon gel of some sort that was served in an actual lemon rind.