So today was pretty awesome. Well heck, this whole weekend was awesome! And the best part is that the weekend for me is not even over since I have Monday (SHOUT OUT TO TED)/ Ted's birthday off from school. Woo!
Friday I spent the day at school and actually helped start a dance party in the middle of the CIE Lounge....it was bound to happen one day. It all started when I was showing my friend and soran bushi dance group leader the Cha-Cha Slide and Soulja Boy on YouTube. He asked me if there were any dances that we could do that pertained to America and well....I had a flashback to freshman year at DePauw where you couldn't go anywhere without Crank That by Soulja Boy coming on the stereo....And the Cha-Cha Slide will never die in my book so.....it was fun trying to show him that and explain that maaaaaaaybe we would be granted access to doing the Soulja Boy dance.....haha....you all get my drift.
So as I was doing this, my friend Yssan suggests the Cupid Shuffle, which I can't remember so I look it up and find that I know the song and the dance and it's awesome. So thanks to Yssan and myself we are bringin ' the Cha-Cha Slide, Cupid Shuffle and Soulja Boy to Kansai Gaidai....get it. Day in the lyfe....haha
Go and I proceed from the computer lab to the lounge and somehow I start dancing the Cupid Shuffle and my friends join in and then we all just have a great big dance party. It was truly awesome. Thank you guy who lent us that speaker....you were a life saver.
After this dance party where we busted out our hip/hop, latin and ashlee-robot grooves, I went with a group of Dance Booth-mates/friends to the 7/11 to buy dinner and then to my friend Ryo's apartment for a movie night. We watched I Am Legend and Girl Nextdoor. I will never watch Girl Nextdoor ever again...especially with a bunch of Japanese girls who now probably think that all American high schoolers are overly promiscuous and engage in activities that I may not discuss on this blog. All in all it was fun though. I am finally feeling like I belong. ^_^
Saturday Mara and I had the pleasure of going to Nara to visit our good friend Sari. It was awesome to see her finally after a good 1 and a half years and it was a great experience going to Nara. I love it there! It's so peaceful and calm. One of the things that I'm not too thrilled about is the shika or deer. Nara is famous for their shika and they are said to be messengers of the gods. They were ok and I was ok, but they can relay messages from the gods to me by being far away.... I didn't partake in feeding any of the deer but Mara did....she was bit too.... but still it was okay....the shika like cookies....
We saw Todai-ji Temple where the Great Buddha Vairocana and the Great Buddha hall is. We visited Kasuga Taisha which had loads of toro or lanterns, as many as 3,000 according to trusty ole Eyewitness Travel Guidebook. It was pretty awesome. We also saw Kofuku-ji with its five story pagoda. I will definitely be visiting Nara again-actually with my host family in like 2 weeks! It should be a blast. I really like the atmosphere of Nara...so calm and serene.Today I went on an adventure with Okaasan. She had suggested going hiking because there are supposed to be a lot of nice spots around our little town. So I get all dressed in my fall weather clothes (more of which I should have brought because it is getting REALLY cool REALLY fast...) and we head on out after having homemade sushi for lunch. Now, before we went Okaasan told me that she likes to hike but more recently her knees usually start hurting her when she does hike. This is normal and I have expressed that sometimes it is the same for me. We start on this hike and I mean, I really thought that it was just going to be a 30/45 minute walk. Then Okaasan tells me that she is going to take me to a suspension bridge somewhere near where we live. I didn't really think much of if and I was too busy enjoying the scenery that was already around me.
Well, we keep on walking and we get to this part where the mountains are just awesome and we start to actually hike on trails. Mind you, I still get a little "eerr" about sweating in nice clothes....well today the sweat was definitely worth it. I followed Okaasan and as we started to climb she said "It's probably best if I go in front of you because you are big". I take no offense at all to these sorts of things, because I totally know what she means....If I fell and I was in front of Okaasan well....I would flatten her if I fell on top of her...so I totally understand....I just thought it was cute. ^_^ We are walking/climbing at a really fast pace and I am thinking to myself that "Dang, this woman can climb and it doesn't really seem like she hurts much!". I exclaimed that "oh Okaasan, noboteiruno ga jyouzu desu ne..." meaning "Man Okaasan, you are really good at climbing". hahah We laughed a lot which was good. I was pretty much comparing the climb to the one at Fushimi Inari....except here....there was a much bigger reward.
After climbing a while we finally come upon some flat land and head towards the main attraction: the Tsuribashi (Star Bridge) or the humongous suspension bridge in the middle of awesome, breathtaking Japanese mountains- totally hidden from sight by people who don't come here. This bridge was awesome- the pictures don't do it justice. I just am at a loss for words, even now. I will definitely go there again.
After crossing the bridge and actually it was wobbly, but I was not scared at all- we sat down to drink our kocha or tea and eat some mochi or sweet rice cakes. Okaasan and I talked for a bit and she said that we deserved to just sit here and look since we worked so hard to get here. She was right. I could have just looked all day...and her comment made me realize the old cliche "life is a mountain" metaphor. It really is....the views are really worth the climbs....all the effort you put forth, you should take a minute to stop and enjoy what you have worked for.
Today, I did just that. Thank you, Okaasan.
Tomorrow's destination: Arashiyama by Kyoto with Nikki. More spectacular views await me~
Jya ne!~
Ashlee
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