I went on a trip to Gunma with the Yohan Waseda Christian Church because Rie, Min Jeong, and Maki-sensei invited me. (I had to wake up at 5am in order to make it there on time!) Even though the bus ride was ridiculously long, the scenery was beautiful. There was snow, and from the bus we could even see Mt. Fuji, which was entirely white because of the snow. Walking down the street towards the onsen, little shops would stop us and give us tea and onsen manju (kind of like pastry sweets). It was kind of amazing how many they gave away. I must have eaten at least four...I wonder how they make any money. The onsen was amazing! After you get over yourself, it's really comfortable. The sauna was nice too. There was an indoor and outdoor onsen, plus a cold one, so we kept going back and forth between the different parts of the onsen. It was probably the most relaxing thing I've done in Japan so far. I'm jealous of Kris, who's moving out to Gunma to teach English...he'll be having some nice relaxing weekends (for cheap too!).
I finally didn't do anything yesterday, which was great since I haven't really had a day to rest since I left for Vietnam. But, today was Nobuko's birthday, so I was out again. Today was my first time ice skating! It's sooo much harder than it looks. By the end of our hour there my ankles were killing me. I definitely want to go back though. (Note in the picture, So-ky and I are not a couple and we're not trying to be ラブラブ either, Nobuko just thought the hearts were really cute. XD) There were 5 of us ice skating, but then we went for Chuka-Chosen food for dinner. (It's the type of food this particular type of Chinese people make that's like a mix between Korean and Chinese.) So yummy. There ended up being about 8 people there. Good food and good conversation. There was one thing particularly interesting about dinner...we ate dog. Yup, dog. As in woof woof. I only ate a little piece, since it kinda freaks me out, but yeah....I was surprised they had it there, but even more surprised they ordered it. Interesting...
I thought 2007 was pretty crazy as far as food goes. I tried horse sashimi (basashi), 2 types of Vietnamese fruits I've never seen in my life, and frog...but I must say, 2008 is starting off pretty crazy with dog. =X
