We survived the typhoon! It wasn’t as bad as I expected. There were brief times of high winds but not as bad as I have seen on the prairie. If we understand Japanese TV there were parts of Japan that got hit very hard.
Yesterday after our morning trip to the Visitor’s Center we stayed in. Michelle saved the day for Nicole as Michelle let Nicole log on to her Netflix account. Nicole watched four movies and I took a nap. We went out looking for dinner during a break in the rain but nothing was open. We stopped at the grocery store and got a Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar and Pringle’s.
We woke up to bright blue skies and sunshine. We went out for breakfast. I wanted another rice and ketchup omelet but they weren’t serving those yet. I had some sort of egg salad, cucumber and mystery meat sandwich with half of a boiled egg. It also came with salad greens and a small scoop of potato salad. Nicole had pancakes.
I ask the waitress for the other menu that had what I wanted on it and she pointed to the Japanese menu and ask if I wanted more Japanese? She laughed at her own joke.
An older man across from us ask us where we were from and how long we were going to be in Japan. His English was fairly good. I’m always impressed when someone can converse in more than one language. I sure can’t.
We came back to our room and packed up. We had a two-hour wait for the first of three buses we need to take today.
I took the lady that was so helpful at the Visitor’s Center a little package of cookies to say thank you. She almost cried when I gave them to her. Not sure what we would have done without her help.
Rode our first bus and then had a two-hour layover. We walked to two different shrines during that time – well actually I walked to one and Nicole did the 110 stairs to the second one. It was a beautiful little town. We had a strawberry ice cream cone for lunch that was delicious but it wasn’t what I call ice cream. I saw a Camino Santiago sign post. It is only 17,566 kilometers to Santiago, Spain from here.
We went to the bus stop for our second bus of the day. There was an older gentleman that talked to us for about thirty minutes. He had learned English from a Mormon missionary years ago. His English was fairly good. He recited all 50 states to us. He offered to drive us to our final destination of the day but we graciously refused. I think he was honorable but it seemed silly to get in his car.
We had two more bus rides through very curvy roads to get to our final destination. The last ride was especially curvy and a very narrow road. We pushed the bell to get off but the driver had us stay on and delivered us closer to our guesthouse.
The guesthouse is our first experience in a traditional Japanese Guesthouse. The shower room is interesting. You remove your clothing in your room and put on a robe they furnish. You walk down a rather long hall to the bathing room. You unrobe and place your towel, slippers and robe in a basket outside the shower room. The shower room had about eight open stations. There is a little stool you sit on with a bowl you can use. Each station has a shower head on a handle. You bathe yourself and then rinse off. There is a shallow tub you can get it as an option but you have to wash off first. I skipped the community tub. When you are done you dry off, put on your robe and slippers and walk back to your room to get dressed.
The room has two mats on the floor for us to sleep on. You have to pay for the A/C in the room. 100 yen for two hours or about $1.00. They also have coin washers and dryers so we are doing a load of laundry. Internet is only available in the hotel lobby. Not sure what we will do when we wake up in the middle of the night tonight.
We have dinner at 6:00 tonight and breakfast at 7:00 am.
Tomorrow is the hardest part of the trail we have been told. It is rated five out of five on the difficulty rating. We were told it takes at least eight hours to walk it – would probably take me twice that long. I decided not to attempt it so we got bus information at the visitor’s center after our first bus stop. Nicole has decided not to walk it either. We are going to ride the bus to the waterfall and shrine in the morning and will find something else to do until we can check into our room at 3:00. We may walk some of the trail depending on how hot it is. Thankfully our luggage will be transferred for us tomorrow so we don’t have to deal with it tomorrow like we did today. We found a coin storage box to put it in while we were walking around for two hours waiting for our second bus.
The humidity was lower today but the heat was still intense. Neither one of us felt very good this afternoon. It may have been motion sickness from the curvy highway.
Yesterday the river was very low and at times hard to see because it was so low. Today it was raging and full of water.
Tonight will be our first real Japanese meal. Not any options around so trusting it will be something we can eat. We didn’t have lunch other than the strawberry cone. Both of us are hungry.
Nicole has figured out these complicated bus schedules. We haven’t taken a wrong bus yet. Thursday morning we will take buses and trains and head to Kyoto for two nights. We will then have one last night at the airport hotel before we fly home Sunday. The trip has gone by very quickly.
I would come back to Japan anytime. It is a beautiful country full of peaceful, quiet people.
I’m disappointed I haven’t been able to walk much. The heat, a typhoon, and my lack of training didn’t make for a good chance of success. We have enjoyed the trip anyways and are finding ways to see this beautiful country without doing the actual walk. We have made many wonderful memories!