Nikko trip weekend! Day 2

The next morning, Sachi, Erica, and I woke up at 7:36am when we had to eat breakfast at 8am, haha. The futons were just too comfortable. Breakfast was again amazing, and again I forgot my camera. Not to worry. :) But there was rice, soup, cooked fish, yogurt with strawberries, tofu skin, seaweed, and various vegetables. YUM.

Immediately after breakfast, Sachi, Robaato-san, Ethan, and I decided to climb the trail behind the bridge we saw yesterday up to a viewing platform. The hike was only .4km but it was pretty tough for me. I need to work out if I want to climb Mt. Fuji!! There were a ton of stairs up to the platform, which had a bell and a beautiful view.

We had to pass through this tunnel to get to the stairs.

After ringing the bell and experiencing the beautiful view, we decided to climb the steps that went above this tunnel and up into the mountains. There was a gate on this trail but we opened it to go through. No problem, right? Well, there were these cute bugs that looked like inchworms all over the old steps. Sachi was freaked out about them because she hates bugs, so she shrieked really loudly and we had to help her get the bugs off her shoes. She put up such a fuss that we started to climb back down. At that point, I realized that despite my efforts to get the worms off my shoes, they just. wouldn't. go. I was even squishing them with my other shoe and they still wouldn't die, and more would appear! At that point I started to get freaked out too, so we booked it down the steps. Once we got down onto the road, I asked for help squishing all the worms on my shoes. It was so scary!!! Then Robaato-san said, "Woah, one of them bit me!" and his ankle was bleeding. Sachi flipped out even more and I was like OH NO, now you're going to get some horrible disease! It was a lot like a low-budget horror movie to me, and then Robaato-san would turn into a giant inchworm and eat us all on the bus. Then Ethan-san said he got bitten too, and we had to keep getting even more worms off of our shoes. 

We got back to our hotel room, quickly took off our shoes, and I jumped in the shower. Not only did I feel unsafe about the worms, but I was really sweaty from the hike. While I was checking my naked self out in the mirror to make sure there were no evil bugs on my body, Sachi and I told Erica the story. As we were telling her, she saw more worms on our shoes and commented on how sweet they were. ;) But Sachi and I knew the truth: they are evil beasts that never die. Once we convinced Erica, she freaked out too and helped us try to kill them. After we thought they were all dead, Sachi found one in the hole in the bottom of her shoe and threw her shoes out right away. But then she didn't have any shoes... so some nice hotel worker gave up her own shoes to Sachi. :) We called them pimp shoes because they were awesome.

Robaato-san and Ethan got bandaids and we figured out that the worms were actually LEECHES. As you can see here, the bites were not very bad but leeches have a chemical in their saliva to stop blood from clotting, so there was  more blood at first than can be seen here. Gross! For a more in-depth creepy experience and to see what the leeches actually looked like and moved like, watch this video about Japanese Mountain Leeches.

 We got on the bus and went to the Takehisa Yumeji Museum, about a famous artist from the 20th century. I had no idea who he was but I ended up loving his style of art so much. I bought a bunch of postcards with his paintings and drawings on them so I can frame them for my apartment. He drew and painted very feminine women in kimonos and later in Western-style dress. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the main gallery, so here is my only picture on the left and following are some Google images of my favorite works of his. I loved nearly all of them that I saw! The woman holding the black cat is his most famous piece.

I was really impressed by his works because his portrayals of women were so beautiful. Nearly every single piece of his work had a woman as the focus. He had some fascinating love stories and various important women in his life, which I feel was pretty evident by his art.

After visiting this museum, we went to the Ryou Ravine. Robaato-san, Ashley, and I ran down the stairs to see the waterfall near the bottom. 

There was a shrine by the waterfall, and Robaato-san rang the bell to say a prayer.

Then we ate the most delicious lunch which we cooked for ourselves on a very hot, porous stone. I wish I could have taken some of the food home with me! I ended up putting some of the mugicha (special tea) into my water bottle so I could drink it on the way home.

The plate of raw food that we cooked. It was recommended to put the cabbage down first and then the meat on top of the veggies so it wouldn't stick to the stone. 

Then we went to the Nikko Handicrafts Center where we learned about the traditional art of wood carving/detailing. We weren't given any time to practice, so we just went straight away on wooden mirrors we were given. Here is my design. It was really hard, so I got discouraged when I messed it up a bit. Oh well, not bad for a first try.

 On the bus ride home, Ethan tried on Sachi's new shoes. :)

 The Japanese countryside was so beautiful. Look at all of that rice!

After we got home, Sachi, Ethan, Robaato-san, and I all went to Nishi-funabashi to find a Japanese sports bar to watch the Japan vs. Netherlands World Cup game and have some osake. It was a fun and interesting experience and that is all anyone needs to know about that. :) I bought some ramen because it was the cheapest thing on the menu but it turned out to be the kind you get in a package, haha. They put a raw egg and veggies in mine, though!

I have been writing blog posts for two hours! It is definitely my bedtime. But here is a picture of a vending machine that sells waffles filled with ice cream, mmmm.