At the end of our stay in Japan, Rachel J and I gave our JR rail passes a workout. We traveled up and down Honshu, stopping everywhere from Hiroshima to Nagano in a matter of hours, hurrying from platform to platform, stopping to ask for timetables and directions inbetween. The highlights of our maelstrom of a trip were: a trip to the Peace museum in Hiroshima where we hung the thousand paper cranes we folded between final exams in Kyoto, returning to Kyoto Station for only a couple of hours to ensure that our stored luggage was not "impounded" by the locker attendants, hiking along the cold coast of the Sea of Japan among small flocks of Japanese businessmen, and skating at the M-Wave in Nagano (sacred ice that was once the stage for such childhood heroes as Kristi Yamaguchi and many, many more).
Between tottering around the speed-skating rink and climbing the sand dunes of Tottori, Rachel and I enjoyed our last bites of mochi, udon, and a few swigs of quality Suntory liquor. We acquired some o-mamori at an old Buddhist temple in Nagano and soothed our traveling muscles in our evening bath at an onsen. In all it was an pleasant but exhausting five days apart from the chaos of group travel that made us further appreciate all the work our directors put into making lodging and travel arrangements for the lot of us. We were happy to see the familiar faces of our group mates and to exchange stories before heading back to China.
I will miss my host mother's home cooking and the quiet, lengthy bus rides around beautiful Kyoto but I am happy, having moved on to something new. So long Japan.
photos: The sand dunes of Tottori, the A-bomb dome and Peace Park in Hiroshima.
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