Last Sunday in Miyada

So after my mom and Hayley left, I was feeling a bit homesick and kinda depressed that summer break was over. The first week of school was pretty easy because I didn't have many classes, but just getting back into the swing of things has been a bit challenging. Especially last week when I came down with the same kind of flu or illness that I had back in July.

Anyway, last Sunday (it's Sunday as I'm writing this) I decided to venture outside of my cozy little Lake Suwa area and go visit my friend and fellow teacher, Max, in his small town of Miyada. Actually, Miyada is so small, it's classified as a "village." The full name is Miyada-mura, mura meaning village. Conversely, my town is actually a town, Shimosuwa-machi (machi meaning, you guessed it, town). It seems that Japan has 3 distinctions for size, mura or village, machi or town, and shi which means city. I guess English is sort of the same, although "town" and "city" are often used in the same way. But I digress!

Miyada-mura is a very picturesque Japanese countryside village, situated neatly in a valley between two sets of the Japan Alps. I believe the North and South alps, but it's a bit confusing, so I won't get into that. Basically, I live in one valley stretching NW from Tokyo. There are two other main valleys that connect the southern coastline with central Japan, and Miyada lies in the middle of the three valleys.

Anyway, to get to Miyada, it was about an hour ride from my town. The train station is so small at Miyada that I had to literally pay a conductor after getting off and hold up the whole train. :P Well, it was only two cars, so not really a very big train. Haha. Anyway. I met Max outside the "station" and we began our trek to the golden statue. He had told me about it before, but basically, it's just a golden statue of Kannon (Buddhist Bodhisattva or person who helped others to enlightenment before gaining it themselves) situated on the hill so you can see it from most places in the village. We walked uphill alongside rice paddies, traditional buildings, and finally woods with signs warning of bears (and forest fires, don't smoke in the woods!!) before reaching the statue. It was about a 50 min walk. It was cool out, but so humid that I was drenched by the time we made it to the top. The views of the valley were amazing, though. It was worth it!

After making our way back into the village, we waited for the next train (tiny station = not very frequent trains) and took it to Ina, the closest city. Ina is kind of spread out so I don't really know where it begins or ends, but anyway, there's an arcade there that Max frequents, and I was interested to see if they had a game called Taiko Drum Master that I have been wanting to try. It was quite the happening place when we got there, but nobody seemed to be playing TDM, so I tried it out. I've played the game on PS2 back home, but the real thing is a lot harder! You have to hit the drum pretty hard... :P Well so I played that for a little while, then I watched Max do what he really comes there to do- Dance Dance Revolution. He was soooooo good. O_O I did a few songs with him, but I did normal mode while he did "super mega insane ridiculous challenge" mode. Yeah... so I went back to TDM. Unfortunately he does taiko in real life, so he kinda beat me at that too. <_< Oh well, it was fun.

By the time we made it back to Ina station, I was feeling really tired and it was about 7, so I hopped on the next train (which was actually a really new-looking, comfy train!) and was back in Shimosuwa in less than an hour. It was a good day, but we walked so much, and I didn't realize the shoes I wore would be so bad on my feet... I ended up with one cut-up ankle, blisters on both feet, and one purple toenail that I don't even know how that happened. :P But I survived!

Walking to the statue

View from on the hill

The golden Kannon

Random traditional housing

Close-up of rice

The DDR machine at the arcade