Crazy-as Weekend, Part Uno

Seeing as how I actually did stuff this weekend, this will be part one of two, methinks. Anyhoo, so Friday was the craziest day at work EVER. Fridays are always crazy because I have to prepare the whole week’s worth of lessons, as well as teach four classes. However, last Friday was even busiers ‘cause I hadn’t had 3nensei all week, and hadn’t had a chance to talk to my JTE all week either, so I had to plan Friday’s 3nensei class that morning, as well as plan that morning’s class for special needs. Then I had to plan for all three grades’ classes for the next week, so I planned six classes and taught four classes and killed about 300 trees by making so many photocopies (sniff!). I even worked through my lunch break! What the hell? Anyway, it went fine, but it was like I was a real teacher or something….scary, indeed ;)

Cindy came over on Friday night and we had dinner at Kadoya (Nacchan’s restaurant that is like two minutes from my house, and is CHO OISHII!). It’s funny ‘cause I never really order at Nacchan’s, I just eat whatever she puts in front of me (which is always a ridiculous amount of food…not that I’m complaining). Cindy and I each got a big bowl of yummy tomato-y soup (it made me natsukashii, as it was Western-style soup), a salad, a huge plate of yakisoba, tea and dango. God, the dango was good! Nacchan always tries to charge me only 300 yen ($3) for the meals, so I always secretly leave her extra money, ‘cause that is ridiculous!

After that meal, it only made sense that Cindy and I went to Fujimart and bought a bunch of desserts for the rest of the night! The huge news of the week (perhaps month?) is that there is a new kind of Country Ma’ams (best cookies EVER)!!! They are chocolate chip and almonds. Cindy and I may have gotten so excited about this that we started screaming in the aisles of Fujimart….I kid you not. I also introduced her to MOW ice cream, which is SO good, and everyone that reads this must try it. Never knew vanilla ice cream could be so good!

Anyway, we later realized that we got so over-excited about desserts that we totally forgot that the reason we went to Fujimart was to get food for lunch during Saturday’s hike (more on that later). We brought our desserts back to my place and watched three episodes of the second season of Veronica Mars. Holie, it’s so good! We also watched Everybody Hates Chris, which is pretty amusing.

I got up at 6:30 in the bloody morning on Saturday so we could both have time to get ready and get to the eki in time to meet Sean and Jeff. Jeff had some problems finding Yabuzuka, but he eventually met up with his and we started driving towards Mt. Miyogi for our hiking adventure! Little did we know what was in store for us ;)

So, the plan was to drive to a certain place by Mt. Miyogi and meet four other cars of ALTs that signed up for the hike (every month or so Daniel organizes a hike for any interested ALTs to go on in or around Gunma). Even though we were running late, an emergency conbini run was in necessito for morning snacks, as well as lunch for the hike. Seven bazillion yen later, we finally got going and were happy-go-lucky. So, as we were zooming along the highway and enjoying actually 1) driving and 2) driving fast in Japan, I started seeing signs that worried me. All of the town names were not only completely inaka, but inaka towns that are in central/Northern Gunma. Now, this wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that we were supposed to be going to southwest Gunma. On top of that, we were paying to be on the expressway going the wrong way!

We called Daniel and explained that we’re all retarded and told him we might meet up with them later. However, we were so far from Miyogi that we just decided to have our own exploration of Gunma day. After about 5 years of debating what to do, we decided to go to Minakami, a famous town in the mountains of northern-ish Gunma that has a bunch of onsen (natural hot springs), nature, etc. After getting lost about 300 times, we made it there and went on a “hike.” By hike, I mean walking on the flattest ground possible with a bunch of 70 and 80 year-old men and women. It was really pretty, though, as we got to follow the river and were surrounded by the mountains and trees. We ate lunch right on the river, which was really cool (though I’m sure the Nihonjin were shocked that we veered off the trail, hehe).

We ended the day by going to the Tanimura onsen, which is apparently pretty famous. It was sooooooooooooo relaxing. I can’t believe I hadn’t been in one since coming this time! We spent about an hour in the onsen. Tanimura has a small inside part where you wash up, as well as a few baths in there, but the best part is outside, where there is a fairly large bath (I don’t know what else to call it?) surrounded by trees and other purty-ness. God, it felt so nice! Poor Shindy was by herself on the other side, but she had a good time, too, yay!

After getting out of the onsen one feels relaxed but also completely dehydrated and about to faint, so I bought Pocari Sweat from the vending machine and got the deal of the week, as bottles just kept falling out! Hell yeah! You know Jeff is the cheapest bastard in the world, so it made my day! Hehehe.

Feeling completely relaxed and ready to go to bed, we left Minakami and headed towards Omama so Jeff could drop us off at the station. The first half of the ride went fine, as we knew where we were (for once) and what we were doing. However, the whole relaxed feeling we gained from the onsen was completely lost in the last half of the drive, as we all nearly died on the ghetto-ass roads of Gunma! We seriously found the most foggy, abandoned and scary road I have ever seen in my life on the base of Mt. Akagi and got completely lost on it. It looked like we were on the set of a fucking horror movie. Gunma Chainsaw Massacre, anyone? It was so sketchy! I really can’t give the adventure any justice, ‘cause you had to be there to understand, but we were totally lost in the most inaka of inaka you will ever see. By the time we reached the inaka town of Omama, it looked like fucking Tokyo, we were so excited to see PEOPLE and ELECTRICITY. Hehehehe.

Anyway, by the end of the day, we had been in the car for God knows how many hours, and poor Jeff was in it even longer. He drove over 200 km by 4:30 PM! I went home and promptly became anti-social by eating dinner alone and watching half of The Two Towers before completely assing out. I was also thoroughly amused when I opened Firefox, only to see that the Kanji of the day to study was mayou, “to be lost.”

Anyway, this is the longest post EVER. Thanks, Jeff, for driving us! I don’t blame you if you never want to see us again ;) A fun was most definitely had, though, as I don’t think you can NOT bond when being lost in a car for however long we were! Maybe we will actually see Mt. Miyogi at some point in the future!