My turf

Let me into a forest, and you cannot hurt me, you cannot get to me. Add to that stars and the moon and you could kill me without disturbing my peace of mind.

I had forgotten one important thing: I love riding buses.
Thus, this weekend was a real treat. Even if I was slightly irritated with the off the bus-on the bus again schedule, I liked the traveling too much. We went to the mountains in the north of Akita-ken, and it was lovely. When the ascent began, everything was just as green as usual. Then, I started seeing magnolias - which bloomed over a month ago down here - among the greenery. Suddenly, snow on the ground! And still as green. Passing by hot springs and sulphur-smell we climbed higher while everyone else slept. I noticed a sign beside the road warning that it was closed off during winter, Kobayashi-san later told us this was because the snow falls up to the top of the trees in the winter.... ah, I realized, so that's why they all looked so half-grown even if they were tall. Up on the top we couldn't see a thing, we were in the middle of a rain-cloud, but I threw a snowball, at least. We stopped by a famous swamp (I was caught in some photographies) and then continued to the Aspia camping ground. Ahem. Though sleeping in a room with a tv and heater is hardly "camping" to me.

After a great but expensive Mongolian barbecue dinner (I had the luck of being in the group with all the gaijin girls - though I wasn't really expecting that any of the Jappo girls would want to share) I snuck out for a while and marvelled over the beautiful scenery. Mountains all around, forest so green one just wanted to touch it, and later on, stars framing the mountaintop with a sliver of a moon in the distance.
It was one of the better moments of my life.
(The fact that I then discovered I could not call my wolf on his birthday sort of made me not so happy. In fact, I was very, very unhappy.)

There was a small onsen, too, so me and the others all took a bath. Sitting in the outside bath, rain falling softly but not coldly, with beautiful ladies all around - yeah, I've had it worse.

Had a fun time listening to Ramone's explanation of the male species ways of "readjusting the package". No secrets left, boys, we know it all now. AND I agree on his heartfelt "STOP trying to be so 'cute', dammit! It does not look good!" concerning the Japanese girls way of dressing, walking and behaving in general. Please, we know there is a sexy, beautiful woman in there. Let her come out, stop dieting and please thwap you males in the head for being so boob-fixated.

Slept 6 or 7 hours again, which made for a day where I drank a lot, ate a lot and took care in resting as much as possible. I know my migraine...

We drove to a scenic spot of the lake Towada, and there I was, in the middle of Japan, thinking of and longing for... Scotland. It did remind both me and Anders of it.
The roads reminded me of Australia and Norway, with the classical Japanese touch: narrow. The plunge down would have been... *shudder*.

Then followed the best part of the whole trip. We drove to the mountain stream coming from Towada-ko, and were allowed to take a walk for 45 minutes, upstream. It was... almost disgustingly beautiful. It was amazing. And it was what I like to call "my home turf". A forest, a stream. There are few types of places I love more.
Wet my socks and shoes, of course. Couldn't resist jumping on the banks.
And walked, in marvel. *happy sigh* If I could show you... So green it hurt my eyes, such a fresh breath (well, the times the trail wasn't too close to the darn road) and so marvellous a sound from the stream. Wow.

The trip to Korakukan, the oldest opera house in Japan, was cool, the black men doing the behing-the-scenes-work looked like ninja.

The trip home was pure trying to sleep, and after dinner I continued that. This morning I did the homework, but I am still sleepy and have a furkload of stuff to do.
I wish I could call you more often, my love. You always make things seem so easy.