Turtles Exist!

Last week was Golden Week in Japan, a string of national holidays during which everyone in the country travels. So naturally, David, John, Vicki and I decided to take a road trip! We started out on Thursday night at Vicki's place. Some Freshness burger and packing up of all of her worldly possessions, we said goodbye to our second home for the semester (her amazing apartment) and piled into a cab to the station to get to David's apartment at Kameari ("Turtles Exist"). We stayed overnight there and then David and John got up bright and early at 530 am to pick up our ride for the week- a bright blue Nissan March. Unfortunately, the car was no ready so they waited at the rental place until about 8 while I slept and Vicki rummaged around for food. And then we were on our way, bound for Nikko!

Four people and 17 bags between us in one Tokyo taxi

Our ride
Soba lunch in Nikko, the first of what would be many photos of John with that darn video camera.
Vicki and Me at Nikko
Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil Monkeys
David, Vicki, John and Me

The Sleeping Cat, carved by famous Hidari Jingoro, the cat was carved to ward off mice because it is situated at the entrance to the walkway that leads to Ieyasu's tomb

There were still cherry blossoms at Nikko!

Me and Temple

We went to a yakitori restaurant for dinner that had the most delicious chicken on a stick and chicken meatballs. People stick things all over the walls so there are business cards, pictures and notes from people from all over the world. We wrote a poem and left it for all eternity.
Really delicious food. Right before we get back in the car headed for imminent death or injury as tired David starts driving on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD. "The fact that there was headlights coming towards you didn't tip you off?" I cry! No worries though, he rights us in plenty of time and the ridicule that he suffers is enough to prevent him from making that mistake again.

Cable car to the top of the mountain

At the top, Kegon Waterfall in the background, one of Japan's most beautiful waterfalls
I kind of prefer sitting to hiking.
Kegon Waterfall
John and Me in front of the falls
Rest stop on the way to Sendai- the "Love Fence".
I am still not clear as to what you were supposed to do with this.

We had a lovely time in Nikko looking at temples, doing to a hot spring, eating delicious food and running into The Marks Brothers. Nikko is so small that we ran into two friends from our Temple program not once but FOUR times (at a temple, at the onsen, at dinner and at breakfast- apparently great minds think alike)! On our second day in Nikko we visited some waterfalls, took a cable car up to the top of the mountain and then hit the road for Sendai. And, great minds apparently really DO think alike because everyone and their mother decided to take the same highway that we were on so the 3 hour trip to Sendai became quite a bit longer. At some point in the marathon, someone questioned where we were staying that night. We all turned to John who sheepishly shrugged and said, "I just called the places you told me to call." The problem was that no one could remember where that was. With no idea where we were staying, no confirmation, no internet access and no real plan of what to do, John's cell phone rings. "It can't be......" he says. Through divine intervention or perhaps just dumb luck, the hostel calls to ask when we plan to arrive. John asks for the address and we type it into the GPS, still unaware of what the name of the place that we are staying is called.
We finally reached our lodging at about 10pm. We headed straight to the local sushi restaurant where the chef gave us the "special"- a raw mollusk called hoya that tasted like a cross between seawater, lemon juice and vinegar with the texture of chewing gum. A good search reveals that it is called Sea Pineapple in English. Mmm.