July 10, 2010: Trip to Takenosu

Today was the day where I would be leaving Ayashi, and heading with the Nordaas’ back to their church in Takenasu. It is here where Bonita will be training me to teach English. Soon after waking up, eating breakfast, packing and going on a walk, we were on our way even farther north…a 3 hour drive north. Before leaving town we stopped at this well talked about bakery called Basudei, aka, Birthday Bakery. They are know for having a wide variety of breads, and after you buy your food, they give you a free cup of coffee.

On the way up, we drove over or near by Hagimantai mountain and stopped at a hot spring, known for its mud volcanos. We went on a hike and breathed the scent of the sulfur discharged from rocks and mud. Next, I experienced my first bathhouse at the Goshogake Onsen. Bonita went into the girls side, where Arnie and I went into the guys side. They are segregated because you go into these hot springs completely naked. Me, not really knowing what I was supposed to do, let Arnie take the lead, because I did not want to do anything strange. We walked in and rinsed off before we sat in the first pool. The inside of this onsen was not your ordinary spa with tile floors and walls. It was more like something you would find at a nice five star resort that is attempting to make an authentic bathhouse. The ceiling was very high and at a steep, 40-degree angle. Every thing was made with wood. The first pool was pretty large, about 15X20 feet. At the end there was a wood spout pouring hot water into the pool. After 5 min or so in there, we moved to the mud bath. There, you take mud and wipe it all over you body, and apparently it is supposed to make your skin real nice. Before we went into the steam room, we had to rinse off. There were little wooden stalls, separated with horizontal wood partitions. Each stall had its own little waterfall with hot water pouring down. To get to the seam room, you climb a 5 rung latter walk past 6 steam boxes and into the steam room. This was the worst smelling, hottest steam room I’d ever been in, but boy did it relax me. After sitting in there for a while, we tried out the steam boxes. We got into these by opening wood doors, changing out the old dirty block that the previous person was sitting on, climbed in and closed the doors. Each box is made for one person, one small person at that. I was sitting there and could hardly fit. My torso was too long, I was hunched over because my shoulders were jammed up at the top of the box next to the hole where you had comes out. After a few more soaks in the hot spring, we sat at these stools, filled our buckets with water that we would dump on our self and cleaned up.

Back on the road again, we had about one more hr before we arrived at Takenosu. The countryside of Japan is just beautiful, very lush. The roads curved though different farms, rice fields, and hillsides. For dinner, we stopped at this Ramen restaurant and I had my first real authentic Hot Ramen. I have decided that ramen will be in my diet quite regularly. We made it to the “Dome Church” just in time for the annual firework show in town. We quickly unloaded the car, and then Arnie directed me where I could go to get closer to the festival activities. There was a long line of food stands, and many people dressed up in authentic Japanese garb. The firework show started at 7:30 then went till about 8:45. It was quite slow though. There would be some sort of explanation of the fireworks that were going to be shown, each set of fireworks was about 45 seconds long, but they were lit one at a time. But it was cool being close enough to feel the concussion of the explosion. I left the festival part 15 min after it started and made my way back to the church and joined Bonita and Arnie for the rest of the show. They live close and it was only a 10 min walk across the river.

Towards the end of the show, a few guests came, Eriko, Tomoko and Taiko. Once the grand finale ended, we came inside, ate tea and bread while we chatted for a while. They were excited when they learned that I was Hosmer Sensai’s grandson. My grandfather and grandmother had worked at this church about 3 years ago and worked with these girls.

It was another day full of new cultural experiences, which wore me out, so I was able to sleep real well.