11 Mile Walk

After my ladies class on Friday, Josh and I took a train west-bound to Sakunami. Josh heard that the trees were starting to change color and wanted to get some pictures of them. There are also some great waterfalls out that way.

When we got off the train, we started walking west were we got a beautiful close up view of “Gorilla Mountain.” If you look at it from a certain angle, the shape of the mountain looks like the head and face of a gorilla. We wondered east towards Ayashi where we planned on catching another train to take us back, once we were don't taking pictures.

The whole idea of this trip was to take some pictures of waterfalls, and the thing that motivates us, besides the beautiful weather, was the changing of leafs colors. We did not experience the full colors of fall, we got there about a week early, so we could only see the changes starting to happen, but it was still a beautiful day, so there was no reason to complain. Here are a few pictures taken from that day.

The long walk came into play because we spent too long enjoying the beautiful scenery and were stuck with the decision of walking back to Sakunami Station, then maybe miss that train, or we could walk all the way back to Ayashi. If I didn’t have a class to teach at 5:00, then we would have just walked back to Sakunami and if we missed that train we could have waited an hr for the next one. But, being that I needed to be back ready to teach in 2 and half hours, it would have been a pretty big risk. So, we decided to start our long trek back.

The funny part of the trip was as we were walking along north side of the highway we walked past a train station. We both knew that one was there, but Josh didn’t think the train would stop there. But, as we were approaching the crosswalk that would lead us to the station the train pulled in and stopped. Obviously we wanted to cross the road and try and get on that train, but we couldn’t. Both ways there was heavy traffic, so J-walking was no option. We hit the crosswalk button, but by the time we were able to cross the train started to pull out of the station. Well, now it was
back to walking the rest of the way home.

It was now 4:40, and if I were to keep the walking pace, I was going to be late. So, I dumped my jacket and sweater onto Josh and began running. By 4:50 and 1 mile later I ran into the church and found two of my students there (as they are always a half hr early) waiting. I told them that I would be back in a min. My lesson was planned, but I had not set out my materials or packed anything I needed for the class. Once again I was running, this time a much shorter distance to my apartment. I grabbed my stuff, swiped on some fresh deodorant, threw on a clean shirt and headed back to the church. Once 5:00 hit, we were all sitting in class and I was just finishing my last few huge gulps of water before I started class.

Feel free to check out my 'Explorations' album for more photos!