SUNDAY 3/13
Once a month, there's a lunch for everyone after church. This time was salmon fried rice. It was SO GOOD.
After that, the young adults (seinenkai) had a going away party for Nao-chan, who was getting ready to return to her home prefecture after graduating, and Cho, an exchange student who would be returning home to China. It was really fun!
Look at these amazing desserts! We played a little game to choose who got which one.
The dessert I ended up with. Who's surprised that I went for the most chocolatey one?
We got REALLY EXCITED when we saw all the cute desserts haha.
Everyone with the dessert they ended up with~
Eri leading a really fun game where we had to guess how Nao-chan and Cho would answer these questions.
Eri always chooses really...interesting gifts for people.
Although we all agreed that Cho made an awesome ninja.
And then that night was St. Patrick's Day Crossroad, which went pretty smoothly. A girl named Melanie, a friend of a friend of Becky's, came to stay at the Center, so we hung out that night and the three of us went to the onsen (public bath). Melanie was hesitant at first (as most foreigners are), but by the time we were ready to leave she said she'd come every day if she could. :D
MONDAY 3/14
Originally I was supposed to go to Iga with a girl named Julia, but due to various circumstances, she couldn't make it. But since Melanie was visiting Japan and wanted to travel around while she was here, I ended up going with her instead. Which was...interesting, because I'd never been to Iga and I didn't really exactly know how to get there haha. Soooo glad I speak enough Japanese to be able to ask for help, even though I'm quite sure I sounded like a kid, the way I was talking haha. At least we (finally) made it!
Iga is a city in Mie Prefecture, where I live, that is famous for its ninja history. That's right...ninjas. Awesome, right? There is ninja stuff EVERYWHERE in that city, not even just in the actual museum area.
Epic ninjamobile.
Little shrines we saw while lost walking around.
A ninja house, complete with various traps and escape routes. We got to try this one. Also, child!ninjas! They were super cute.
Our ninja guide, who showed us all the tricks. She was really fast. :o
Apparently ninjas could walk on water.
Shuriken. Awesome, right?
Grappling hook, throwing knives, etc.
Weapons disguised as canes.
And of course ninjas wore all kinds of disguises.
For part of their training, ninjas had to be able to lift a 60-kg bale of rice with just their thumb and forefinger, so that they'd be able to hang from the ceiling with just their fingers. Hardcore much?
Conclusion: ninjas are awesome. You can learn lots of stuff about them by coming to this place~
Apparently this was some kind of famous haiku place.
Next stop: Iga Ueno Castle.
See the old castle wall on the left?
The castle.
Me on the stairs going up to the castle. Because I am cool . Yes.
Inside...was basically a museum.
See? Ninjas everywhere.
Some awesome samurai helmets. Probably the coolest artifacts in there.
Another view of the castle as we were leaving.
From a different museum just down the road. Some kind of creepy demon parade...
Gigantic parade floats.
So after a lot of walking around, we were finally done sightseeing. So we went for a late (late) lunch.
Whoever thought up omelette rice with curry as the sauce is a GENIUS. <333
Saw this on our way back to the train station.
Coolest trains ever or coolest trains ever?!
So by the time we made it back to Tsu, it was kind of mid-evening, so I took Melanie over to Saty to shop and eat dinner at my favorite curry udon place. I got vegetable and mochi toppings~
And when we went home after that, Melanie asked to go to the onsen again, since she'd liked it so much the previous night. So we did. It was a full, but pretty awesome, day.
This entry is getting pretty long with all the pictures, and also it's getting close to 2am, so I think I'll stop here for now~ :D
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