Belated winter break post.
I guess I should blog about my winter break….
Key events in chronological order:
1. Trip to Ibarrrrrraki
2. Trip to Alpaca farm
3. Trip to Gunma
4. KYOTO :D
Ibaraki - went to Mito and Oarai. There is nothing much I can say, except that Ibaraki is a very, very, boring place. Oarai is a small little fishing town facing the Pacific Ocean, so small that it took me all but 20 minutes to walk from the station to the coast. Managed to feed my obsession with the Pacific by going up some viewing tower which offered a 360deg panoramic view of the village. And that was the highlight of my trip.
Alpaca farm - the trip had been planned rather long ago, as far back as summer. What was supposed to be a 10-person entourage turned into a measly 4. Still, it was a pretty fun trip. Took a freaking long time to get to Isogo, then took even more time to figure out how to get to the alpaca farm. Turns out that the farm was located in some farming district full of cabbages and other nice rural things. Somebody got overly excited at the sight of the countryside and proceeded to camwhore with every single thing in sight -.-
Since it was the year-end holidays, the alpacas could not be let out for us to hug and play with them :( However, the owner was nice enough to let us feed them through a fence, and we spent quite a long time feeding and touching them. Alpacas are therapeutic.
Yay.
Then we went to have sushi - or rather I was eating like mad, gulping down 500JPY tai sushi like no one’s business while the other 3 people just sat there picking at their food. My most expensive meal in Japan to date (excluding those paid for by other people.)
Gunma
It took me 4 hours by train to get to Gunma because people happened to be killing themselves that day, resulting in train delays on several major lines. Minakami, Gunma, is a mountainous area renowned for its ski resorts and hot springs. The area receives extremely heavy snowfall each year, and is probably the nearest place to Tokyo that manages to snow enough to warrant a certain number of tourists.
All I did was just walk around with my camera and enjoy the beautiful snowy scenery. My boots were soaked though, because the years of constant usage have left them with holes left right and center.
My trip to Gunma was free, thanks to lax stationmasters forgetting/neglecting to stamp my Seishun 18 pass. The trip would have cost more than 6000JPY otherwise.
I’ll blog about Kyoto in another post. It’s too long to fit in here.