Day 6

Kazu-san and Serina-san took us to Nara, Serina-san’s home town, and a once-capital of Japan (for a short period). Of the Americans, only Myra-tachi, Robert, Ben, Dwight, and Chen were up to the trip. We also met a friend of Serina-san’s, Tai(?)-san. She was nice, she didn’t speak any English, but she talked to us, and she brought candy. We met at Fujidera at 10am, and just remember this is group travel (+ a 1hr train ride) and from there I can skip to 1:30 when we actually started hiking Katsuragi-san. 

Dwight and Serina-san took the tram up, but the rest of us hiked a grueling 2.3 hours to reach the top. It was pretty steep, we stopped a lot, which meant lots of pictures. 

Steep. Think the first 5 min of the Mt. Olympus hike, but the WHOLE WAY.

It was a gorgeous place, I loved it. Here we are against a background of awesome big (possibly cedar) trees.

Here is a giant wasp-thing (Asian Giant Hornet -- scary) I closely observed because it is giant and orange. (see it fly - upload video)

I have been much into bugs lately, possibly spurred by my fascinating 1923 insect study book on my e-reader which advises children to do things such as squish firefly’s heads and observe how long the light stays on. And did you know aphids only have 1 set of true parents a year? Those females lay eggs. All their female kids until the next cycle give birth to live young. There are no male aphids in the summer. ...If that’s still true. 

See cool gold bug (video link).

Finally, we made it to the top where we rejoiced and ate snacks. Here is Nara, from far away.

People posed on top of the victory stand. Kazu and Mia the only ones to stand only on the top one — with 1 leg no less!!!

Myra-tachi, Kazu, and Robert were the only ones with the energy enough to go back down the mountain, the rest took the tram. We practically ran down and made it in roughly 45 minutes (WOW), though we had to slow halfway because Ani’s hip hurt. 

We left the mountain at around 6:00, and went to walk around an old part of Nara. Very cool houses and gardens.

And a sake storage place. Note decorative jars in foreground.

We saw ducks. See movie :) (upload video)

After that we went to pick up ingredients for yakisoba (fried noodles) at a store, costing an immense 2-300¥ a person, then went to Serina-san’s house to make it. Nice of her to invite us! Her sister is training to be an opera singer, we heard her practicing when we got there. Her mother was very hospitable, and helped get everything set up. She made the gyouza. Later she made onigiri (rice balls) and okonomiyaki.

Here’s the yakisoba, made right in front of us (and stirred by us):

Everybody very happy around a real kotatasu (heated blanket-table):

(From left to right: Tai, Serina, Ben, Myra, Ani, Mia, Dwight, Robert, Chen, Kazu)

Onigiri (without nori yet):

Okonomiyaki:

Then we walked back to the train station and went home, it was around 11 so no bus going to near the dorms, we walked back. Exhausted! But it was a really fun day.

Accomplished: Went to Nara, climbed a Japanese mountain, said/heard ‘konnichiwa’ to/from about 50 people (nice people on trail), ate a bento, saw tanuki statues, learned that the (non-nazi) Hindu/Buddhist symbol is called ‘manji’ (卍), saw a genuine Japanese home (and kotatsu), learned some genuine Osaka-ben (say ‘honma omorogatta ya wa!’ instead of ‘honto ni tanoshikatta da yo!’), ate authentic-home-made yakisoba/okonomiyaki/onigiri, and had an awesome time. Thank you Serina-san (and Serina-san no okaasan) and Kazu-san (and everyone else for coming)!

Here is a picture for Duncan and Terra (one only they will get, anyway — tho Ari might):