Comfort Hotel Hikone

I have just returned from an amazing trip to Tsushima, Japan. Tsushima is a small fishing island in the southern Japan, with only 30,000 inhabitants. I went with a group of nearly 40 people from all over the world- Americans, Koreans, Japanese, Pakistanis, Egyptians, etc. The journey began as we departed Seoul for Busan, in the South of Korea, and then boarded a ferry to make the journey across the sea.
We arrived on the southern part of the island in time for ...

... Tanabata Festival. It's a Star/Wish making festival. Lots of girls wearing their yukata and lots of models. It was funny as there were lots of old gross men following the girls taking pictures with their big professional cameras...seedy...dodgy! As usual, there were lots of yatai (food stalls). My friend and I went into a ghost house, and I was so freaked out. I couldn't stop screaming, all it was was people popping their faces through curtains, but i am ...

... guy is koni and we have also been hanging out a lot with keiko. Anyways its freaking sad because everybody knows that we most likely wont ever see each other again btw virgil went crazy on karaoke tonight ok i gotta go - its 230am now and we have to go to a ceremony at the school tomorrow and ride the bullet train 2.5 hrs to tokyo i will try and update tomorrow but im not sure of the status with internet at our next hotel peace

We are about to leave so I only have a couple of minutes. We are on our way to Kyoto for the day and karaoke tongiht. yesterday we toured the school and listen to a couple of lectures. we had our official welcome\farewell ceremony dinner party at the hotel last night. again we ate like 30 courses and drank lots of sake. a dentist that had been to mexico five times sat at my table and we were able to communicate in spanish ...

its 645am here - went to bed fter two but just got up because it was 100 degrees in the room and we cant figure out how to turn the freakin heat off. virgil just called the manager up and he doesnt speak english but he propped the door open and left we got off the freakishly long plane ride at 530pm local time (25 hours since waking up in san antonio and going to the airport) and met the japanese students in the airport. my student brought sake and beer for ...

... from what I had expected. Actually, I expected happy hike in there, but I was exhausted by the 5th stage. Then, I realized something more interesting near the mountain, which was Hikone castle.

Hikone is famous for the old castle built in 1607. It is one of the four national treasure castles in Japan and registered on the Tentative List of UNESCO's World Heritage sites. I had been to Himeji castle, which is designated as one of the sites ...

... back towards the station, I walk down one of the lake-fed canals that extends east into the town. A few fisherman have thrown a line out today, having their own personal moments on this sunny, windswept day. Now back at the station, I look back one last time at the bronze, horse-mounted samurai statue now bidding me farewell. During my time in Japan, Hikone is the closest I have come to observing the legendary samurai, and an experience I will surely not soon forget.

... Kirsten found some "cute little things" in a little pool of water near a fountain and asked me what they were. When I told her they were mosquito larvae, she found them decidedly less cute, and decided it was time to move on. We continued on the Path of Philosophy until we reached Nanzen-ji Temple, and then caught a bus back to the hotel. For the rest of the afternoon, we headed out to the vicinity of Kyoto Station, for some shopping.

... we're here protecting it! It gets rainy in the afternoon, and we stay indoors after the afternoon zazen, watching the pond and the moss and the maples. And there's mist on the hills, and the houses look wet and the trees themselves look like clumps of moss. We talk about Keralan food and the God of Small Things and London and Japan. Everything -the rythms, the colours, the voices- are so subdued, that we seem to be characters in a Swedish movie. Five more Germans ...

... suddenly I could go no further... at the end of the trail was a stone marker with Chinese characters on it, a barbed wire fence around a construction site, and the top of the mountain. Although the end of the trail was kind of anti-climactic, perhaps it was more the journey that was important than what was at the top. I stayed up there for quite awhile looking out at the flickering yellow lights of the bustling oriental metropolis. On my way back down the trail ...