Minshuku Isaribi Tosashimizu

... to a Meiji Era tea house overlooking the Hijikawa River. I stayed a hostel just below the castle for about $35 which might have seemed expensive for what could have been a huge dorm with futons spread out over the open space, except the I had the spacious second floor to myself with full windows facing the river on one side and the castle (lit at night) on the other. It was wonderful.

On to the big city of Matsuyama, capital of Shikoku.........

... of the walking tour are the ruins of Usuki castle. The moat and the steps leading up to the grounds of the former castle are the main attraction here. As we ascended the steps leading to the empty ground my friend taught me a wish making tradition. There was a wooden mon, or gate, along the stairwell. If wishmakers can throw a stone up and have it land upon the top of the gate without falling their wish will come true.

My stone landed upon the gate at my third throw.

... br>The bus took about one hour and took us on a long and windy road through beautiful green valleys up to a small settlement in the mountains where we caught the rope-way ( cable-car ) to the most common start point for the grueling hike to the peak. Some people do hike all the way from the base, but it is apparently, very difficult and quite dangerous, takes over two hours and ascends 600m up poorly kept trails. Considering everyone was nearly dying by the time we got ...

... There was also a stand that sold the most amazing fried chicken ever!

Another interesting point ( though once again not conducive of sleeping ) was that one of these giant shrines was being built right below our balcony. It should be mentioned that they also drum constantly the entire time the shrine is at home in the makeshift garage they built for it.

Anyway, despite all the noise and lack of sleep it was a very enjoyable weekend.

So many things to tell, and so little time!

My first week of teaching in Hojo has been very very busy, and very interesting. I have come home everyday too tired to even check email (so sorry for lack of communication, guys!). That being said, I am hoping to become used to the teaching routine and get my energy ...

... when you are somewhere, where rules and manners are so important. So I often feel weird just snapping away. Especially at things like temples and shrines. I'm not even sure if you're allowed??? I'm going to try and find out though, because there are some beautiful Buddhist temples in Hojo, especially the one, it is just gorgeous.

I am also going to upload images for the journey here entry. So you can check that out if you want.

... began.

At first I thought a guy in each boat would be fishing, but instead how it works is, there are lines of boats on either side of the river and the guy fishing is on another boat and he sails up the middle of the boats so they all get a good view.

So how it works is, the guy stands at the front of the boat, beside a giant flaming lantern thing and has 5 Cormorants, one tied to each finger. The light of the torch ( assisted of course by some massive spot ...

... your hands without touching a tap and conserve water at the same time. Japanese people are so clever.

Anoyances:
-Drum practice every morning at 5am, right outside our window!!!
-Roosters: for those of you who followed my South America blog you know of my hate for these animals. Contrary to popular belife they DO NOT crow with the sunrise, they crow anytime they feel like, including the middle of the night. And not once, but many, many times.

At some point through the flight, the entire in-flight entertainment system rebooted. Turns out its running on Linux. Pretty neat - yes I'm a geek - to see every screen on the plane with the little Linux penguin in the top left corner and the kernal boot messages scrolling up the screen.

... other one stated that it was the Ashizuri road so naturally that's the one we took. And our decision was bad. We ended up on the worst mountain roads we'd ever been on. They were so windy and so steep that we actually couldn't ride up them on our bikes. So we ended up walking our bikes most of the way, which was approximately 8 miles of mountain road. They were some good downhills for the last mile and a half but still, we were exhausted. But we'd made it. And the hostel owner ...