I thought trains ran through hotsprings?

Today I had to arrive early enough to Hakuoh in order to be taken to the freshman orientation at Kunigawa onsen. Kunigawa is famous in Japan for them and ANY new experience in Japan sounds like and idea to me.

But....I was the oddball out again. Despite staying only a day, everyone else seemed to bring stuff to change into except for me. Riding with extra materials in my basket (or on my back) is ridiculous enough to get my killed (ie. read yesterday's post), so I decided not to bring things. And I was okay.

Anyway, we got on the bus (one of many) and were required to do self-introductions. Yay, another chance for my broken Japanese to shine! Kidding aside, the ride there wasn't that exciting until we started getting towards the more mountainous parts of Tochigi. I don't know, I've seen mountains before in my life, but something about mountains in Japan makes my photographer locked up in a cage inside excited.



(Lunch)

So, after lunch, we were funneled back into the buses to go to a main hall for freshman orientation. There, they preceded to show a video about Hakuoh, and then a demonstration by most of the major school clubs on campus that lasted 2 hours. It was entertaining though, despite the language barriers. After that we went back and went and had dinner. During dinner though, a loud shaking of the building occured. I was confused because it was like the sound of an train passing by in a station, but no such train existed near where we were at. This was an Earthquake. My first one anyway.

We had the option of going into the hotsprings earlier than everyone else for some reason, but Brian declined to go, so it was just me and Rin. Both of us never went to one before, and it was a while since I looked up etiquette involving them. I am sure we broke some of them, but it was decent. In order for a westerner to go to one, you pretty much have to leave any dignity you may have at the door. That and also know that there's not going to be any people that are looking at you. Everyone is in the same boat really.

The morning after wasn't that fun filled, except for a rarity in Japanese food occured. I thought I would never see it again, so I took a picture of it.



"This is the rare coffee flavored Jelly."

Later on, there was seminars about various things, including anime/manga, which I went to, and helped out with the English teacher's seminars about speaking English and such.

The bus ride back was uneventful, except for the realization the Tom and Jerry seems to be a popular choice among the students here.