Today was sort of a weird experience, as I got up, showered, rode the bus for an hour and a half, then took a bath for two and a half hours or so, then went back home. That is to say, a bunch of friends and I went on an onsen adventure to this great place way out in the country, and we lazed around like our lives depended on it in this amazing two-floor bath complex. Although I had been to one in Kyoto, I went by myself and the bath was much simpler, so it was nowhere near as enoyable. I was initially a little suspicious of how fun it would be to hang around and bathe with your friends for x number of hours, but as it turns out onsen are well worth their fame. Although it turns out that the massive public nudity is actually no big thing in practice, I still wish that you could do it in a swimsuit just so that the sexes could mix. All in all, very very much fun, and something I will be sure to try again as soon as possible; fortunately there is an onsen complex in the hotel I'll be staying at in Nagano, so that very soon means Wednesday.
Incidentally, now that it's break I may not be updating every day, as the typical break day consists of waking up at noonish, lazing around and reading for an hour or two, hanging around with friends, then making dinner and lazying around until sleep. I hope to stick in "study kanji" and "relearn classical Japanese" in there somewhere, but work is becoming increasingly antithetical to my existence, so we'll see about that.
I am finally, and I do mean finally, only 40 pages from the end of "The Bells of Nagasaki," and I really intend to finish it tomorrow. After this it is manga and books totally different from this one, which is to say that they will be interesting and fun to read.
- Gyaa! I'm give up
Naka-ku, Hiroshima
730-0803
JAPAN