July 7
What a weekend! Last weekend we had a three days off for an individual overnight trip, and I went to Kusatsu Onsen in Gunma. It was a very fun experience! I used my JR rail pass to ride Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo, transferred to Hokuriku Shinkansen in 30 seconds (the transfer time limit was 2 minutes and I was worried whether I could make it or not but it turned out ok), and then transferred to Joetsu line at Takasaki to Naganohara, and then took a local bus to Kusatsu Onsen. As we travelled from metropolis Tokyo to real countryside, we saw fewer and fewer foreigner tourists and ended up riding the local trains with high school students and commuters. This down to earth feeling of eating a Noriben in a slightly bumpy train really appealed to me. When looking outside the window, endless green rice fields and birds returning to their nests are just so relaxing–Getting out of Kyoto, it is another totally different scenery. The Onsen itself was amazing. Kusatsu is one of the three most famous Onsens in Japan, and I tried Kaiseki and Yukata for the first time.
This week, we continued on Ise Monogatari and started Makura no soshi and Ujishui monogatari. We learned the excerpts of Abe no Seimei in Ujishui, and took a field trip to Seimei Jinja, the small exquite shrine dedicated to Seimei just next to my apartment. I drew the Omikuji and it was Daikichi. 穏やかで幸せな一週間。