A Hike Up a Mountain in Arakawa

It’s Showa Day!!  Flo and I drove to Jess’s neck of the woods for what ended up being a 4.5-hour hike up a rather steep mountain.  For the first time exactly four days, the weather was perfect.  The sun was shining, it was warm enough to put the jacket in the backpack, and cool enough to climb straight up without sweating buckets.   After PNG, I was under the pretentious impression that nothing I ever saw for the rest of my life could ever compare to the beauty that exists just below the equator, BUT today’s trek was pretty pretty, and to think it exists in the greater Murakami area!!  Jess’s lengthy legs forced Flo and I to bounce up the mountain until a pretty flower or gnarly root distracted us from walking.  At the tippy-top we joined the party of some other hikers for a bento (packed lunch), only we felt a little out of place as we neglected to pack the standard floor tarp, sake, and chocolate.  Thanks to not listening to Flo or my sense of direction, and instead leaving the navigation down the other side of the mountain to Jess, we were able to get back down.  What better way to end a beautiful strenuous day than with the Kappa-zushi (cheap, delicious, conveyor belt sushi) and Starbucks in Shibata?!?!  Needless to say, I was EXHAUSTED and STUFFED at the end of the day, definitely hitting the sack before 9:00 pm, ahhhh to be on my very own schedule.  [On a side note, as I write this, there is a crazy man in the teacher’s room singing some song LOUDLY, and no one knows what to do with him… just going to ignore it all…]