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This past weekend I took a trip with the 2nd year teachers. We rented a micro bus and drove to the Izu peninsula (directly southwest of Tokyo). Two fun-filled days, spending most of our time in a bus, for the low low cost of 27,000 yen (I could fly to Korea for 24,000 yen). It was a pretty uneventful journey. Not many guys went, so drinking didn't begin at the crack of dawn, though most of the beverages were alcoholic. We began at 5:15, and got to the town of Toi around noon. Our first tourist spot was a place were lovers go to ring a bell to declare they will get married. There is a statue of a hand making the "love sign", or the "hang ten" sign. So first we had the token photo in front of the statue. Then we moved to flower garden (another Japanese photo extravaganza). then we perused the gift shop. There were print club machines for the lovers and special keychains they can buy and hang on the wall, or on a tree outside of the building. Thousands of keychains. After the shop, we took a walk to the bell. It was located on a hill overlooking the sea. People had their photos taken and enjoyed the view. Very nice. We then went to a small restaurant and ate lunch. After that, we went to an orchid garden. It cost 1,600 yen for admission. The place was huge. It was located on the side of a mountain/hill. It took a couple minutes of riding an elevator and several escalators before we saw any orchids. As far as variety goes, the place was amazing. Building after building filled with orchids. There were even cheesy displays for the inevitable photo. There were a few picnic areas, a suspension bridge, and some gorgeous views of the ocean. We finally made it to the hotel in the late afternoon. We unpacked, then it was off to the onsen (hot spring) to cook ourselves in the water and sauna before dinner. Dinner was yummy, well, most of it. Lots of sushi and fried food. Only had one glass of beer, prefered to stick to the cola. After dinner we cooked ourselves a bit more, then went to the famous floral clock across the street. At this point I'd like to point out things I love about Japan: 1) Every town in Japan is famous for something, and 2) Where else can you sightsee in bathrobes (yukatas) without fear of being fined for indecent exposure? I was told this clock is the largest floral clock in the world. Yes, it is large, but there weren't that many flowers. Anyway, the attraction of the clock really seemed to be what was around it. We took off our geta (Japanese wooden sandals) and walked clockwise around the clock. The catch was, we had to walk on rocks of various sizes of sharpness. This walk was supposed to be therapeutic, but I'd like to say that is was painful, and I could walk over all the rocks. Some of them felt like shards of glass. I figured I wasn't going to join the circus anytime soon, or go to India and show off next to the fire eaters and snake charmers. Therefore, I saved my feet from a terrible fate. After this, we walked to the beach and watched an incredible lightening storm role in. It started to rain, so we went back to the hotel for card games. The card games aren't worth mention, but the other thing in the room is. Our room had a TV that had a coin slot for movies. So one of the male workers who came with us decided he'd watch a movie. Lucky us, got to watch a porno. This is definitely a point on which Japanese differ from Americans. There were men and women in the room, and no one minded at all. The girls giggled and commented about it for the length of the movie. Everyone agreed that they'd seen better. No one was embarrassed or offended. It was no big deal. On the same subject... The next day we visited a temple for about 7 minutes, and the adjoining omiyage shop for at least 15 minutes. This was a cool shop. It had samples of the food it sold, and a wide variety of items. One of the items that the teachers really thought funny was this piece of tree that I guess was supposed to be a back massager. It was about the diameter of my arm and was carved into the shape of a penis. One of the guy teachers was joking with some of us about it. He asked me if it was the size of American penises. I told him no. We could also have bought these sucker-type things that were shaped like a penis, a vagina, and something else that I wasn't sure of. But don't get me wrong, the store also lots of really cool thing, and some that were even of a cultural nature. To recap the weekend:
Valerie Straayer |