Trip to Grape Country (Katsunuma, Japan)

8/30/2012 - 8/31/2012

View from the station in Katsunuma

Before heading off to Katsunuma, me and my friend headed off to Ogino to grab a quick lunch. We bought a few onigiris and a drink. We went a little earlier than planned so we sat outside the train station as we waited for the others. The station is right across from the supermarket so we didn't have to travel far. Within 15 minutes or so the others came and we bought our train tickets and headed to Katsunuma. The trip was about 1+ hours. When we arrived we all instantly went into out "Asian tourist" mode. By that I mean we all started taking a bunch of pictures lol It's not that hard when you're greeted by an awesome view that you don't see often.

The walk to the hotel from the station was a 30-40 minute walk. We didn't want to take the bus or taxi because they were fairly expensive. The walk wasn't too bad except for the sun rays beating down on us. It was hot and humid. but the view was great! We also walked along the grapes which there were plenty of! We were amused how a lot  of the grapes were bagged as they hung on their vines. That's something we definitely don't see a lot of. The grapes looked really yummy too! Some of us wanted to pick them right off the vine! Of course, that's illegal :P We also kept hearing gunshots in the distance. Probably someone hunting or something. As we neared the temple we saw a really interesting and creepy sight. One of the grape vineyards had the heads of mannequins. We were all like "WTF?" We quickly realized they were used to scare away birds. There were also random shirts and cds hanging. The heads were still creepy, though lol

Finally, after the long minutes walking in the scorching heat we've reached our destination! The hotel was sort of a combination of a ryokan (Japanese hotel) and a western hotel. The rooms that we stayed at were western/modern, but the entrance and several other rooms were very Japanese.  You can tell that these people don't get foreigners often. It's a good thing we knew some Japanese otherwise it would be hard to communicate with one another. After dropping off our stuff we headed to the Daizenji temple right next to the hotel. There was supposed to be a 500円 fee, but I'm not sure whether or not that was included in our hotel fee or not because we didn't pay before entering. We were the only guests at that time.

The temple was awesome. I love Japanese architecture so I was intrigued the whole time. There were lots of steps which is common. They weren't bad to the point where you would get tired as soon as you  reach the top. When we reached the end of the stairs there were several Japanese buildings. There was a temple which held many artifacts. We weren't allowed to take a picture inside so I can show that. It was pretty awesome seeing the various statues, scriptures, tools, etc. The guy who was there asked us a lot of questions like where we were from. When we said we're all from America he was genuinely surprised because we were of different ethnicities and I guess he didn't know that America has a variety of people. Outside of this building there was also a stage across. I'm sure it was a stage because I've seen pictures of it during my Traditional Japanese Theatre class. I think it's a Nou play stage, but I'm not quite sure. Close by there was also a graveyard. There was a whole other section, but most of us didn't go there. I'm disappointed that I missed it. We left the temple and decided to check out a shop across the street. The people were amused to see us Gaijin (foreigners). They were worried that none of them spoke English, but we told them we can understand Japanese so they were relieved lol

We returned to the hotel.In the main room we were greeted by tea and a bowl of grapes. As we sat there drinking and eating our grapes I looked around and kept thinking how awesome it was that we were in a place like that. The room was very Japanese with tatami floors and traditional Japanese items against the walls and roofs. There were Buddhist/Shinto items. There was a large paper with Buddhist writing on it. It looked like Chinese because of the lack of Hiragana/Katakana, but it was definitely Japanese. The doors were slide-doors where you can see outside. Outside was a beautiful sight. There was a traditional Japanese garden outside complete with a pond and a miniature waterfall. It's almost like what you see in movies, dramas, and animes. I was completely amazed. It's stuff like this that makes me love Japan.

We had dinner after we chilled int he room. We went into the dining room which was western style since we ate tables on chairs instead of on the floor. The food was AMAZING. The food was Japanese style. We were given several small dishes which is how Japanese traditional eat. Their was a plate of soba, bowl of rice, Edomame, Kimchi, Fried Shrimp, Fried Octupus (I think. Actually I don't even know. It was seafood of some sort though), a bowl of potatoe, beef, and carrot soup, small macoroni salad, and tofu. Oh, they gave us small grapes, too. When we first entered there were only a few dishes out, but they kept bringing us more lol Also, this won't be the last time we get grapes XD Since we were in grape country getting grapes was a very common thing. We sat in the dining room for about an hour. We all couldn't get over the fact of how good the food was and how Japanese it was. It's definitely something I've never experienced before, but would definitely love to experience again x3 This actually made me not want to leave the place lol I just wanted to stay there and eat meals like that everyday XD

A picture of a pic of the onsen

After dinner we returned to our rooms and headed off to the Onsen. I didn't bring my camera, but we ended up going to the same place again the next day (there's other stuff there, too). We only brought towels and a few other stuff with us because we walked to the place. It was about a 50minute walk!!! It felt like forever plus it was already dark and the humidity was still there so we sweated a lot. When we finally reached the place we were all relieved to be able to wash off all the sweat and just chill in the Onsen. I was nervous at first because at an Onsen you have to strip completely naked. It's not like pools where you can wear a swimsuit. Swimsuits are forbidden. I didn't like the fact that we had to be naked, but since we were already there there really wasn't anything you can do. It actually wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be. I guess it's because of the fact that everyone was naked so there's no shame. When we walked in we quickly washed ourselves and headed to the outside onsen. Btw, this was a modern Onsen not like the traditional ones. It kinda felt like we were in a Jacuzzi, but it felt sooo good. Especially, after being drenched in sweat. The outside onsen was awesome. We got a view of the city. It was dark and we could see the lights of houses. Next to us were the boys (there was a wall between us, thankfully). We can hear their conversations lol well I only understand bits and pieces. We eventually moved back inside. It was kinda weird because every time we moved the people who were already there would leave. Guess they were intimidated by us lol After about an hour or so chilling in the Onsen we decided to leave. It felt so good! Guess it would've been better if it were colder.

 When we headed downstairs we decided to grab a drink from the vending machine. There were some guys there and apparently they were talking about us. Since we were foreigners they quickly assume we couldn't speak Japanese. They kept saying "bye bye" when we were getting ready to leave. It was really annoying. One of my friends eventually said we could speak Japanese (in Japanese of course). They still kept saying bye to us. We eventually laughed it off. We took the taxi back to the hotel because we thought that there wouldn't be any point in going to the Onsen if we ended up being all sweaty again on the way back. Taxis are really expensive. Entrance fee itself is 700円 (~$10).

When we got back most of the others decided they wanted to buy wine. The wine apparently was fairly cheap for the size that they gave. Me and my other friend were the only ones who didn't partake in drinking the wine. We all did chill in the main room for a couple hours. We talked a lot about various stuff. I was already getting tired. After a couple ours we finally headed back to our rooms and went to sleep.
The next day we had breakfast. It was Japanese style again. I was expecting fish since having fish for breakfast is common, but no fish =( For breakfast we had egg, rice, miso soup, natto (most of us didn't eat it lol), salad, and yogurt. It was lighter than I expected. We also had more grapes lol

Anmitsu

After breakfast we headed back to the onsen place. The place that had the Onsen also had a hotel, art museum, winery, etc. It was a very fancy place. Oh yeah, the walk there was twice has bad then the night before since at least at night there wasn't a sun that was beating its rays on you. The walk felt a little longer. We went back there because the others wanted to do wine tasting which is apparently cheap (1100円 to try all the wine you want). Me and my friend (the non-drinkers) decided to check out the art museum. It was small and we only saw a few paintings. They were gorgeous, though! We also went to a small tea shop in the same building as the art museum. I bought a dessert called Anmitsu and my friend bought grape sherbert. The dessert I had was sooo goood. Very pricy though =/ But totally worth it especially because of the weather and after all the walking we did lol Afterwards we headed back to the main building where all the wine bottles were. We wanted to buy omiyages (souvenirs) so we looked around. I bought two grape-scented postcards. Afterwards we decided to head back on our own so we knew they were going to take a while tasting all the wine.

The walk to the station was closer. About 15minutes or so. We missed the closest train so we had to wait about 40minutes for the next one. The train took us to Ootsuki. The train from there back to Tsuru was an hour away so we decided to chill in Ootsuki for awhile. We walked around looking for a place to eat, but everything was expensive. We decided to go to a konbini (convenient store) and bought snacks. I bought a Niku man (meat bao). We saw the others (looks like they took the next train after us). They didn't notice us though. We got on the train back to Tsuru which arrived 20minutes early. We sat inside and eventually the others appeared. They were shocked to see us. We told them how we missed the train when we went to the station.

We got back to Tsuru and everyone headed back to their apartments. About an hour or so later we had to leave again because we had to partake in a matsuri. I will talk more about that in my next entry =) Right now it's super early (why am I even awake!?) and I'm hungry so I don't want to write about it right now XD In a couple hours I'm gonna partake in a parade for the matsuri so I'll probably update when I get back (or the next day. Depends on how tired I'll be).

Until next time!