Sunday exploring~

Woke up with a lot itchy bites today. I guess I didn't escape the bugs last night at the BBQ! My school librarian had offered to take me to Haruna Shrine and some other spots today! Woke up at 9:00am, and got ready for 10:00am departure. She came to pick me up and her car is so cute – a lovely sky blue.

First we headed to Haruna Shrine! Turns out our bus tour group did make it all the way to Haruna Shrine last time, I must have misunderstood something the tour guides said. There were a LOT of people today! It’s probably because it’s a Sunday, but my librarian was also super surprised at the amount of people. The cars were literally lining all the way down the slope in an effort to find parking. At the shrine the people were even lining up to do the greetings! She was just super surprised, because even though she visited on weekends in the past, there were never this many crowds. Her last visit was 2 years ago though, so that probably explains the change! It’s still not as crowded as the temples/shrines in Kyoto though, which I’m very thankful for.

After the shrine, we went to have lunch at a very delicious soba place. This restaurant’s soba was truly delicious – the texture was so fresh and chewy and not hard at all. Possibly the best soba I’ve eaten to date! We got the soba and tempura vegetables set. She couldn't finish all her tempura so I helped out! After that we drove to Lake Haruna to enjoy it a bit more. She kindly drove me a full lap around the lake since we weren’t able to do that at the bus tour. Our next stop was Ikaho Onsen, and again we were able to explore so much more nooks and crannies that the bus tour didn't have time for. We walked to where the source of the onsen water comes from, and it was so cool to see the golden coloured river – though it just comes out looking like orange dirt in photos. Also walked up all the steps to Ikaho shrine, where they were preparing for next week’s festival. Rewarded ourselves with some あんみつ – fruit, red bean, jelly, sweet syrup, and ice cream. It tasted so good after the hike up the stairs and a grandma passing by commented how delicious it looked.

After that she dropped me off back at home where I waited for my small desk and vacuum cleaner from Nitori to arrive!