Sunday Explorations

It’s October! So fast! Went for a nice drive in today’s lovely weather with two other ALTs. One of them had found a place in Kanramachi (甘楽町) from the JOMOJET Instagram page, so we went there. It turns out though that I had saved the exact same place too, as one of my “to go” places on Google maps!

Woke up at 9:45am, had a banana and bread for breakfast, then set off at 10:40am to pick up the two ALT friends. We then drove for 30 minutes to Kanramachi, found a parking lot (there were free parking lots everywhere here yaaaaay) and walked around the area – Obata Castle Town! There was really no one around, so it was super lovely and quiet. They had some signboards around listing the tourist-y sightseeing places, which was mainly a samurai house (which you couldn't go into, only look at and take photos of from the outside) and the main place we had wanted to go to – Rakusanen (楽山園). We walked along a river towards a rest stop first for lunch though. I had an udon lunch set which had tempura and rice as well (double carbs haha) and my friends had curry rice, and soba with tempura. After lunch we walked back along the river bank to the garden, and on the way we had some ice cream too. It was really nice and creamy but my cone had a hole in it so it leaked at the end!

The garden was really beautiful and peaceful. There were only like 2 other groups around, so it was lovely having the place (almost) to ourselves. Spent some time there taking photos and stuff before leaving at 15:30 and driving back to Takasaki. Dropped my friends back off at their homes, and then went home myself. Another day out tomorrow at some more shrines!