Half Day (Day 13)

Last night I had a video call with my English class.  We talked about school life in Japan.  It was very cool to see my classmates in America, and to be able talk to them.  I woke up a little late, but was still on time for school.  School let out at about 9:45 am, so I went on what ended up being a really long bike ride with Miguel.  First it started out at school, then we ended up at a convenience store, temple, shrine, another temple, ocean, and lunch.  It totaled about 25 km and about 1:30 hours.  The first temple was up a mountain, and had a very beautiful view.

View from the mountain

Temples have a large bell

The second temple was also very nice, but I couldn't find an entrance into it.  So I only have a picture of it from the outside.  It was a very large temple on one of the back roads in Koemi.

The next shrine that I saw was called "Tachi Jinjya".  Tachi Jinjya is very famous in the area, and is very large.  There is an area to wash hands, and then there is the area to pray.  The entrance to the shrine is very grand and called a "torii".  At this shrine there is a bridge that leads to the main entrance to wash hands.  I was going to go pray, but there was a person that was walking back and forth praying for some reason, so I did not go.  I have never seen anyone do this type of ritual before, so I was a little confused.  Praying in Japan is not necessarily a religious thing, but more of a cultural thing.

Torii and hand washing station at Tachi Jinjya.
Water is coming out of a dragon to wash hands at shrines.

The bridge to enter Tachi Jinjya

After this I went to the Takata ocean to eat sandwich.  However in order to get there I had to get to the other side of the mountain.  I got lost a little bit, and ended up doing about an extra 3 miles according to my phone.  It was a very beautiful day out, and eating lunch on the tetra pods was very pleasant.  

Lying down on tetra pods

After this we went to "Hamazushi" which is a kaiten sushi restaurant for lunch.  It was very crowded because it was lunch hour, and it is a cheap way to get good food.

After this I went home, and my host mother drove me to my grandmother's house to get my passport in order to take care of some paperwork at city hall.  However my grandma had lost my passport because she had moved it from the drawer that I had put it in, so it took over 10 minutes to find it.  While I was doing that Ueda san came to the house as we were about to leave.  She was my host mother's preschool teacher.  We talked for about 25 minutes, and then we left for city hall.  It was good to see my grandmother again.  Today was a very fun and exciting day, but also a very busy one.  Tomorrow I plan to take it a little easier, and relax a little more.