Gujo Part 3

When we woke up the next morning the girls all packed their things and we beat the boys downstairs, the lady at the Hostel let us keep our things in the closet while we ventured during the day. We went back to the river bank and we ate breakfast there. It was so relaxing, the weather was amazingly pretty and it was just stunning. I was really happy and at ease, which so was what I needed. I even let Raine listen to Summer by Joe Hisashi and he agreed it was a good song. I waded into the river and found tons of pottery and ceramic shards. If I clean them, I am sure it would make some cute jewelry. (Me being a jewelry nerd what can I say?)

Looks like a dream

Breakfast!!!

Afterwards we kinda snacked here and there walked around did some shopping. Did I mention how amazingly pretty Gujo was, how when you walk the streets you can hear and see the water rush by. It is so inspiring. I loved it. We went to a place where there were tons of koi that you could feed, there were so many! And then there was more places to see the river. It was so stunning. The afternoon kept marching on until it was time for the biggest challenge I had to encounter in Japan as of yet. (Physically that is) Climbing the mountain...

Tis a Koi

I know I touched on it in the last post but like I was a bit terrified. My legs have caused me so much trouble and to be honest I am sorta afraid that I will re-aggravate them by overexerting myself. Going to the castle the night before was something that made me feel horrible. As if I was majorly out of shape and just unfit for anything physical. But everyone was climbing the mountain... I wanted to be at the top, Axel said it wouldn't be too bad. So.... It probably wouldn't be right?

Oooooooh boy.

Well first it began alright, I was sorta towards the end of the group cause I walked slowly and was snapping pictures. It was so pretty, the sunlight, the greenery. But I slowly started to fall more and more back.... finally they would get to places like a waterfall and we chilled for a bit. But we continued to climb, and it was pretty steep. The once wide grass covered path was turning more rocky and thinner. Sometimes it was no wider than a foot or two, and the drop was pretty steep. I was carrying my messenger bag/pursethingy that I always have on me, and food and water since they were all like lets eat at the top of the mountain. There was nothing else left to do but to keep climbing, I will admit it burned a lot. I would occasionally have to take breaks. Tero and most of the other Ryuugakusei were able to keep up a good pace soon I was left behind, Michael E. and Minaye usually were around the same area I was, but a lot of times I was climbing on my own. I would slip, or trip. Never anything that made me think I was going to fall off the mountain, but I did wonder what would happen then. During the breaks I took I would often look out, marvel how far I made it steeling my determination to make it to the top even if I had to drag myself there. Finally after walking up probably the most dangerous trail I've attempted I made it to the top, I wasn't the last one either which was nice. But my legs were killing me. So I sat down and stretched them out, it was hot... I was sweaty. All the guys had their shirts off trying to cool down. And I ate my lunch.

UP THE MOUNTAIN!

It made me feel so fantastic, I made it to the top! On my own! That feeling was incredible.

What a view

You can see the Gujo Castle from here

We all talked here and there, gazing off occasionally admiring the view. Sometimes we could hear thunder. Usually back home in America I was pretty ok at telling the weather. Usually being able to look at a radar and know the details of the storm or look at the clouds and tell how long we have until a storm hits.

In Japan I have yet to find a decent radar like the ones NOAA has... I bet it is somewhere I just don't know where. Also I dunno why but I suck at time predictions in Japan when it comes to storms. Ah well...

Some of the students continued up ahead to check out another post but I was still relaxing and I was fine with that however they saw a boar which is kinda cool. It was then we discovered that Axel and Tero had found a somewhat abandoned "village" and that we could check it out. It was supposedly a bit creepy. What none of us knew was that there was no trail. So we began descending the mountain not on a trail. There were many trees to cling to, the ground was soft and rocky and extremely steep.  Unlike some people I didn't have a walking stick. And I did slip once almost falling until I grabbed onto a tree. This was apparently a common occurrence. (I still have marks on the palm of my hand where I grabbed onto a tree only to get stabbed by something probably splinters despite this happening over two weekends ago)

Sometimes we had to slid down, Minaye and I were the ones straggling behind a bit so Axel and Raine stopped and checked up on us. I'm glad too, they made the navigation down easier. Especially Raine who would sometimes offer his arm for me to hold on to in order to stabilize myself. 

Doesn't look it, but scary

We finally made it and it wasn't so much a village as much as a couple abandoned houses here and there, ruins similar to what you'd see in North Carolina, the ground strewn with debris, glass, ceramics. At this point and rather lamely might I add my camera died. As we decended further it became less precarious and more strange, large amount of rocks and shacks abandoned... it was strange. We saw 2 snakes, one coiled and one climbing a tree. We came to a cleaing with a large hole in the ground. There was a deer skeleton and I have one of the teeth from the said deer. (I know creepy but still)

We descended more and one of the more spooky things we saw was there, a large hole with rocks near the bottom, beyond the rocks was darkness, it was roped off and there was plastic from a flower bouquet on the ground, the flowers having long since decayed. I can only imagine what happened there...

Final updates on Gujo tomorrow morning (I am super tired!)