Written by Bram & Gialesi
One group went for a hike up a mountain. This was not anything like we had done before. This became clear to us when we had to hand in a paper with the number of people in our group, our start and estimated finish time. Also, the number of Japanese hikers in full gear did not . Even though we weren’t all dressed well for the hike, with a lot of drink and eating breaks and struggling, we reached the top of the mountain. On the way, we encountered different kinds of terrain. The start consisted of mostly dirt and tree roots which functioned as stairs. After that, we had a more rocky section. We ended with a nice section of volcanic rock. At the top we had a lovely view of the clouds surrounding the mountain. To make matters worse, it also started raining when we reached the top. So, after a quick photo session, we started the slippery climb down to get from 2486m to 1200m above sea level. In total, we burned more than 4000 kcal that day. This hopefully makes up for all the good food we have eaten in the last weeks. Afterwards, we had a good night’s rest and tomorrow we will probably be sore all over.
The other group took the more lazy route! We went to see the beautiful Kegon falls followed by a boat ride on Chūzenji Lake, where we got off at the first stop to walk in the water a bit as it was quite shallow water. Walking around in the water was very calm and nice. After staying in the water for half an hour, we continued the boat trip and became very hungry and thus went for a nice ramen lunch! After that, this group split up where some went to the apartments and some of us went to an onsen to relax some more, which was an interesting experience!