At the Kumagaya train station, I met Masumi, who is one of my ex-students at that school. She's currently living with her parents while she is looking for a job. We also met my friend Adam, who I met as a co-worker at the same school. The special occasion besides our reunion was the Kumagaya uchiwa matsuri, which is the city's special summer festival with the theme of the hand-held paper fan.
On our way to see the main event, we stopped at various street vendors to eat some festival food. Adam and I got Yokosuka takoyaki, which is a special kind of battered octopus ball in that each ball also contained a quail's egg. It was definitely more filling than your average takoyaki.
As the sun was setting we came to the main event, the drum competition. Many of the floats in the videos below were going up and down the many streets around this area of Kumagaya. Finally they all ended up in the same location to compete for the best drumming. Please enjoy the 1 minute video below:
After that we wanted to find a quieter place to sit and talk. We found a coffee shop, but it was closing in 10 minutes. So were left without ideas and spent about an hour wandering around and finally standing in the train station talking about old times and old friends. Masumi didn't want to talk about the present time because it was too depressing.
So Adam and I took the shinkansen to return to Urasa and the International University of Japan. We wanted to talk about a lot of things when we got back, but it was midnight and I needed my sleep. The next morning we got on our bicycles and rode to the Hakkai-san shrine, temple, and lake. I knew there were a few trails around the lake, so we took them but they were quite short and disappointing.
Most mountain hikes on sacred mountains like Hakkai-san start at temples, so we went there and asked directions. We found two different trails. The first one took us to a sacred area where we found the tombs of several kami or gods. That area was quite mystical and beautiful as it was surrounded by lush greenery, waterfalls, and moss covered rocks.
The second trail took us up the mountain, but it wasn't well trodden. The plants and grass on the trail were knee high, which worried me because I've already spotted 3 venomous mamushi snakes, and I didn't want to get bitten, especially in such an isolating trail. I headed back down, but Adam followed me about 5 minutes later as the trail got even more difficult to follow.
We ran into a monk who directed us back to the first trail, but we tried to explain to him that we already went there. Our unsuccessful communication brought out a younger monk who explained in his best English that the trail up Hakkai-san was quite treacherous for the first 3 hours, and that it's not uncommon for people to die on it. We were in no way prepared for such a hike. On the upside, he gave us a discounted ticket for the rope-way which gets you past the 3 hours of poor hiking conditions in 15 minutes.
Adam and I took a fast downhill ride towards IUJ, but we stopped at a watermelon shop on the way. Urasa is famous for it's yairo watermelon, which official comes into season today, July 25th. We got to my dorm, and chowed down on half of it while we watched YouTube videos, including Conan O'Brien's commencement speech at Dartmouth, where Adam read poetry as the Robert Frost poet of the year about 1 week less than a year ago.
The second half of our Saturday was a 20-minute bike ride to Urasa station, a 45-minute local train ride from Urasa to the bigger city of Nagaoka, and a 10-minute bus ride to the Apita mall where we would eventually watch the final installment of Harry Potter films. We had about 2 hours before the movie started, so we ate lunch and met up with two of my colleagues at IUJ. Later, we bumped into about 10 of our students who watched the previous showing of the same film.
We watched Harry Potter: The End, and got a ride back to Urasa with my colleagues. Before they dropped us off to get our bikes from the station, we stopped for a late dinner at the local Italian restaurant and had pasta and pizza. The service there was fantastic, and the food was average. So we biked back until it was too dark to see where we were going, and walked our bikes back to the university. By then, it was nearly 11pm, so we went to bed.
Sunday's plan was for Adam to leave early in the morning, so I could do all my grading for this week and do some research. He planned to bike to the hiking trail at the Mizunashi Gorge, and about 30-45 minutes later he came back with a bruised and bloody face. He had a terrible bike accident as he was making a fast descent on a gravel path with a turn and too much pressure on the front brakes. He needed medical attention. My home has no first aid kit, and I discovered just then that I had no phone service. Adam let me use his cellphone to call my supervisors, and they helped us get him to the local hospital.
After about 3 hours, he was cleaned up, stitched up, and thoroughly examined with a CT scanner and x-rays. The diagnosis was no internal injuries, but he may have scarring on his nose, which bore the brunt of his fall. As we were checking out, his wife arrived from Ageo to help him get changed into clean clothes and to get back home. By 3pm, our adventures ended for the better.
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