So yesterday my friend and I went to Ishiyama (a part of Otsu) early so we could explore a bit--we were meeting with a couple of other students later to get to our professor's house. I'd looked a bit the day before to find places to go to or things to do, and I found a temple nearby--Ishiyama-dera. After my friend had breakfast, we wandered for a while trying to find the temple. However, we kept going past it in the wrong directions. And then, when we were finally almost there and were seeing signs for it, we happened to see a small path going up into a small mountain/large hill and decided to follow it. It was really beautiful and we wanted to keep going, but we ran out of time and I especially didn't have the right shoes. Somehow, it seems like every time we're out and about and I'm wearing those shoes is when we happen to have to climb a mountain. -_-
So we went back to the station with full intentions of going back just for the sake of making it to the top of that mountain/hill and, after resting our aching feet for an hour or so, met up with two Chinese students and one Japanese student at the designated time, and headed to our religion's professor's house. We were going to have dinner with 2 of his Japanese students, a Chinese student and her boyfriend, and his youngest son and his son's wife.
We had a lot for dinner, starting with shabu shabu and ending with sukiyaki. Sukiyaki especially is the traditional New Year's Eve food, the long noodles supposed to be representing a long life. After everyone had eaten and drank enough beer and other things (I only had tea and maybe two sips of some French wine to be polite), our professor suggested going to karaoke. So we were at karaoke for 3 hours, and though I didn't sing, it was still fun. You could choose from songs in Japanese, Korean and English, and I think a few other languages. We got back to Hikone by probably 12:15 or so, and back to JCMU by a bit before 1 am. We were too tired and sore to go to any shrines, though we passed right by at least 2 of them on our way back from the station.
And that's what I did for New Year's--which is the biggest holiday in Japan. Today--New Year's Day--is probably the only time I've seen nearly every store closed, even Beisha (the grocery store).
On a side note, I forgot to mention that I'm actually back in the same room in the dorms that I was in at the beginning of last semester. It's been pretty quiet here, and maybe a little boring, though I'm still finding things to do, like dragging a couple of my friends to various places. There's only about 13 of us left here, out of the original 37 or so. Next semester we'll only be getting about 10 new students, I believe. I was thinking of maybe doing another homestay, but after all, I think I do want to stay in the dorms. Plus, I'd rather not have to worry about biking through the cold and snow every day, especially if it's just stormed again and the sidewalks are covered. They aren't good about clearing the sidewalks here, just to let you know. Oh, also, all 3 electives this semester are at JCMU. They probably don't want us having to bike all the way to Shiga-ken or Ken-dai through the snow. So now, with one week left before classes start again, I will start studying every day, especially kanji.
Oh, I almost forgot to post the pics from Ishiyama and New Year's Eve. So, this will be the last thing until next time!