Sunday, October 20
Following what seems to have become the tendency, when someone makes a plan, it usually ends up involving at least one other person, if not a whole group of people. I suppose that’s how things work when you live in a community setting such as a dormitory. Such is to my liking anyway as I am and always have been someone who thrives upon being social and putting themselves in social settings. So on this day, when Felix was out at a bonsai festival all day and Thomas comes up to me and asks if I might have some motivation to do something, I suggest we climb Mt. Yashima, our backyard mountain. We set a timetable and begin our solitary preparation for departure. But, as expected, word spread of our impending departure and soon enough, we had three other willing participants in our hike, making our group a group of five.
Around the agreed upon time, the group began to congregate on the 1st floor by the door. First was me, then Thomas, and then the finely dressed females who looked as if they were prepared to go to the mall to shop or to go for a leisurely stroll through the park, or something of that nature. I figured that maybe some pictures from the last climb would convince them to change, but they insisted on maintaining their current attire… Who am I to argue? So off we went! After we reached the trail however, we crossed paths with a snake, which sent one of the girls literally running back to the dorm unfortunately. At that point it was just myself, Thomas, Nara, and Bella. This time we took the left fork in the trail. I had already taken the one on the right and knew it was difficult, so this time I figured we’d try the other one. The gamble paid off and this is what we found…
Dan In Japan 