Kyodai Days: 圭子と菅浦の旅行

School finally finished on Monday with my last Japanese exam. To start my summer vacation off I had plans on Tuesday to go with Keiko up to her grandfather's hometown where he also served as the priest of a temple. One of the main attractions is that you can swim in the Lake Biwa, but prior to going it had been raining a ton so we were a bit worried about the weather. Fortunately for us Tuesday marked the end of the rain and it was a gorgeous day so I headed to Hikone for 12:30 and from there we went the rest of the way up to the small (and I mean small) village of Sugaura.

The first day we just did a fair bit of swimming. Keiko said before going that she didn't know how to swim so I was planning on teacher her only to my surprise to find out she can swim quite well. The water was a pretty decent temperature. Not really hot, but not so cold that it made your body cold. Perfect for such a hot day. After some nice swimming we headed to the hotel for dinner. At Japanese style hotels the food is always great. After dinner and nice bath to get the freshwater smell off as well as relax our bodies we headed to bed.

The next day after breakfast we headed over to the temple where Keiko's grandfather was the priest. Unlike any temples I had been to before this was more like a house than a temple. The current priest doesn't like there so we needed to get the keys from someone in order to get in. I doesn't seem like it gets many visitors, but it was still a pretty cool place. From the temple you could open a big window and get a nice view of the town and the lake as well as a nice summer breeze. It was very peaceful. This was followed by some more swimming and one final bath before heading back to Hikone.

A bit of a sunburn, some nice lake swimming, crazy ass massive bugs, and a bunch of great memories; all in all a fantastic start to summer vacation. Sugaura is a beautiful little village. Even though I had never been there before I had a strong nostalgic feeling as it seems like so many old style villages that you see in old Japanese movies. Tucked into the mountains right on the water with only 3 roads in the whole town. Even though we were relatively close to much bigger cities like Hikone and Maibara it felt to me as if I was in a completely different place and time.