Thursday, January 22, 2015

Otaru

As most of you know, I went on a trip to Asia at the beginning of the year. Why not share some of it? The first port in Japan that we went to was Otaru. The first thing we did there was go to Mount Tengu, which had amazing views of some of the city and the coast. Mount Tengu is also a ski slope so there are gondolas there to use. In a little five foot by eight foot car about twenty people were squished together, and it smelled like feet. The smell was horrible, so for the five to ten minute ride I tried to focus on the people shrinking in the distance, and trees on the mountain flying by. There were quite a few buildings in Otaru, but they were all surrounded by hills layered with lush green trees. On the edge city was the ocean which seemed more to touch the earth rather than connect with the shore. Seconds felt like hours trapped in the over heated gondola, but eventually it came to a stop and the passengers just seemed to flow out. Finally I could take a deep breath in, and feel the warm air in my lungs rather than people air. Air always seems to be different when you are squished with a bunch of random people, I guess its just people air. We walked down the hallway and through the doors and the first thing I saw was....a movie scene. It really could have been out of a movie with the forest all around except for one big rock that sat in the distance. You could see that the weather had worn it down, but there were three characters carved into the stone that still remained. It was a pretty small area; there was a trail that weaved in and out and between the trees, and you could go to the edge of the mountain and see the city and the shore. You know that feeling when you are in a quiet and special place, and everything seems to stop? Everything just kept on going. The people hundreds of feet beneath me hurried down the street, people got on and off the bus to hurry to somewhere else. Even there I was just pausing as I hurried around town, around the world even. Ok I was a little freaked out about how deep my thoughts were at the time, so I hurried back towards the gondola and took one last deep breath in before stepping the metal box.

3 comments:

  1. Did you go skiing? That's awesome!

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  2. Sounds like a great trip! Awesome pictures too.

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  3. I like hearing all of the stories from your trip. I also liked the Kit Kats

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