12th of October, is a public holiday for Japan. Sports Day. I have no idea what is it all about though. Haha. It falls on Monday this year so we had 3 consecutive days of holiday dragging from Saturday to Monday. As scheduled months ago, I participated a short program organized by the Japanese. It's a program mainly for foreign students from colleges located in Kanto region(mainly around Tokyo) fully sponsored by the Japanese government. This is a yearly program which will be held at different places every year and it goes to Gunma this time.
10/10
Depart from Oyama College at 9.20am, reached Takasaki Station, Gunma at 11.50am. D. Sheng, Kazi (Bangladesh), I and another teacher were representatives from Oyama College. We met our bunch of friends not at the meet up point, but at McD where we headed for our lunch. Haha.
Our first destination was Gunma College. We had our opening ceremony in one of the halls. Next, our journey continued with a drop-by at a daruma,tumbling doll shop(factory?) which is a famous point at Gunma Prefecture. We were each gave a palm sized of doll before we went into the shop. Next, we were 'lectured' by the sifu, owner of the shop. The place where the dolls were made is actually holly but was open for those who want to try out making those dolls. Sifu then had a brush on one of his hands and started working on the gigantic dolls placed in front of him. Everyone watched the way he painted the face of the dolls as we had to do so with ours then.
My master piece. :)
Next we had a brief walk at the festival held just a stone throw away from the hotel we stayed. It was the second time I went to Gunma and the second time I went for a festival at Gunma and both are held at the same area ! Unbelievable. Haha.
Japanese Festival.
We enjoyed our buffet dinner at one of the mini ballrooms in the hotel, followed by speech from each and everyone of us.
Kisarazu College Representatives.
Japanese programs always ends after dinner and we had our spare time together for the whole night. It surely won't be the same case as programs organized by Malaysians as they will make sure they torture you until the last minute of the day before they let you go to bed. Me and few other friends talked about it and found out maybe Japanese have more important 'business' of the day to be settled at night. That's why. Haha.
11/10
Mount Haruna. The temperature was roughly 8 celsius up there despite bright sunshine.
Ropeway.
Mountain View.
Next, we headed to one of the most famous hot spring in Japan, Kusatsu Onsen.
Hot spring. Haha.
After walking around the hot spring area, we were finally brought to our Kusatsu Onsen Resort where we spent our second night. I must say that it was a really nice resort to stay in. Clean, comfortable and most important, there is a open-air hot spring in it! Damn nice man. We enjoyed another meal at the resort as our dinner and whole night we went crapping and playing all sorts of games together with the company of one of our chinese senior, Elvin. We walked around the resort, walked to seven eleven to buy cup noodles, played 'thief and police' until 3 am. I bet he might be surprised by our batch eh siao kia-s. Haha.
12/10
Our plan was to wake up at 6.45 am and have a last bath and hot spring, but slept at 3 am the night before, everyone was late even for the breakfast. Haha. After checking out, we went to the Fukuoka silk factory. I was pretty frustrated the our tour guide as he treated us as we don't understand Japanese and repeating the same thing in English every sentences he said in Japnaese. Luckily one of the teachers stood up and explained to him. Sign. But even so, it was a boring sightseeing in the factory as I was sleepy for the whole journey(result from sleepless night).
Fukuoka Silk Factory.
Oppss. Made a mistake. Before that, we went for a sightseeing view of volcano. Too bad the top of te volcano was clouded and we got nothing. Haha.
View.
We had our lunch at one of the shops located beside Fukuoka Silk Factory and were sent back to the nearby train station as each and everyone of us waved goodbye and continued our journey back to Oyama Station.
It was a great experience throughout the 3 days 2 nights trip. Too bad such trips are just mainly for 3rd year foreign students each year. (We prayed that not too many juniors will come to our college next year. Haha) An enjoyable way to spend my 3 days holiday. =)
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