Mino Washi Paper Factory

Didn’t expect this walking into the bathroom. Turns out these ‘toilets’ are everywhere. They hurt me knees… :)

Woke up at 4am again today, lol. But went back to sleep after a while until 6:45.  Today was our first day with the group and traveling. We traveled by car to the Mino Washi Paper factory. This was soooo much fun. I actually got to make paper in the traditional Japanese way!! The paper fibers in the basin felt so weird. Then with my paper I made a little Japanese Screen. It's very cute, and it cost 2,000 yen, not bad.

We ate lunch there at the museum. I tried squid.....sick, I didn’t like it. I didn't eat much of my lunch. Next we went in to the town. We went to this Museum that was basically an old traditional Japanese house. It was very cool so see and walk around in.

Paper making demo

Next we went to the Mino Washi art hall which displayed paper lanterns. They were all so amazingly made, I can't wait till I can upload the pictures on here for you all to see. They were all very expensive or I would have bought one. Then we walked around and I bought some random gifts for people back home.

We also drove down to the river to view the fisherman. They have huge (really long) fishing poles, something like 20 feet long, huge. On our way to the river we ran into a large group or elementary children. They wear Bright yellow plastic hats, it's they're uniform. They look like Construction hard hats almost. Anyways, they were soooo excited to see us.

And this is paper, werid

Once home we went out to dinner in celebration for Harura's birthday in two days. I have told them that I don't like sea food or sea weed so they've been good about meals thus far but tonight they told me I had to try a traditional Japanese meal, ;). So they ordered for me. it was huge and had a large assortment of things to try. I actually ate Raw Tuna!! sick. lol. It wasn't bad though because a soaked it in soy sauce. lol. Then I had fried vegetables, some strange noodle, raw egg pudding, rice, sweet potato, lamb, and some other stuff I’m not sure what it was.

I really enjoy my host family, we laughed a lot today and I had a blast at dinner. So far this trip has been great. There are so many things about the culture that are so new and different to me. Like driving on the right side on the car and opposite side of the rode, different from America. Or vending machines everywhere with so many strange things to buy. Or the fact that no one wears sun glasses here, and I’m strange because I do.