Mountain Adventures

On Saturday I went hiking with a bunch of friends from church. The plan was, hike up to the Onsen which was apparently pretty famous. Play around and soak our tired muscles in the naturally heated water and then hike back down. Pretty standard right?
Well, it would have been standard if things had actually gone according to said plan. *sigh*
By taking a couple wrong turns and following a couple wrong paths we managed to not only miss the Onsen altogether but we ended up just making a big loop and ending up basically where we started, adding many miles and quite a few hours to our hike. We started out at approximately 9 and made our way out at about 4:30. How is that for a killer hike? For the beginning parts of this trip "hike" is quite an understatement. It was more like a "climb". We weren't walking uphill. We were literally climbing up the mountain through a "rock garden".









Now, I am not a big fan of really hard hikes but I love nature and I am inclined to look on the bright side of that adventure. The scenery was quite breathtaking and I actually got to see my first real wildlife when we stumbled across a family of wild boar!




























To top the day off, when we stopped at McDonald's afterward I forgot all about the adorable baby pigs when I met some adorable Japanese boys. ;) These are the first boys to be brave enough to talk to me and I definitely appreciated it. We exchanged emails and hopefully we can keep in touch.











So all in all I had a fairly bitter sweet day. There were mistakes, sore muscles, and no onsen, but there was also beautiful nature, cute animals, and cute boys. I guess it all kind of evens out.