Mino is the town where Yukiko lives while she studies in Osaka. It’s on the outskirts of Osaka basically. As you walk along the sidewalk, you’ll pass by random rice fields like this… that come right up to the sidewalk. It’s so Asian, I love it.

On Sunday, we took a rest from all our activities, and spent most of the day sleeping and relaxing. Partly because our previous few days that were filled with excitement wiped me out, and partly because I woke up at 3am to watch the US vs. Ghana World Cup Game (which was a disappointment).  But it was refreshing. We slept til noon and then watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants – which I’d never seen. Such a good movie! After all our relaxing, we decided to have Korean/Japanese bar-b-que for dinner!

They bring you raw meats and you cook it yourself at your table. We definitely ordered cow tongue. It’s Yukiko’s favorite. It actually wasn’t bad at all… just tasted like tough meat, but there’s just always that mental factor.

Sometime else important to know about the town of Mino is that it’s famous for it’s waterfall. It’s one of those tourist places that isn’t important enough to be known by foreigners, but cool enough for Japanese tourists from other parts of the country to come visit when they’re in the area… especially during the fall when the leaves are changing colors. So, anyway, Yukiko and I decided to walk up to it today. And I’m so glad we did.

Along the way, we saw some great wildlife, and met some really nice Japanese people. Here’s a picture of a snail we saw along the way. We also saw a lot of signs regarding monkeys. “Watch out for monkeys” “Don’t feed the monkeys” “Help keep the monkeys in their natural habitat”… Sadly, I didn’t actually see any monkeys, but it was exciting that they were hanging out in the same ‘forest’ as I was!

A little further along the way, a man excitedly stopped us and said something to Yukiko in Japanese and kept looking at me and then pointing to places. She translated. A ‘rare creature’ had been spotted a little ways down the river on the rocks, and he was suggesting that she try and show me this creature. As we looked, I had a hard time finding it, because I didn’t know what kind of ‘rare creature’ we were looking for. Big? Small? Bright? Dull? Dead? Alive? Dangerous? Flying? Crawling? Ha. But we did find it… One lady came up, and actually knew what it was called in english. So that was awesome. A Salamander. And they actually are pretty rare these days. So that was really cool that we saw one. It was HUGE. The one we saw was at least 2 feet long. I googled it, and it’s actually a Japanese Giant Salamander. It was funny too, because at least 3 or 4 other people stopped us later to make sure we had seen it.

I also really enjoyed being the only ‘white’ person on the mountain. I loved the waterfall because I shared bows with a lot of nice Japanese.

So, after the waterfall, we bought a Japanese lunchable type lunch and brought it back to Yukiko’s dorm (more like a small apartment). She went to class (Japanese universities have different semesters than we do), and I took a nap and relaxed. For dinner, I met her at the train station where her university is, and we had Indian food for dinner. Delicious! Curry and naan! Yum! Then, we got some Sake. How can you go to Japan without trying Sake? It was good of course and had a nice smooth flavor. Afterwards, we did Japanese karaoke! You pay a certain amount per 30minutes. And you get a room with a tv and a song database and microphones. And you sing away… that is until your time is up. Here’s my favorite part. When you only have 10 minutes left, they call you on this little phone in the room to let you know… and also ask if you’d like to extend your time… We had planned for an hour… But we ended up staying for 2. Because it was really fun singing in a tiny room, enjoying tea and sake, with only yourselves, and no one else around to laugh at how horrible you sound. And when they offer you the chance to buy an extra 30 minutes over that phone… it’s hard to turn down. haha. So, anywayyy.

There you have it. Oh, and for breakfast today, I ate a green tea donut! So weird, but really cool!