I got into a bus with the adults and Senoe (the high schoolers and middle schoolers traveled in seperate busses) and we headed out for the Mutsu Science Museum. The Museum is interesting because the entire thing is like a shrine to this nuclear-powered ship the Japanese once had, the N.S. Mutsu. The ship was eventually converted into a research vessel, and the museum was set up as a kind of tribute. The building is even shaped like the ship! The museum wasn't actually open (everything in Japan opens at 10:00), but they'd made special arrangements to have us there. They took us on a tour that explained all about the ship and its nuclear power, and we viewed various models of the atomic engine. The actual engine room from the ship was in the museum! (I flipped the lever to "full ahead.") We then went into this neat room filled with fun things to play with, such as optical illusions, various tricks, and even a fish tank you could crawl under! We watched a scientist freeze objects in liquid nitrogen (flowers shattered, bouncy balls didn't bounce, ceramic obtained magnetic properties (this point was shown rather amusingly by a tinfoil mouse, frozen in the nitrogen, that "floated" in circles around a metallic track.)) After a bowing goodbye, we departed for Cape Shiriya.

It was quite a long drive through the forests of the Shimokita Peninsula. As we puttered along Senoe pointed out various trivia and answered our incessant questions. After quite a while we arrived at the tip of the peninsula, where a lighthouse built in the late 1800's stood. Of course we had to go up it, all 128 steep, winding stairs to the top, but it was quite a breathtaking experience, in more ways than one. After a few pictures we trotted down the staircase and had a box lunch on the bluffs near the ocean. Entertainment consisted of one of the middle school students teaching three of the Japanese girls the Macarena. :)

After re-packing ourselves onto our respective busses (and my first experience with one of those squat toilets) we drove up yet another long, narrow, twisting road to Mt. Osore, considered one of the Three Great Holy Places of Japan.

(Just as a side note here - you'd think that way up in the mountains, they'd make the roads a little bigger, but all the roads are the same size - skinny little things not exactly built for big busses. In Mutsu, it was just the thin road, and then the houses right next to it - there was no room to park on the side, or anything. As Mrs. Mayor put it, "you could practically reach your arm out the window (of the bus) and open somebody's front door." And all along the roads are kids riding bicycles. KInd of scary! Anyway, back to Mt. Osore...)

The Buddhists believe that the souls of dead people pass through Osorezan on their way to the next life, and believe that by traveling to Osore, they can make contact with their dead ancestors. I met up with Sayuko (from the welcome party) again, and we walked down the hot, sulpher-reeking path towards the trails. Osore is all gray, gray granite and rock, and the water is yellow from the sulpher. Everything reeks of the smell of rotten eggs. As we stepped onto the twisting little trail she mentioned that the sign read "Hell Tour." How nice. It certainly looked like hell! The trails twisted through strange looking piles of rocks that had been placed by hand, to "honor" the dead. "My grandmother told me that the ghosts come out of the rocks and grab your legs," Sayuko said. "So when I was little I was afraid to come here. I kept watching the rocks, thinking no ghosts were going to grab me."

It struck me as interesting how that old side of ancient

As we made our way back down the trail, we compared sounds in Japan in America - for example, a dog goes "wau wau" in Japan and "bow wow" (or whatever) in the States. We went off on that tangent for a while, comparing everything from animal sounds to drinking sounds to kissing sounds. It was a strangely light topic in a setting of weirdness and death.

After hurrying away from Osore we drove to the Yagen Hot Springs, a very popular recreation in the area. The whole thing had been reserved for us! We walked in past nice-smelling displays of hiba wood to the Springs, which were divided into men's and women's pools. (The Japanese typically enjoy them in the nude, as we discovered, but we all wore swimsuits.) The walls of the pools had large cut-out areas facing a river about 30 feet below, and any direction you looked it was just river and forest, which was quite nice scenery. I guess the idea was to enjoy the view while you lost ten pounds sweating in the hot pools. Of course, I plunged right in. Aiee! Hot as molten lava! The water about boiled the skin off my lower body. I quickly hauled myself out of the water and onto the surrounding decorative rocks, to the smiles of the others. I'm sure you could practically see the steam rising off my body.

We sat and sweated for a while, and then some of the group went down and splashed around in the river below, which I thought was absolutely insane of them, considering it was about the exact opposite temperature of the hot pools. I went back into the lodge and bought some hiba (local nice-smelling wood) chopsticks, after a lengthy discussion about the various products with Scott and a poor Japanese man who spoke little English but tried to answer our questions. (Scott bought hiba chopsticks, soap, and bath balls.)