So Thursday morning I woke up early. Something to do with an onsen trip that the Baroness had planned, which was something to do with some discount tickets she had obtained.
But first we had to move a bed. The bed in question was being moved from one apartment to another, quite why I'm not sure. The original intended destination changed several times en route, as the original intended recipient was rather vocal about not wanting any more furniture. Indeed, it seems he rather wanted to get rid of some of the existing stuff. Eventually it got delivered to one of housemates, and we assembled it in her room.
After lunch we visited the Baroness' family grave. I won't say anything about that specific grave (too private), but one thing I noticed about the cemetery itself. Except for minor embellishments, every gravestone was the same. Even in the afterlife there is conformity in Japan. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but it does make me sad in a way. I am used to graveyards that have a wide variety of gravestones, as if the families wanted the best they could get for their loved ones, but here it seems that preserving the symmetry of the site is more important.
After the cemetery, we did the tourist thing and went to see the Imperial graves for the Taisho and Showa emperors (and their wives). These are quite grand structures built in a traditional style. The grave itself is a simple mound of rocks, a low dome about 5 metres high and maybe 12 wide. This style is similar to some traditional graves I have seen in Korea, but much bigger. Around this is a Shinto style garden and a grand set of steps (marked no entry) leading up to it.
As we were leaving, we saw a fundamentalist Buddhist monk in the car park, who scared a couple of obasans enough that they ran to the nearest police station. Religious conflict isn't a uniquely monotheist phenomenon.
After that we went to Hinohara village. It's a semi-secret tourist destination. No hot springs, but about a dozen waterfalls within walking distance, making it a hot spot for nature lovers. Unfortunately, my fear of heights once more got in the way, as the paths to the falls have steep drops of one side and no railings in too many places.
So instead of the waterfall, I and another friend got chatting to this Japanese cafe owner. It turned out that the cafe was just a hobby, and his real job is training dogs for roles in television and movies. His current pet, a beagle, has been trained to sing (well, howl musically at least) when a clock chimes.
Once more I got to go to an onsen. Except this time I had the company of three of my friends. As as usual when guys get together, we talked about all sorts of crap. Of course, this was aided by talking more crap while trying to find the onsen. Navigation isn't easy when it's dark and the driver has never driven on the left before.
And on the way back, we sang in the mini van. Not the usual drunken singing of students, or even the bad singing of karaoke aficionados. Instead, the standard was quite high, and the language was a mix of English, Japanese, Russian, and German lyrics. The Baroness decided that the I had a good singing voice.
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