The Weekend: Hiking and Chill

IMG_2769_edited

IMG_2813_edited

IMG_3626_edited

IMG_2852_edited

IMG_2837_edited

IMG_2837_edited

Ahhh, weekends my favorite part of the week. These are the days where I can sleep in without worrying about being late to school or in this case catching the train. Well, I was wrong. Who knew that even on weekends Saturday most of all we still had to wake up early? Not that I’m complaining the day turned out pretty well, why you ask? I’ll tell you how my day went.

As usual, we had to wake up early in the morning in order to avoid the need to run just to catch the train. Like, hello sino o ano ka ba sa akin para habulin ko diba? (Translation: who or what are you to me that I need to run after you?). Nevertheless, we went through our morning routine, but this time our destination was Sannomiya, that was only two stations away from Kobe. When we got off the station with only a single buddy. Turns out the other buddies weren’t informed that our expected time of arrival (ETA) at the station would be at around 8:30 AM. We waited for the other buddies for around 15-30 minutes, once they were complete our hike towards the Uroko House and Museum. In my past words, I often use the word walk to indicate that we walked towards our destination. In this article, I would now use the word hike. Hike is more appropriate since it felt like we clearly hiked this city district called Kitano-cho, which can be found at the foot of the Rokko mountain range.

The hike up isn’t as dreadful as you’d imagined it, while walking you can see various shops, most of them wedding dresses. Not only did I adore the fresh air and beauty of the surroundings, I also loved the beautiful wedding dresses that were displayed in the glass windows of the shops. Those intricate patterns carefully embedded on them, the pleasing color of the gowns, and of course the variations. Not that I wanted to get married, silly! But they were just too eye-catching to go unnoticed. If we haven’t passed by those shops, I could just imagine the dread we’d be experiencing. Even our teachers had to come to a stop thrice just to catch their breath, I guess even they didn’t expect that we would be hiking. After a while, we came to a halt, and what lied ahead of us was this steep road that looked never-ending, in my mind I kept thinking, “Are we seriously going to have to hike this road all the way up?”. As if God had heard my question, unfortunately we had to, truth be told we only had to walk 150 meters to get to our destination, in any straight path it would only take us 5-10 minutes, but since it was a steep hike, it took us about 15-30 minutes, this included at least 5 stops with 5 minute intervals.

When we got to our destination, all of us literally cheered. If you think walking and running 1.8 kilometers was bad, I dare you to try this. Now, initially, we thought that it was the end for us and we could see the attraction that the place had to offer, we were wrong! Turns out, we just walked all the way up to buy tickets and we had to go down once again to get to the house and museum itself. Not that I’m complaining though, the hike was good workout. Finally, we got to our destination and it didn’t disappoint I tell you. The house wasn’t that big, but the architectural and landscape design is what made it beautiful. Of course we took some pictures here and there.

Before you enter the house there’s this small cafe, I visited the cafe after looking around the house. Now if you read romance novels like I do, cafes are one of the most common settings where you would meet someone and fall in love. Well, I did meet someone, an unexpected friend.

This friend that I met is really nice and from that moment we started talking to each other until the day had ended. Ne (this is a gender-neutral pronoun) ended up being my friend and I’s guide after our teachers had told us that we can spend the day with our buddies. My friend and I’s buddies couldn’t come, so ne ended up as our buddy, in a way. As it turns out, ne was a year older than us, in terms of grade level. Ne came along that day just so ne could meet the new batch of exchange students, which was us.

Overall, the day turned out better than what I expected, even though I didn’t sleep in as what I initially planned to do. We got to visit this small shop that sells music boxes and I couldn’t help myself so I bought two— one for our home and the other one for my cousin. When the day came to an end, although I felt exhausted from all the hiking we just did I also felt happy, since I got to meet a new friend. That night, our teachers made us plan what we were to do the following day.

The following day, we had a more relaxed schedule as it was solely devoted to going to Osaka castle and shopping with our buddies. Same as usual my buddy didn’t come, so did ne as ne had a part time job that day. The day was fine, however we didn’t pursue Osaka castle anymore as it was late and majority wanted to go around Osaka and Shinsaibashi instead. I guess to simply put Sunday into simple terms it was a chill day for all of us. It’s not everyday that we get the chance to just roam around, go window shopping, and just talk and relax for the rest of the day. It was definitely one chill and slow-paced day.

Once we got back to the hotel, this sudden realization that we only had two days left had hit me. I came into terms with myself that I had to make the remaining two days count. With that, I slept with firm resolve in making whatever time we had left count.