Sunday is considered one of our "free" days. We were picked up around 10:00 by our guides for the day- last years's GSE Team to South Dakota, and several other past GSE members to other Rotary Districts. We started out at the100 yen store for some shopping. The 100 yen store is comparable to America's Dollar stores. We found plenty of items to bring home. We bought a variey of goods including chopsticks, paper goods, food, and socks. McDonald's was next on our agenda. Let me tell you something...we all missed the goodness of American fast food. My double cheeseburger was delicious!
After lunch we drove about 30 minutes more until we got to Mt. Tsukuba. We started out on the southern face where the Tsukuba-san-jinja shrine stands. After wandering through the shrine buildings we found the inclined railway to make our way to the peak of the 2,877 foot non-volclanic mountain. Mt. Tsukuba is famous for it's twin peaks that are said to be male and female. Legend has it that a deity came down from the heavens and asked two mountains for a place to stay the night. Mt Fuji refused and Mt. Tsukuba accepted. Mt. Fuji is said to be cold and barren while Mt. Tsukuba remains full of vegetation because it welcomed its guest graciously. We hiked from one peak to the other and took in the views of the area farmland and cities. It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed the hike. We made our decent on an aerial tram.
The rest of the afternoon was spent at a local mall where we had the assistance of our hosts. We then had a nice meal at an Italian restaurant where we ate pizza and pasta. We finished our evening out iwith laundry at a local coin laundry. We were all glad that we had clean clothes once more.
