World Traveler: The passage of time is so strange

So it is late here and I am behind again :/ Sorry - so I will (hopefully) write about today tomorrow - and about tomorrow tomorrow) Since I am getting up early to see the gynecologist (first in, first served) I need to get to bed. However... preview:

Insect count: a GIGANTIC horsefly that I thought was a moth (it was that big)

T5B: 1) I got to go to an outdoor onsen with Limor (at Geto Onsen, and yes it's said "ghetto onsen" and it kinda was, lol). 2) I got home safely! 3) I had a pretty steady upbeat mood today. 4) Morioka was cloudy when I got in (so pedaling home wasn't as hot as it could have been). 5) Donut seemed happy to see me (we're going to say he was - because who wouldn't be!?).

I was awoken to what I thought was Limor being rude. There was suddenly light in my eyes. Then I hear Limor from the other side of me: hi! AAH! It was one of the hotel ladies. She shouted "Gomen (sorry)" through the door and left. By then it was a few minutes before my alarm was going to go off so I stayed up. Then someone came by to ask if we were eating breakfast. This was at 9h00! Apparently that's when breakfast ends. We quickly got dressed and found we had the eating area to ourselves. I'm glad they came and got us though. Breakfast was ... strange though. Even for Japan IMO. There was spaghetti (essentially macaroni salad but with spaghetti noodles) salad, natto, a VERY soft boiled egg (it was the consistency of caramel), brined cabbage, brined cucumbers, rice, miso, and salted fish. Oh and tea and water. I ate all my veggies (minus the natto), I TASTED the egg and almost threw it up, ate all my miso and rice (on which I put soy sauce), and drank all my water and tea (wheat tea). It was ... like lunch at 9 am. However, it was good. :)

After breakfast we went back and packed up. I hoofed it to the lobby to call my mum and dad over skype. Turns out ... I DIDN'T need my lappy. Grr.. but oh well. Luckily they had wi-fi. I was so excited to talk to them. Then... found out my parents weren't home. Foiled again. It was very disappointing for me, but c'est la vie, non? I have to roll with the punches. It was already sweltering so it was nice to get into the a/c'ed car and head out. This time Limor wanted to take non toll roads. It turned out to be a much longer, but gorgeous drive. We saw this lake with water so aquamarine it seemed dyed. I wish any of my pictures did Japan justice! On the way we started to pass a turn off for Geto Onsen. By this time I had missed all of church ( :c ) so when Limor asked if I minded if we stopped I said no. Well Geto Onsen was kind of WAY outta the way. It was up in the mountains. Limor was so excited to use an outdoor onsen. I felt much (justified) trepidation. The road was windy and seemed to go on forever but then we arrived. We had a halting conversation with the front desk and learned they had several onsens and only one was female only. The others were all mixed gender. There was a GIANT dead moth in the changing room and spider webs everywhere. I was a nervous wreck! The onsen was ok though. It was all done in rock and the bottom of the pools were nice because they were all rainbow colored from the minerals. The water was so hot. It was funny because when we got in, there was a woman in there already. I told her the pool was hot and moved toward the other one and she warned me away saying it was much hotter. After I had gotten seated in the boiling water I tried my fingertips in the other. 0.o It was like a people-cauldron. It was SO hot! I spent maybe 10 minutes in that boiling hot water and Limor laughed and laughed at me when I got out because I was BRIGHT red from the heat. It was ... not as refreshing as expected since it was also very hot out. We made an astonishing discovery as well. When we were getting up and out, we could see down into one of the mixed tubs and there were a bunch of naked men down there. I saw nothing, thank goodness but it sort of felt like it negated the "women only" when they could look up and see in the window! Sheesh. LOL We dried and got dressed and then Limor hung around wanting to get into one of the mixed ones. A teenage boy walked into one and that killed it for Limor. I chimed in as well, "I teach boys that age. Nope, nope, triple nope." I also told her that I like to have control over who sees my body and if I step into a mixed gender onsen I lose that control. With the ladies I feel better but I don't want strange men potentially staring at me. That site is for my husband (and maybe doctors) only! ~ And old Japanese women apparently, lol. In any case, Limor was angry because she felt like men imposed the idea of women's modesty on society and made it not ok for her to bathe with other men. ... I feel like modesty exists outside that as well (there are extremes I know, but in general..). In any case, off we went.

Soon we got to Kitakami and on the train I went (in fact Limor got me there 4 minutes before it left so luckily I didn't have to wait in the heat for long). After a couple stops I was able to get a seat and I read on the train until it got to Morioka. When I got to Morioka, I felt immensely blessed. It was completely overcast. I still arrived soaking with sweat at my place, but it could have been worse! I could have been sunburned as well. When I got home, I fed Donut, msged my bff, read the note the elders left me (aww!), showered (cold water), ate and read. I also wrote my blog that I missed the day before. And here I am a day behind again but I am catching up. Thanks for bearing with me! XOXO, A