Five Colored Lakes (Goshikinuma) and Samurai School

Wow! What a day. We took a bus to Goshikinuma and went on a hike to see the various colored lakes. The area is a Japan National Park and is about an hour out of Kitakata.

Here is the group at the start of the hike. In addition to Noriko-san and Sato-san, we had Kene Uriu-san, Shida-san (a retired dentist on the far right), and Danny  (red shirt third from left) an Oregonian that is working teaching English in schools in Kitakata.
   
We finished the hike in about 90 minutes and then went to the Urabandai Kogen Hotel that was nearby.
  
The students went out on boats on the water.
   Lunch was an incredible Yakiniku feast. We had three huge platters of meat and three grills to cook the meat over. No group was able to finish all the meat on their platter.
After lunch some of us went in the Onsen (Japanese Bath) that was picturesque and looked out over the lake on the men’s side.

The ride back put several people to sleep.

We went to Nisshinkan, a rebuilt samurai training school.
 

One of the things we learned was Japanese archery and a few even hit the target! The school had many interesting exhibits and original texts from which the students learned.

We then went back to the Chamber of Commerce to meet our host families and return to our various homes.