Mount Chokai Bus Trip 14th July

On the 14th of July, I embarked on a bus trip that brought me to certain extremely interesting sightseeing spots in Akita. Firstly, we headed for Kanmanji Temple, which was an 75minutes away from AIU. We spent an hour there walking about and photographing the beautiful temple, gravestones and flora that was abundant there. After which, we headed for the Kisakata Roadside Station for lunch, in the form of our prepacked bento boxes. During this two hour lunch break, we were allowed to roam around, and some even went for the onsen that was on the upper floor of the reststop building. As the reststop overlooks the sea, it was a grand sight to behold. The seagulls flew around us while the waves crashed below us. It was really photography nirvana for me! I finally got to take time-lapse rocky beach photos which can be seen below. The onsen overlooks the coast also but as the lounging area is between the onsen and the sea, if one stands up near the window in the onsen, everyone in the lounging area can see him/her clearly. After lunch, we headed for Mount Chokai. It is the highest mountain in Akita and the summit is way above the clouds. It took the bus 30minutes just to navigate up the mountain and we were surrounded by thick fog when we were up there. It was really amazing as you can barely see beyond 7-8m in front of yourself. It felt like those zombie apocalypse games/movies where the fog is so thick and you never knew when a zombie would dash out at you! After Mount Chokai, we proceeded to a seaside attraction known as 16 Arhats. It basically consists of 16 carvings of buddha into a small section of rocks and each carving was about human sized. After some tom-foolery and monkeying, we headed back to AIU. On the way back to AIU, we made a rest stop at the Iwaki Roadside Station, which overlooks a beautiful beach. I immediately headed towards the waters with my DSLR and my ipod. It was really so relaxing to walk along the edge of the water listening to classical music, enjoying the beautiful creations of God. As the sun was setting, I managed to capture a couple of beautiful sunset photographs. Soon, we were back in school at 6:30pm!