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Showing posts from November, 2013

THINGS TO DO IN TSURUOKA #2-Climb Mount Gassan

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GAS-san, YAMAGATA Talking about Yamagata, people might talking about mountains. No wonder, Yama means Mountains and my guess is Yamagata is the city with mountains. Located in northern part of Japan made this place colder that any other places in Japan (except Hokkaido, of course it's the coldest). Historically, Japanese people, especially who lives in Yamagata believe that there are 3 main God in this universe and in Japan they are called ~san, like Gas-san, Haguro-san and Yudono-san. Not sure enough about why those three and why only three, pretty sure google has much more answers cause I'm not gonna talk history :p Well, the main point of some mountains in Yamagata, in this case those 3 Gods, is you climb the mountain then you will find a shrine there. Probably used to be the place for some ritual to become a God or something. Like Haguro, I found also one religious spot and, of course, shrine in Gassan is cool. Pretty awesome and wonder how people who lived before ce

THINGS TO DO IN TSURUOKA #1Surfing

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YOKOHAMA BEACH Untuk pertama kalinya sepanjang sejarah, saya mencoba olahraga selancar atau surfing. Sejak dulu sudah ingin mencoba tapi nyali saya ciut setelah melihat ombak yang tinggi dan mampu menggulung saya hidup-hidup. Iri sekali melihat kawan-kawan yang sudah jago dan berani mencoba surfing sementara saya hanya mampu menonton film Soul Surfer sambil berkhayal.  Saat saya berkunjung ke Jepang tahun 2013 untuk program pertukaran pelajar dari kampus, salah satu warga Indonesia yang sudah tinggal di Jepang puluhan tahun dan mengabdi sebagai Pendeta Gereja Katholik yang gaul mengajak saya mencoba surfing. Beliau adalah Romo Sri Waluyo. Masih muda dan sangat energik. Hobinya pun terbilang ekstrim dan sangar, yaitu snow boarding dan surfing, hobi yang mahal juga menurut saya. Suatu hari di musim gugur, beliau mengajak kami, para pecinta olahraga air untuk berjalan-jalan ke pantai dan sekaligus mencoba surfing. Saya pikir tidak mungkin karena udara sudah mulai dingin dan ombak a