G6 Residential Trip: Gunma/Tochigi
Grade 6 learners went to Gunma/Tochigi. They visited Tomioka Silk Factory, the World Heritage, a copper mine Ashio Dozan, and also the Nikko area. Toshogu, Chuzenji-Lake, Kegon-Water falls, and hiking the Shirane Mountain were also part of their scheduled trip activities.
Day 1
Day 2
Our day started early with a delicious breakfast and a long hike to several amazing waterfalls in the forest around our hotel. The hike was pretty exciting as it rained the night before and the paths were muddy, there was lots of slipping and sliding as we went. After a quick break at the hotel we then had a fantastic BBQ lunch which we cooked ourselves followed by a well deserved ice cream. We also had the chance to ride horses and feed pigs, sheep, ponies, and rabbits at Ozasa Ranch. Our last activity for the day was a trip to the amazing Toshogu Shrine where we compared and contrasted Shinto and Buddhist architecture and learned about acoustics at the roaring dragon temple. We are now about to sit down to dinner which will be followed by a few games of volleyball and a nice soak at the onsen!
Day 3
This morning we were up early and on the bus to Mt.Shirane. Once there we had the chance to see a beautiful waterfall before taking the ropeway up the mountain. Once at the top we began our hike, the weather was freezing and it even snowed a little, but that didn’t stop us and we made it up several hundred meters to beyond the tree line. After our very tiring hike we had a delicious bento lunch and then caught the ropeway down again so that we could begin a zipline adventure which was a lot of fun and much more challenging than the one we did on leadership camp earlier in the year. Our final activity for the day was back at our hotel after dinner when we walked down to the hotel campsite to see the full moon and have a bonfire before heading up and to bed!
Day 4
Today was our last full day here in Nikko and it had a great start with a trip to Kegon Waterfall, the tallest waterfall in Japan. Once there we viewed it from up top and then took a 100m tall elevator through the bedrock to the bottom. After that we had a short walk to the ferry terminal and onto a ferry cruise across Lake Chuzenji. After the stunning cruise we disembarked and made our way to a rather smelly hot spring and then onto Senjo Gahara for a long walk across the marshland. After a bus ride back to the hotel we had dinner and then had a great volleyball session in the gym. We are really improving our rotation and are now playing full games!