Onuma, and Related Nonsense

This weekend we went on the HIF overnight to Onuma Quasi-National Park (no, I'm not really sure what that means). It was a really short trip (only about 3 hours at the park) but I was able to walk around and take some pictures. A bit heavy on the mosquitoes, though.
The best part of the trip by far, though, was the Greenpia Hotel that HIF put us up at, which was actually really nice. We slept four to a room, which was much better than it might sound, because they were real, tatami-style rooms, with futons instead of beds (see pic below). There were some hiking trails around the hotel (the sign read "Closed for Bears") and something called the sports slider, but inside the hotel was bowling, karaoke, and...an onsen! It was my first real Japanese hot springs experience, and I will definitely go again. The only complaint is that the water was *really* hot, to the point where I could only stay all the way in for a few minutes at a time. The hotel also gave us yukatas for after, which everybody had a lot of fun wearing around.







Next, some more pictures:There was this excercise/obstacle course outside the hotel, with lots of funny instruction signs (whether you can read Japanese or not). I'm not sure how i feel about this one...

We saw a bunch of tourists at Onuma riding around on these weird, connected bicycles. They seemed to be having a lot of fun, though.
...And finally (below) hanging out on Friday night with some Japanese students from the ロシア大学, as well as a few fellow Yalies and HIF-ers.