weekend fun: return to the north

everything is so photogenic up here!

A few months ago, one of my oldest friends and I decided that we wanted to do a couple's trip up north this summer before C and I move. We decided to spend four days and three nights up north at a cabin and spend time exploring the area, taking advantage of the trails and lakes near the cabin. I was looking forward to it for months and the trip itself absolutely didn't disappoint! We stayed in the same area that C and I stayed in last year with his family, so it was pretty fun to show our fellow travelers the area since they had never come this far north before.

The first day was spent mostly making our way up to the cabin itself, but we stopped at a historic mansion for a tour at the halfway point. The weather was gorgeous, though it was a bit hot in the sun. We arrived too early for a tour, so we spent some time right by the lake enjoying the sunshine and the wind coming off the lake. The views were absolutely gorgeous! Eventually we made our way through the tour (which was absolutely stunning) and kept going on our way to the cabin!

weekend fun: going up north!

Things may have seemed a bit quiet around here lately and that is because I just came back from a brief trip to Northern Minnesota along Lake Superior. I was able to go with my boyfriend and his family and had an amazing time - I am always amazed by how beautiful the Midwest actually is! Needless to say, I took quite a few snapshots but culled through a majority of them and picked out my favorites (as an obvious warning, this will be a really picture-heavy post).

The cabin we stayed in was right on Lake Superior so on the first day we took a walk down to the beach and I couldn't get enough of the colors there - so pretty!

Another shot by the beach and, once again, there were so many gorgeous colors to see.

A shot from a scenic overlook on the Oberg hike.

Daisies outside the tent = a great way to wake up

Lovely beach at Grand Marais

On our last day we decided to do an impromptu hike on the Devil's Trail and although we were unexpectedly confronted with 200+ steep stairs at one point, the scenic points of the trail was well worth the hike, especially with what lay at the end of the trek: the Devil's Kettle!

The Devil's Kettle is a double waterfall that has a pretty neat mystery to it; one of the two falls leads into a deep hole and no one knows where it goes!

Not only was there plenty of hiking and touristy things to do in the five days I was there, but it turns out there's still a lot I missed! One thing I'm dying to do is go moose viewing :) I also had the chance to read by the lake, which was so relaxing! It was a wonderful trip and I was glad to see the beautiful area around Lake Superior - definitely keeping this area on my "places to revisit" list. 

weekend fun: natsume soseki 夏目漱石 conference

A few weeks ago a friend and I made a split decision to attend a conference on Natsume Soseki - we both wanted to go really badly but for some reason the bus/train tickets for that particular weekend were so expensive! There was no way I was paying $80 for a bus ride that was only 4 hours. However, my boyfriend saw how disappointed I was that I couldn't go so he offered to pick my friend and I up and drive us back with him to the conference (which was luckily being held where he is studying). So thankful for such a sweet boyfriend! Entirely because of that single act of sweetness, my friend and I could attend the conference.

Alan Tansman of UC Berkley in the corner!

The conference itself was only over a single weekend but they managed to pack in so many panels during that time. It was a great learning experience because a lot of the big names in Japan studies were present, but also because there were a few panels that included graduate students. It was interesting to see how they structured their talks and to see what they are researching. The key themes over this weekend was a huge focus on 「心」(Kokoro) - which I wasn't too surprised about - but also on his more journalistic writing, especially 「満韓ところどころ」（Mankan tokorodokoro). I wasn't expecting there to be as much of a focus on the second piece but I believe that much of Japanese literature studies (focusing around the time of Soseki and through WWII) have to acknowledge Manchuria/Manchyuko, so a lot of scholarship is being done on that.

Another highlight of the conference was having Yoko Tawada (多和田葉子) as one of the keynote speakers - her talk was titled「漱石ってどんな石？自分ではないものになる方法」and it was an amazing talk. She is such a talented speaker and although I think some of her fiction writing is a little too surreal for me, I love her poetry. So glad I was able to hear her speak! Another speaker-highlight was of course seeing one of my very own professors present a paper and I continue to be amazed at how amazingly intelligent some people are in this world.

Otherwise, I was able to spend quite a bit of time with my friend and we had a few great heart-to-hearts :) I'm so glad I could attend the conference, even though I wasn't able to spend much time with my boyfriend since he was busy finishing up his work for graduation (which happened a few days ago!) and I was at the conference.