Adventure Day

I've been out of my apartment a lot in the last few weeks, and haven't had nearly as much time as before to keep up with this. I know a lot of you consistently read this, so I want to apologize and hope I haven't lost anyone's interest. I've been busy with school, friends, and trying to stay out of my apartment. It's fun, tiring, and productive, which might be all I can really ask for. Though I've been out a lot, I haven't taken very many pictures with my digital camera, so I don't know how many I'll be able to post.
So my friends Sam and Felix invented a weekly tradition known as 冒曜日(boh-yoh-bi), which we translate to English as "Adventure Day". It is usually on Wednesday (weather permitting), and basically involves us riding our bikes to some relatively distant location. Last week was my first one, and we went up into the mountains northwest of Kyoto in search of a lake. Felix brought pancakes, we stopped at a convenience store and picked up plenty of snacks and two huge jugs of tea, and the three of us, along with my friend Shinjo, headed up the treacherous hills into the unknown to find a lake and have a picnic. After two hours of riding up the hills and around the mountains we were dead tired, and decided to just make camp next to a river we found. We endured the bugs and our own wet feet, and enjoyed the calming atmosphere of the river, the rocks, communal eating, and not riding our uphill anymore. I decided not to bring my digital camera that day, but did have my film camera, and managed to get a few good shots of people. I think the best one was of Sam sitting on a rock, drinking out of a big jug of tea, and also holding a plate of rice and Japanese-style fried chicken (kara-age).
As I mentioned above, biking up the hills really wore us out. But naturally, those same hills provided us with a very smooth and speedy ride back down. My slow bike couldn't keep up with everyone else, but that just meant that I got to enjoy the thousands of green trees whizzing by me for a little bit longer than everyone else.
We plan to better prepare the next time we head up there in search of the lake, on another Adventure Day. We have a different destination this week: the Gekkeiken Sake Brewery/Museum, all the way down in southern Kyoto, in Fushimi (recall the VERY many red gates). I look forward to the flat ride across the city, especially since most of it will be parts of the city I've never seen.
I also have the motivation to make everyday a mini-Adventure Day for myself. Nothing too far, but just exploring a part of the city I haven't seen yet. Sam and Felix have been here for eight months already, so they've seen a lot more than me, naturally. In addition, just going off on my own and deciding where/when/how etc. is generally a lot more fun.