Stoll

The weather today is just cool enough, with just the right amount of sun and wind, that staying inside is just impossible.

After a morning spent attempting to work, and failing, I set off for a stroll in the sun. I went up to the little park near the house that I had visited on my first day in Japan. Then off down the northern side of the hill, towards Kanazawa-hakkei.

There is a small little valley there, between 2 steep hills, with a small canal running down the middle. Following the canal is a small little walkway with some extremely pretty houses, all covered in flowers. At the top of the next hill you get some nice views of Oppama.

Then off down the hill and up the next, which is much more countryside-ish. And as it doesn't feel like the city anymore I took the oportunity to do some wildlife viewing stops.

With at the menu a couple nice catterpilars, and a most amusing grey squirrel. I must have spent nearly 10 minutes watching him, as he picked the chestnuts out of the husks and threw the finished fruit out of the tree. He wasn't the least concerned about me, and I was quite happy that someone had left a convenient staircase right next to the chesnut tree. It was a bit unfortunate, however, that someone had also left a whole battalion of mosquitoes there.... And it was the continued presence of those mosquitoes, and not the disappearance of the squirrel that caused me to move on.

On the other side of that hill you get back onto the flat ground, but there are still a lot of very nice gardens here. Then you cross the train tracks and you're back on the main road to Kanazawa-hakkei. I did not care to attempt another mosquito-infested forest, so went off to the station. Where I did my civil duty by helping an american couple figure out which train they wanted to take.

A very nice stroll, on a perfect Saturday. I can't wait till the leaves start really turning colour though!

Homestay

My first small japanese class came with a homestay program, which turned out to be a wonderful experience. I had some doubts about this as first, as I am very shy.

The host family were very fun and they have a cute little cocker spaniel. I spent my afternoons learning about food, mostly, as the host mother loves to cook. My homework will be to have to try all of these recipes out for myself! We even went to an orchard to pick japanese pears. The pears look like brown apples, are the size of a small grapefruit and have very firm and sweet flesh. Very very tasty.

When not eating we spent a lot of time in Tokyo, going window shopping in all the chic areas. But also went to a very nice aquarium near their house in Chiba.

I was also very happy with the japanese classes (I will be continuing in the Yokohama branch of the same school). So all in all it was a wonderful experience that ended all too soon.

Nikko National Park

The second part of our Nikko trip took us up into the monutains behind Nikko. It is just over an hour and a half to the last lake accessible by bus, but the view is so wonderful the time passes quite quickly. I even saw a monkey near the road on our first trip up the mountain.

In the first part of the bus route is the Irohazaka slope, an area so steap they had to split the road into 2 one-way roads. The 5 km of switchbacks give passengers on both side of the bus to see the great view of the valley bellow, but they're much more fun going up than comming down.

Our hiking trip started with Yunoko lake, which tends to bubble a bit to itself and smell of sulfur. The hot water must give just this little extra to the lake, as there are some big carp in it, and even some ingenious fishermen.

The hiking paths are extremely well kept, with wooden walkways most of the way. This makes the walk very restful, only bothered now and then by the bells a lot of Japanese hang on their bags. By the sound of a Japanese walking group you'd think you'd just entered grizzly territory...

The path took us from Yunoko lake to Yutaki falls, then on through oak forests with bamboo undergrowth, which oppened up into a high plateau plain with marshes on the edge. The marsh is drained by a nice little river which then goes off down the mountain in a long series of falls before reaching Chuzenji lake.

It was right along this lake that we saw our second monkey, and this one right up and personal. It was foraging for acorns along the path and wasn't really afraid of us at all (we weren't moving). It ate all the acorns on the uphill side of the path, sat in the middle of the path and looked up at the tree a bit, and then wandered off, obviously deciding it wasn't worth waiting for them to fall. As all this happened just 4m away, we were entranced.

Chuzenji lake is a lake so large and flat that you just feel like taking a boat out to fish. This is, in fact, what a lot of people think too, and it used to be quite a famous resort, untill the resort house burnt down. It says on the info pannel that "all that was left of the house was the mantlepiece". And, indeed, the chimney is still standing, all alone in the middle of it's own little garden. Very cute.

Now this lake cannot possibly be more peaceful. Yet at the end of this lake are Kegon falls, which is the most impressive waterfall I've ever seen! It's not that wide, and the river leading to it is quite small, as rivers go, but the water just gets to the end of the forest, and plunges, 97m straight down, before continuing it's rather peaceful course down the mountain. The impressive view of this waterfall is added to, I find, by the numerous little waterfalls comming straight out of the rock, about half way down the main fall.

We actually went to Kegon falls on the morning of the 3rd day, due to the arrival of the afternoon thunderstorm. This meant we had the whole waterfall just to us. It was absolutely amazing.

Nikko - Wold Heritage Site

Back in Japan! With the rice fields now ripe and being harvested, and the Tokyo sky tower having grown tremendously, but my faithful Keikyu line always the same.

And how better to celebrate my return than to go to Nikko, a medium town in central Japan that boasts both a world heritage site and a superb national park!

We visited the world heritage site the first day, before we had gotten the hang of the Nikko weather problem. Nikko being a good 3 hours north of Tokyo, it was early afternoon by the time we set out to view our first shrines. It turns out this is about the time the afternoon thunderstorm arrives. So we had a nice visit of Rinnoji temple, which contains 3 very large golden buddhas and much golden decoration. Then found the storm had started so spent about an hour in the small temple opposite looking at the impressive thunder and lightning display, before going on the the rest of the shrines.

All the shrines and temples in this group are extremely elaborate, with many-layered roofs and much lacquer and red paint.

It is therefore a bit disappointing to find that the world-famous "3 wise monkeys" are in fact a quite small bas-relief on a smallish, rather plain temple. I guess they didn't find it that interesting when they built the shrines.

The whole shrine and temple complex is linked to the rest of the town by the Shinkyo sacred bridge, and it is a very pleasant walk up and down the old stone paths and stairs that connect all the shrines, in the shade of huge cypress trees.

Hakone

Visit of Hakone National Park

A mix of super touristy and super traditional, Hakone is a wonderful place to visit. Mona and I went there for the week-end, leaving early saturday morning and staying overnight in a charming japanese-style guest house. Included in the room fare was free access to a small private hot spring bath which was absolutely wonderful.

On saturday, we did a tour of the park recommended by the guest-house owner which was very nice. First on the list was a small bus trip through the hills and forests, then a small cable car(which is like a rackrail train, but is pulled up the hill on a cable), and then a whooping ropeway up to the sulfur mine and volcano. (here too, they cook eggs in the hot water)

Then a second ropeway down to lake Ashi and the 'pirate' boat cruise to the other end of the lake, with some nice shrines, and another detached palace along the way.

As the boats and busses wind to a halt around 5 pm, we had to get back to the guest house pretty early, which just FORCED us to go out to a japanese restaurant for dinner, and then try out the outdoor hot spring. It was actually so nice thay we signed up again for the morning, Mona deciding that she wouldn't have too much trouble getting out of bed in the morning, if it was to jump into the hot spring pool.

Then we took a real rackrail train to a small village where a hiking trail started out. We saw a nice waterfall, nice cedar forests and tons of cherry and japanese maple trees. It must really be beautiful in autumn... Also, for some unexplained reason, some quite large pampas grass plains. They seem to be quite an important feature of the region. The hike took about 2 hours and was wonderful. And even though we managed to miss the ruins of the castle we were supposed to see, we did get too see tons of HUGE butterflies, which were just as good, I'm sure.

Back to work tomorrow, for my last few days in Japan (for now).

There could have been no better farewell trip.