Remember the toy boat kit Florence gave me that I made a few months ago? Watch this:
I love that we confirmed the use of the styrofoam piece 🙂
Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category
A Titanic Maiden Voyage!
Saturday, June 29th, 2013Postscript
Wednesday, June 19th, 2013I had another camera with me in Japan, although as it turns out I took very few pictures on it. Here’s one of them:
That’s a shrine in Mount Takao, where we went on the second day. The photo uses the camera’s ‘toy mode’ to make it look quite surreal.
I spent this morning preparing for my summer course that starts Monday. Preparation will continue through the rest of this week. Being immersed in the tedium of work is a good way to almost make it seem like the trip was a dream.
That’s another shot taken with the new camera; a panoramic shot of the Golden Temple in Kyoto.
I have so many good memories from Tokyo 2013! I’m very glad we went, and doubly glad Bernard was there with us 🙂
In the meantime there is a giant pile of toys, books and games that came back with us. Expect the occasional blog post on these in the future.
Here Comes The Rain…
Tuesday, June 11th, 2013The destination for the day was Enoshima Island via the Great Buddha statue in Kamakura. After training it (~70 minutes) to the area, we hiked up and down a mountain for a bit:
This was part of the ‘Daibutsu hiking course’ and eventually led us to a wonderful little shrine and rest stop..,
At which KLS cooled herself…
And we met a cat!
As you can see, the grizzled beast was quite popular 🙂
A bit further on we reached Zentairi (sp?), a famous shrine said to increase the fortunes of anyone who washes money in its spring waters. The place was full of school children.
Eventually, after some Kamakura ‘boulevarding’, we reached the famous great Daibutsu statue:
It’s almost 800 years old, was cast in 30 pieces and is hollow (we went inside). A light rain had started to fall by now, and we were resting whenever it was convenient:
Oh, we saw squirrels yesterday!! I saw the first climbing bamboo but the second was on the street in Kamakura. He was very curious and came right up to a small crowd of people:
Look how brown and wooly he is! How cute!
After the train, at Enoshima station, we found too women posing a Woody revoltech figurine in a manner indicative of the ‘Hentai Woody’ meme! (Google search at your own risk, btw):
I trust Bernard will post a good close up photo of Woody 🙂
That’s Enoshima island, which is as beautiful as we remembered. We slowly made our way up the island, and Bernard and I went to the top of the Sea Candle tower for a panoramic view:
And then… the rains came! Finally, the two (B was paying me to carry his…) umbrellas I had carried for 5 hours came in useful! On the top of the island, without climbing down the other side to see the dragon cave, we started the long, wet trek back:
Romancing The Hakone
Saturday, June 8th, 2013We got up very early today, and waited at Shinjuku station for the train to Hakone.
The trip took about 90 minutes in a very nice train, and before we knew it we had arrived at the popular vacation town in the mountains.
We were doing the ‘freepass circuit’ and the next leg of our trip was the Hakone-Tozen railroad which utilizes 3 switchbacks as it rises to nearly 500m elevation. This in turn was followed by a cable car…
And then a rope way…
…over sulfur-spewing mountainside to the top of Owakaduni mountain.
The rain had come out by this point, but I was prepared (after a quick Y500 stop at the shop!)
The commode in the facility behind me had perfectly understandable instructions on how to use the robotoilet:
At Owakaduni you can walk further up the mountain to the hot springs where a local specialty is sulfur-boiled egg. Here’s the crowds eating said eggs:
The pool in the bottom left is where the eggs are boiled in cages:
Lunch was simple…
….and followed by a treat…
….a quick unintentional use of an employees only crapper…
…and then the trip on the next leg of the rope way down to a volcanic crater lake.
The next leg of the trip was on this:
And we were all silly tired by now:
And after I ate a Hot Dog…
And regretted not buying SFL an ear-cleaner…
We started the journey home, ten hours after we’d started! Bernard’s feeling a lot better, but all of us are aching and painting a bit now!
Another great day in Nippon 🙂
We’re Not As Young As We Remember
Tuesday, June 4th, 2013When you live at light speed as I do, you need the right fuel or else you flame out. Yesterday, a source of that fuel was established.
The location was Takao, the mountain to the west of Tokyo. After a pleasant train trip from the city, we started by riding the (fantastic!) chair lift to the half-way point:
The weather was great (about 80F), the views were wonderful and since we were all tired from the previous day we took the walk to the top slowly.
There are many shrines on the mountain, as well as restaurants selling food to the walkers. For us, the more refreshing the better!
The climb was longer and harder than KLS and I remembered, and we were at the apex of ruination before we reached the top. Bernard in particular was unused to the exertion, but he soldiered on like a true man!
That’s a Tanuki apparently, and the photo is taken from a sign illustrating its poop indexed by plants it ate! As with all the other animals allegedly on Takao (monkeys, flying squirrels), we saw none!
The walk done was much easier. At this time, I gave Bernard a rest by carrying his 4763 lb camera myself, taking many exhibition quality photos along the way. I expect he’ll be blogging a few on his blog (see link at right)!
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We’d ridden the worlds steepest cable car once before, up the mountain, so yesterday we took it down. Amusingly, the car was packed with school kids, who all screamed excitedly when it fell out of the station at the start.
After a rest (during which I, with all this extra energy from vast quantities of Mt Dew, explored local grocery stores and marveled at overpriced fruit…), we hopped over to Ueno for dinner, toy shopping and (of course!), UFO catching!
That spaghetti was delicious!