Category: Nature

Postscript

June 19, 2013

I 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…

June 11, 2013

The 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

June 8, 2013

We 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: