Hiking Nyukasayama, Nagano

My friend, Mike, and I headed to Nagano a couple weekends ago to go hiking! We were headed to Fujimi Panorama. "Mi" being to see/watch in Japanese and Fuji being, well, Fuji, but it being rainy season, didn't have much like. We did see a lot of clouds though!

The Lilies of the Valley were suppose to be the primary draw to this area, but they weren't quite in full bloom yet. The staff in the area told us there were over 1 million plants. I question whether he counted those or not.

We reached the summit around lunchtime and enjoyed a nice picnic. I'm not quite sure what everyone was looking at here. "Nice cloud" "Hmm...I'm more partial to the cumulus myself".

We thoroughly enjoyed the lower humidity and cooler temperatures of the mountain region and the rain even held off for most of our hike so we could enjoy the fresh air and scenery.

I forget how much I miss nature when we are surrounded by it all the time every day, but it was so refreshing to walk about and SMELL nature and BREATHE fresh air.

I like to play "Where is Mike?" with several of my pictures. Being a photographer, he was often behind the group, crawling around getting a picture of something most of us walked right past.

Such a wonderful day. Only time for a few more days like this in Japan!

Yunessun Onsen

The weekend before Christmas, Glenn and I joined an MWR tour where we went to the Yunessen Onsen. Onsens are very popular in Japan. Think of it as a naked hot spring. I've described them before. This place was a little different though. It was more of a swimsuit friendly water park hot spring.

You wear your swim suit and then they also give you a towel and small jacket. Since there are spa rooms, restaurants and rest/relaxing areas you can wear your jacket everywhere.


Inside there were hot tubs, a large child-friendly water park and Dr. Fish (you put your feet in a pool and these small fish eat your dead skin and it tickles!).

Outside was the best part. It was only about 40 degrees so it was cold going from pool to pool, but once you were in the water, it felt great!

It wasn't just water though, the outside pools were filled with coffee, wine, green tea, sake and charcoal water!

Glenn in the coffee pool that they brew right next to it.

 

Me in the red wine pool.

Glenn and I in the green tea (/ectocooler) bath.

We had a great day relaxing and enjoying all the goofy people at the spa. I would definitely recommend you make a trip!

Shizuoka Prefecture - Part III

Our last stop on the MWR tour was Dragon Rock Cave. It was a cave, it was pretty standard, but we had a good time with all the goofy J signs and the names of each part of the cave.

Here, Mike is attempting to follow the sign on the left. It instructs you to bend over and look between your legs to see the formation behind you- that's one way to do it I suppose.

This was my favorite cave name...perhaps Beethoven played it in C Major??

After the cave trip we made the 2-3 hour drive back to Atsugi break with a stop for dinner at a rest stop. Whew... a long day!

Kakegawa Castle

Stop #2 on our MWR tour was Kakegawa castle. The castle was built about 500 years ago by the lord that was governing this area during the era of the civil wars (aka territorial disputes). The Tokugawa family eventually took over this area and ruled the castle. They ruled the castle for hundreds of years until it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1854 and collapsed in 1869. The castle was eventually rebuilt with donations from the citizens of Kakegawa. It was rebuilt with wood in the traditional methods in .... 1993. So, it is super old, but you can't tell because they rebuilt it using the traditional plans and techniques.

I thought this part of the castle was rather ingenious- they left small holes so that arrows, rocks or other objects could be thrown at people attempting to seige the castle.

 Nicole is attempting to siege the castle...no such luck. :) Maybe the umbrella is hindering her?

It is the Warriors Ambush Hideout area. I'm hiding, can't you tell?

Shizuoka Prefecture - Birds, Castles and Caves (oh my!)

On Saturday,  I took an MWR tour with four friends from the squadron. We headed south to Shizouka prefecture. When I have subsequently talked about this trip to students in the past few days, I've noticed that the tour sounds kind of lame, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I'm sure that's because of the company I was with. We made everything a great time despite the all day rain. I'll probably break this up in to a few posts because it was a 13 hour day and we saw lots of things!

First, we stopped at Kacho-en Bird Park. This is an aviary/zoo and it was a wonderful place because the animals are free to roam and fly (except for the owls that will eat the other birds/hurt people). I think this is my favorite picture of the whole trip:

Nicole was not a fan of the birds landing on her at first. Oh and Lauren got pooped on, that was funny.

We got to feed the penguin-san! They were so cute, I want to take one home with me!
Then we saw birds, birds and more birds. Some outdoor birds:

There was even a bird "show". The secretary bird was my favorite. It eats snakes and kills them by stomping on their heads! They did a demo with a fake snake for us.

Then we went inside and saw some of the water birds. Who knew flamingos were aggressive? One of them bit me while I was trying to take a picture with it!

This is much better:

Shizuoka Prefecture - Oranges & Hiking

Over the weekend, Glenn and I went on an MWR tour to Shizuoka Prefecture. Shizuoka is west of here and south of Mt. Fuji on the Izu peninsula. Because of the abundance of coastline, this is a popular tourist destination for the beaches and onsens. It took about 3 hours to drive there by bus and our first destination was orange picking!

They were technically more like tangerines or clementines. In Japanese they are called mikan and pikan. The mikans are smaller than pikans, but Glenn and I both liked the taste of the pikans better. We were allowed to pick and eat as many as we wanted and then we had a bag that we could collect some in and pay for later (by weight). Glenn and I left with about a dozen oranges which cost us about $7, but another group on the bus bought about $60 worth. What are you going to do with that many oranges?!

I don't think going on a tour was really what Glenn wanted to do all day Sunday, but he seemed to enjoy picking the oranges. It didn't hurt that it was a beautiful day and we sat in the sun for awhile enjoying the view of the ocean.

The next stop was Kawazu-nana daru. This area of Shizuoka is famous for it's waterfalls. We hiked for about an hour and a half and enjoyed the 7 waterfalls.

#5

 Next to #1

Making a wish. For $1, I tried to toss 3 rocks in to the "basket" on the top of the rocks. They say my wish will come true if I get one inside. I guess we won't be winning the lottery...

Our last stop on the tour was to Mt. Omuro. This mountain is actually a volcano with a giant crater on the top. What is the giant crater used for now? Archery practice of course. To get to the top we took a ski lift for about 5 minutes. About 10 yards from the top, a little camera talks to you and takes your picture (like on a roller coaster) and by the time you get to the top 30 seconds later, the picture is already printed and ready to purchase (for $10!)! These Japanese are crazy fast! Glenn and I laughed at times because we could touch the grass with our feet from the ski lift. At other times, they actually had to dig a trench so your chair wouldn't hit the ground, but I'm glad we weren't hiking up this steep hill!

After a hike around the top of the crater, we loaded up the bus and headed home. It was a great tour!