Epic Fail. Yeah, didn't actually do anything today, slept in after yesterday... so much for today's plans.
8/12 Tuesday:
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| From Japan 134 |
The magnificent Kegon Falls.
Yay, plans successful... sort of. Well I did finally make it to Nikko, but didn't get to do all that I wanted. So I finally figured out what train(s) I needed to take to get to Nikko, unfortunately it wasn't entirely clear to me, so I ended up missing a transfer I needed to take and ended up going a lot further than I wanted, and ended up having to go back (although I did notice a recreation of Mount Rushmore while on this side route... hmmm... I'm still in Japan right?), so rather than arriving at about 12:30pm, I got there around 2:30pm. Then it took me a while to figure out what bus I needed to take to actually get to Kegon Falls. The area here is amazingly beautiful, just wish it wasn't so cloudy/hazy. The ride up to the falls was on a very zigzaggy road. About 2/3 up, I got off the bus to take a ride on a gondola up to get a nice view of the valley, the falls, and the lake. I then grabbed the bus again and finally got to Kegon Falls. Took lots of pictures here, as well as videos. It was definitely worth the trip. After another zig-zag down, I tried to see if there were any hotels around to stay at. Unfortunately I could only really find one hotel, and they were all full. Since I didn't really have time to search around (blindly and in the rain) for a hotel, I decided to head back home. I will have to return here again, there are still many things I want to see, like the Tosho-gu (also the location of the three wise monkeys: hear, speak, see no evil, and the sleeping cat). Plus I want to visit the Edo Era village.
8/13 Wednesday:
Sleep is Fail.
8/14 Thursday:
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| From Japan 136 |
Mt. Fuji FTW!
Ok, so maybe not the best picture, but that's the best I got. Today's destination: Mt. Fuji. Ok, not Mt. Fuji itself, but some cave exploring near Lake Kawaguchi. Oh yeah, one of the trains I rode had awesome caricatures of Mt. Fuji on it, especially the one on the front/back. So after some map/bus studying, I eventually figured out how to get to one of the caves... evidently the Batcave... or Bat-Cave... aka "Miracle Of Life On Our Planet". I can't remember ever actually going to a real cave before, so I decided, why not in Japan? The cave wasn't all that big, but it was kinda interesting, very wet, dark, and cold (had to wear a helmet, probably a good thing, would have most likely cracked my head open several times on some of the low ceilings/crawl spaces). Btw, I love signs that tell you to go two ways at once. There were no actual bats in the Batcav- err Bat-Cave, but the number of old Batman tv-show/movie posters from around the world was just awesome. Plus Mickey Batmouse, tons of pictures of bats, and bat-related books (don't think I got a picture of that one). Unfortunately I happened to take the bus at the wrong time to go to the cave. It just happened to be a 1.5 hour wait between when the bus would come... with the next bus being the last one to get back to the station (grrr....), so I didn't really have a chance to get some good pictures of Mt. Fuji. I tried to grab some on the way back to the station while I also got pictures of the lake. Oh well.
8/15-16 Friday-Saturday:
Double Fail.
8/17 Sunday:
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| From Japan 139 |
Throwing water at a portable shrine.
Almost-fail; woke up late. Got to Tokyo just in time to see the once-in-three year festival: The Fukagawa Hachiman Festival. Basically, tons of portable shrines are marched through some of the streets in Tokyo and people throw water/hose down the people and the shrines as they pass by. Well, it was raining (thankfully not pouring), so everyone was pretty wet anyways. I followed one of the shrines for a bit, then moved ahead to watch others down the route. Following the route I also came across Taiko drummers. I also noticed that some shrines would branch off different paths. It seems people were still having fun despite the rain. Eventually, things started to wind down, so I headed back home.
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