Catching Up

Despite my lack of regular posts recently (does the past half year count as "recently"?) I've been keeping myself busy, so I thought I'd round up some pictures to show what I've been up to. So here are some things I've been doing since Spring, some of them already blogged, some not.

In May I took two trips to Mount Takao a mountain in western Tokyo. Once was as a special outing with my Nature Club students, when I was too busy guiding the kids and their parents to take pictures, and once was a few days before that to scout out my route. Late spring is a fantastic time to visit Takao, as the greenery is still fresh and bright, there are a wide variety of flowers, and the temperature is just right for hiking.

More pictures from the hike can be seen here.

During Golden Week Hideaki and I went to Hokkaido to visit his brother. In Tokyo it had seemed like summer had already arrived, but up on Japan's northernmost prefecture winter had barely ended. It was nice to experience spring twice, and even nicer to fill up on Hokkaido's famed seafood.

More pictures are here, and blog posts are here.

Then came my trip back home to Canada, which was extra special because Hideaki could come, as well as my sister, niece and nephew.

More pictures are here, and blog posts are here, here and here.

Back from Canada, we met up with Hideaki's sister's family for a day at the beach.

None of the beaches near Tokyo will ever win any prizes for beauty (or cleanliness), but we're lucky to have any beaches at all within day trip distance. We went to Koshigoe, a beach near Enoshima (that's the island pictured above) that is one of the better spots along the Shonan coast of Kanagawa, an area notorious for dirty, overcrowded beaches. This was an overcast day early in the season (there is actually an official beach and pool season here), but by the end of the day the it was pretty crowded, but we were able to relax and have a little space to ourselves while getting in some good people watching. We especially enjoyed the constant parade of suntanned surfer dudes trying to pick up two bikini-clad Brazilian ladies lying nearby

One thing that I do love about Shonan's beaches are the umi no ie, literally "ocean houses" that offer change rooms, showers, food and drink, and a place to sit. It doesn't come cheap (you usually need to pay to use the facilities, and the food is priced for tourists) but each umi no ie has its own atmosphere, with a unique look, soundtrack and menu. Some of them are really cool looking and make you think that you're on a beach in Hawaii or Thailand, and the hipper places crank up the music and become beach bars at night. But we were there for the day only and chose a minimally decorated place serving Southeast Asian food.

We shared Thai style bbq ribs, fried, some sort of noodle soup, and fried rice, as well as a good deal of ice-cold beer, and forgot for a while that we were on a dirty, crowded Shonan beach.

Dessert was nice too!

Next up were five weeks of summer camps, in Chichibu, just northwest of Tokyo, and Izu Oshima, and island south of Tokyo.

These pictures are from the Oshima camp, which was my favourite. We slept in tents, cooked all of our own meals, went on hikes, explored tide pools, learned how to snorkel, and met ancient tortoises at the local zoo.

In between camps I went to Mikurajima to swim with the wild dolphins and hike in the mountains.

I blogged about Mikurajima here, and the pictures are here.

With all that was going on in the summer I missed Hideaki's birthday, so we celebrated a bit late with an ice cream cake. Yup, he's 40!

A few days later was another milestone: our 10th anniversary. With some of the money I made at all those camps in the summer we spent a weekend in Shimoda, a town near the tip of the Izu Peninsula, southwest of Tokyo.

I chose it because it is supposed to have nice beaches that remain free of jellyfish and warm enough for swimming in September (most of the waters surrounding Japan are full of stinging jellyfish after mid-August), and also has plenty of historical sights that would give us something to do if the weather turned bad.

Shimoda is where Commodore Matthew Perry arrived and forced Japan out of seclusion in 1854, but that's about all I know because the weather was great and we had no need to set foot in a museum. I can confirm that the beaches are indeed pretty, but sadly the waves were high and we couldn't really swim, so we bodysurfed and built sandcastles (the ruins shown above were truly magnificent before the tide came in).

We took a side trip to Kawazu Nanadaru (the Seven Waterfalls of Kawazu) for an easy hike. I think we saw all of the falls, but it was hard to tell as some of them were so tiny they barely qualified as waterfalls, though some of them were lovely, and it was a very pleasant place to walk around. Most people seemed to be there because the area was featured in The Izu Dancer, a famous book that apparently everyone except us has read. There were Izu Dancer statues and monuments all over the place,

This girl kept following us and copying my poses, which kind of annoyed me at first, but then really pissed me off when I realized she looked a million times cuter doing the exact same poses. I think I'm going to have to start practicing my posing techniques and wearing fancy dresses when I go sightseeing.

Some of the waterfalls could be seen by a paved path, but for the rest you have to take a trail which is not exactly challenging, but steep, narrow and uneven in parts. It was on the trail that I saw the lady in hot pink high heels, which cheered me up. No hike in Japan is complete without seeing at least one woman in completely inappropriate footwear.

What was even more impressive than the falls themselves were the rock formations that caused them and the colour of the water, which I couldn't quite capture in the pictures but ranged from a lovely topaz to a pale turquoise. 

Once we'd had our fill of falls we stopped by a restaurant specializing in noodles local inoshishi (wild boar) for lunch. We'd never tried boar before and weren't sure if noodle toppings were the best way to eat it, so we only ordered one inoshishi dish, inoshishi soba (buckwheat noodles in miso broth with vegetables and wild boar). It was good but milder tasting than we expected, tasting like a cross between regular pork and duck.

We also had sansai udon (wheat noodles with mountain vegetables), which came with a small plate of toppings: daikon pickles, fuki-miso (butterbur shoots dressed with miso) and locally grown wasabi. I'm not a huge wasabi fan but this was very fresh and fragrant, so different than the impostor usually served.

Dessert was kakigori (shaved ice) flavoured with matcha sauce and anko (sweet red beans).

Overlooking the biggest of the falls is Amagisou, an old ryokan (Japanese inn) with a large a collection of rotemburo (outdoor hot spring baths), one shown below. There were traditional indoor onsen (hot springs) as well, but the rotemburo were coed and required swimsuits, so we suited up and went bath hopping. The place is well past its peak and several baths were empty and abandoned, but there were enough left to make it a memorable visit. We liked large outdoor bath with the view of the falls the best, and also had a good time in the onsen pool where Hideaki showed off his swimming abilities and tried to teach me the backstroke. It's much harder than it looks, and despite my best efforts I soon reverted to doggypaddling. One of these days I'll learn to swim for real, but not during a vacation.

I had better luck teaching Hideaki to snorkel the next day, on the rocky shoreline shown below. It doesn't look like much but there were some surprisingly beautiful little fish under the water, and it turns out that Hide loves to snorkel. We don't have many hobbies in common, so it's cool that we both like snorkeling and can't wait to try it again. Maybe he'll come along on my next trip to Mikurajima.

When the water got too cold it was time for lunch, so we went to Kiyu, a Japanese seafood restaurant. I ordered the kinmedai kamameshi lunch set (steamed rice topped with alphonsino, a delicious local fish). Hideaki had kakiage-don, a bowl of rice topped with a mix of vegetables, shrimp and local sazae (turban snail) fried tempura-style. Both meals were excellent and give us one more reason to go back to Shimoda.

In September Hideaki and I went for a hike in Saitama, west of Tokyo. Our first stop was Noninji, a large temple near Hanno station with very pretty grounds. We could have spent longer looking at the many buildings and gardens, but we'd started late so kept our visit short.

I really liked the little rest area, with a tea house-like gazebo that had special details like this funky light.

The lilly-pad shaped tables tables and chairs were cute too, and even the ashtray was disguised as a tree stump.

We climbed the hill behind the temple to continue our hike, but soon after we got to the top we took a wrong turn and got lost. The rest of the 'hike' consisted mostly of wandering around the village seen above.

We eventually found the tail end of the trail but were too dejected to take any pictures until we came upon a higanbana (red spider lilly) lined river. The sight of higanbana in bloom is a sure signal that, no matter how hot and sunny the weather may be, summer is over. But as sad as I am to see them I have to admit they are pretty.

Getting lost is hungry work, so we were happy to find Kunugi-an, a soba restaurant.

Hideaki ordered zarusoba (cold soba noodles with a soy based dipping sauce) and I had tororo soba (the same with grated yam and a raw quail egg to add to the dipping sauce). It was very good, if a little pricey, and if we ever try the hike again (with a compass and map, hopefully) we'll come here again.

A few more pictures of the hike here.

Comments

[kat]

great to see you posting! what adventures you've had!!

[mvmaithai]

My, my, that was quite a posting! I love the pictures, especially the hiking and waterfalls, and all your stories. I don't know where I found your blog now, but I have reading it on and off. I'm from your neck of the woods (Boston), and love traveling, mostly in U.S. I've just gotten into teaching ESL and someday would like to teach in Japan or Korea. In fact, I just met a student from Osaka last week. Your blog is an intro to Japan for me. Thanks!

[Joanna]

Any chance that one of these days you'd lead an English speaking tour???
Sign me up!

[suzy]

Such beautiful photos! It's great to see what you've been up to. Although your posts always make me miss Japan (and especially Japanese food).
You've inspired me to visit Mikurajima one day.

[Aspasia]

Wow! Photos are gorgeous (as usual) but I really just want to say belated happy birthday to Hideaki and happy 10th anniversary to you both!

[joeinvegas]

Wow, there you go again with a super long post making everything look so nice - (thanks)

[Mari L'Esperance]

The COLORS of the greenery, flowers, the sea are incredible! Thank you, as always, for your gorgeous and nourishing posts. They help me to feel closer to Japan, a place that I always miss.

[Joshua Zimmerman]

Oh wow! You got to swim with dolphins! You lucky duck you! I'm so very very jealous.

[Amy]

Thanks for all the comments!

[Martin F]

Wow, you visited Hanno!? I live just minutes from Noninji and celebrated the New Year ringing the bell there at midnight last year. Let me know next time - beautiful photos BTW.