Today was quite a nice day. Original plan had been to go see Jidai Matsuri at the Asakusa but as it had been cancelled this year friend had asked if I would like to go to climb Mount Tsukuba near their home instead. That sounded like nice plan. Had been intending to go climb there later. Incidentaly with this I also learned out that 3rd of November is public holiday in Japan(Culture day).
As Tsukuba mountain was quite far away had to wake up early but that was alright. There was still quite a bit of people going around despite public holiday and early day. Meeting with friend we headed toward the mountain with his car. Good chance to see Japanese car navigator in use. Bit more advanced version than my simple one :D
Climb not even started and views were great. There had been danger of rain(so plan B had been onsen. Karaoke is bit scary thought for me!) but instead we got awesome weather. Only bit of low clouds preventing seeing Mount Fuji stops me from saying weather perfect.
On route there was temple again. And again shichi-go-san celebration in process. Those kids sure are cute! Just like little princesses and princes.
Here's shot from on-route. I'm looking downward here as we stopped in for a breather.
This is apparantely temple for some white snake that was thought to be avatar of god or something like that. Speaking of gods this temple was apparantely holy mountain and entry wasn't allowed until late Edo period. That's one reason why there's still lots of old trees there I was told.
Getting higher and higher.
"keshiki hontou ni kirei desu yo" was pretty appropriate phrase. Views are indeed very beautiful.
On route we had been at point that was so crowded that it looked for all the world like my birth towns rush hour.
Then we reached the top and rush hour might actually lose :D I was just stunned at how popular place this was. Albeit the fact weather was particularly good and it was public holiday might have influenced things a bit. I don't think monday is always going to be this busy!
Names of people who have contributed money I was told when asking what were these.
Loving the views.
And the weather was excellent.
This was pretty funny. Going from Nyotaisan(female peak) to Nintaisan(the male peak) we saw this guy doing sales speech. Of frog grease of all things. Pretty good show though didn't understand all of it(fast speech plus maybe bit old speech style?).
He was certainly dedicated for his job. If you look closely at his left arm you can see red line. That's BLOOD he actually drew with his sword in front of our eyes. First he put in the grease to sword and tried cutting. Nothing. Then he removed the fat and cut arm. Blood came in. Then he wiped arm with the grease and blood disappeared.
Wow. That's some dedication. Cutting your hand for sake of advertising material.
Couple more shots of the excelent views.
We took the cable car back down. Going down wouldn't have been problem but would have taken more time. Time to head back to his home. We stopped by at food store which was interesting since so far hadn't much been to those. Convenient stores yes but there you generally eat ready-made food. Here you buy ingredients to make those yourself. Vegetables, fish, meat, potatos, spices etc etc etc by the bucketloads. Dinner would be yakiniku(hopefully didn't mix the name!). So lots of vegetables, meat and so on cooked and eaten with salad and sauce.
Very, very, very good. Can't express gratitude for sharing this with me enough nor for the pleasant chatting thorough the day.
First parts ready to be eaten. Plenty more was left though. For drinks there was beer and sake. Later for dessert we had pear, persimmon and apples.
Back route switched trains on Akihabara. Night view of the place.
And bought this one for drinks. Chocolate taste in it. And you drink this cold.
Tomorrow is not going to be that busy day. I'll be doing laundry doing some more plans and then meet with Finnish classmate who also came to Japan and later meet yet another Japanese. On wednesday I'll start using JR pass. I'm not sure if I can do daily blog updates while travelling since I have no idea if hotels have internet or not. Hopefully are!
Also couple photos of me courtesy of the friend.
On route to Nyotaisan.
Looks creepy :D Just like that stone was going to fall down any moment but since it has remained like that for ages guess it's safe enough ;)
Success! At the Nyotaisan which is taller of the two(wonder why taller one is the female peak? Shouldn't it be reverse?)
At the top with pretty view at the behind. Get out of there from spoiling the view :D
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