There are still a couple of rolls of film that have to be developed & printed since we didn't make it in time while we were in HK, but these give a pretty good idea of our stay in Japan, I think.
We went off on a day trip in Ito to do a walking tour and see the Jogasaki suspension bridge (which turned out to be about 10 paces to cross) and the surrounding area.
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| Fisherman out there on the rocks! He wasn't the only one, either, although the other one had a ladder also. |
It was about evening when we got back to the station (close to where we stayed), so we walked around the neighbourhood a bit more to get food, taking the chance to check out Orange Beach while we were there. I don't remember whether I had taken any photos of that particular stretch of road or not, since not all the film has been developed yet. A lot of the redscale photos also didn't turn out at all, which I'm pretty miffed about, though you can still make out some of them:
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| Post offices were basically everywhere we went in Japan. |
I'm not sure whether we just happened to notice them while we were in Japan, but we kept seeing post offices wherever we went! Which was great for me since I was sending out postcards, but I wonder if it's so much easier to send out mail/pick up mail because more people use the system than here in Canada? Or perhaps I simply don't use the post offices as much while I'm home (though if one didn't know to find them in Shopper's Drug Marts and the like, it might be pretty hard to locate one).
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| A store along the street at night where we stayed |
We did a LOT of walking in Ito & Hakone, mostly uphill (or at least I don't recall much downhill or even just walking on flat ground... it might be me selectively remembering the hikes, but I think it's pretty representative of our stay there).
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| Walking up to Moto-Hakone |
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| Stone paths for most of the route |
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| A marker along the path, though I'm not sure it's helping anyone anymore. |
The walk up to amazake chaya was stunning! We were blessed with beautiful weather also, so the greens seemed all the more vivid. And all throughout the hike up along the stone paths, I got the feeling I could understand how some of the lovely scenery from the Miyazaki films came about. It'd probably do wonders for my health if I could do that hike every day!
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| Our destination: amazake chaya |
We had our doubts and were tempted a couple times to wait for the bus instead on our hike up, but we ended up walking the entire way to amazake chaya, where the snacks & drinks we ordered disappeared so quickly I had no time to take a picture of them. I don't know if everything tasted better because we had been walking so long, but everything was lovely, from the atmosphere (minus the endless bugs) to the food to the staff. We did take the bus back to our ryoukan though, which was very close to Gora Park.
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| The vividness of the plants was stunning |
The second day, we took a trip to Gora Park (above) and Le Petit Prince museum (below). The museum was darling, and had a bunch of figures of the characters the little prince met on his journey, and at the end, of course, a souvenir shop. There was also a restaurant that we didn't end up trying, but everything just fit together so incredibly well!
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| Le Petit Prince restaurant inside the mostly open-air museum in Hakone |
On our way back to Tokyo that day, we stopped by to see the Odawara castle, where I saw these adorable little guys:
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| Tiny little offshoots coming out from tree bark! |
Try to recognize those next time you go!
Another instalment of photos to come for Hong Kong & Macau.
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