Ryuokyo - a tokyo day trip

Yesterday the sun was shining brightly, the motor bike was beckoning and we headed north.  There was no fixed plan, just a rough map that a friend had drawn of a scenic mountain road near Nikko in Tochigi prefecture.  It was a pretty road  winding up through forests and rice fields from Fubasami to Kiyotaki. There wasn't much in the way of places to stop along the way, and we ended up following signs through Nikko to Kinugawa Onsen, a place I have been curious about since Japan Rail and Tobu began joint services there serveral years ago.
Kinugawa Onsen town itself was thoroughy unremarkable, though it would have been beautiful once.  Oversized  ferro-concrete apartment blocks that have been built to accommodate large groups of sightseers who want an onsen (hot spring) experience close to public transport dominated the landscape, laying waste to the nature that originally made the destination appealing.   The Japanese bubble has long passed and several o buildings seemed to have been abandoned, leaving the town with a rather tired and forlorn atmosphere.  The tourist centre there did have good information though.  We picked up a pamphlet for Ryuokyo, a place neither of us had heard of, but the pictures looked good :)   And so we headed on.

Ryuokyo looked like the pick of the pamphlets: a ravine, waterfalls, sheer cliffs, nature trails, forest, an endangered frog preservation area.     It is a couple of stops north of Kinugawa Onsen on the Yagan Minami Aizu Railway line (change at Shin Fujiwara), though we continued by bike.   For a Sunday  in summer, there were few sightseers, though I imagine in autumn the spectacular colours would bring armies of leaf watchers.  The sightseers who were there almost all walked down the steps to the see the first waterfall, and then promptly returned to the point of origin, without traversing  the nature trails.   All the more peaceful for us!    

 After some consideration we opted to follow a loop path that took about 45 minutes rather than walk the full length of the nature trail (est. 3 hours).  The longer walk had appeal, but the trains back only run every hour, and waiting for 50 min for a train had no appeal...

The terrain was similar to Shosenkyo, which we visited in April, though unlike Shosenkyo where the walking trail is by the edge of the gorge, the nature trails were up to 10 metres back from the edge, making the forest rather than the ravine the attraction.   But it was definitely worth seeing, and made for a very pleasant day trip from Tokyo.

Ryuokyo station  on the  Yagan Aizu Kinugawa Line

The fare table at Ryuokyu station - only in Japanese but it shows the prices and where the Kinugawa-Aizu line joins up with other lines.

A map of the nature trails

Upstream

The waterfall that most sightseers seem to come to see.

On the nature path

The walking path by the gorge has a lot of steps and walking boards to minimize the impact of human traffic.

The gorge

Flowers

Happy Marine Day

The weekend that just passed was Marine Day.  Marine day is a new holiday but the date was chosen because it marks the first time that an emperor of Japan travelled on a civilian steamship.
We took the opportunity to go biking to Chiba, the coastal prefecture east of Tokyo.
The wind was strong and the water not really suited to swimming - there has been extensive flooding and the water quality was less than it usually is here.   But it was a pleasant day.  And it's so nice to see sunshine.



Fishing boats in port

Fishing nets to go with the fishing boats

Looking north from the Choshi light house on Inobosaki Cape

Looking down from in front of the lighthouse

The Lighthouse

Fishing on Kujukuri Beach

Kujukuri beach... I really dont get it why the carpark needs to be built on the beach, same for the steps. According to Hiro it's because it's Asia and Asian people are very practical - I guess lugging picnic baskets 70 metres more takes a lot of energy.... My theory is more like the concrete companies had good connections with local govt....cynical I know...

Behind the beach very wide nature strips - no tsunami washing out houses here.

People take off their shoes as they leave the concrete path and start walking on the sand.  It's endearing but the effort to keep the sand clean strikes me as a little odd when there was litter (admittedly not a lot) left on the beach.... 

Shosenkyo - rock formations

We followed the track that runs along side the gorge past bridges, a vegetable patch, shrines, a temple and soba shops.  There were a few cars around, the track will be closed to cars on weekends in a couple of weeks until the end of autumn, and a few other walkers.   Inexplicably, most people walking were opting to go uphill.... unsurprisingly perhaps, they seemed oblivious to the beauty as they pushed upwards.  Towards the end of the path, when the battery and memory card were low, the river was full of intriguing rock formations.   I remember being in Yixing in China and the guide was pointing out 'rabbit rock',  'dragon rock' , 'bear rock' and I could't make out any of them.  Japan too has a tendency to find similarities between the form of rocks and other objects, and there were signs marking 'big budha rock', 'cat rock', among others.

Hiro could see the similarities  immedicately. But for the first time I remember, I could make out most of them too.  There is a rock quiz following, of the non musical variety.

 :) A is tricky.  D requires Japanese cultural knowledge.

Rocks in the gorge

Rocks in the gorge

What is it A?

Hint - it's an animal

What is it B?

Hint - it's food.

What is it C?

Hint - it is neither an animal nor food.

What is it D?

Answers

1. Camel rock (the head is the LHS rock - with the humps on the RHS)

2. Tofu rock

3. Canon rock

4. Eboshi rock  (a traditional Japanese hat)

Shosenkyo Gorge

Back down the ropeway, which looks down on the Arakawa dam, to the town at the bottom, aptly named Shosenkyo taki ue. (above the waterfalls of Shosenkyo). The town seems to owes its existence to the ropeway;  the shops mostly sell locally mined crystals to tourists.   As we weren't looking to buy crystals, we made our way to the walking track that runs beside the river through Shosenkyo Gorge. Despite being early spring, and lacking in foliage, it was quite beautiful; there was an elegant pink blossom, that I have on good authority is a type of bauhinia, which added colour to the path.

 

                                

Crystals
  (which I suspect is really quartz. They did have clear crystal too.)

A crystal shrine

Behind the waterfall

People often leave small coins in mountain

crevices  or other places that are

deemed spiritual.

Shosenkyo Gorge

Rocks in Shosenkyo Gorge.

Bauhinia blossoms

 

          In a small clearing by the river, a high fence has been put

around a vegetable patch to keep out wild pigs.

Pink bauhinia blossoms by the river

Shosenkyo foliage

A trip to Kofu: the end of seishun 18 kippu season. p.1

Tokyo's cherry blosssoms have mostly blown away, the seishun 18 kippu sesason has finished and classes for the new academic year have just begun.
With two uses left on the seishun juu hachi (18) kippu,  we decided on a Saturday trip to Kofu in Yamanshi prefecture, just west of Tokyo.  Sleep deprivation accumulated through the week meant a 7 am start was definitely preferable to a catching the first train of the day around 5am.
A train to Shinjuku, a rapid to Takao, and then a local train to Kofu had us there in about 3 hours.  I'd expected that an early morning trip out of Tokyo would have meant few passengers; between private school students who still have Saturday classes and retirees dressed in hiking gear, the train was more crowded than I imagined and we stood part of the way between Takao and Kofu. At Kofu station it was apparent that many passengers, including a group of Chinese students, were using seishun 18 kippu.
Kofu isn't really on the foreigners tourist circuit, though  with stunning views of Mt Fuji and Shosenkyo Gorge,  I'm surprised it's not better known. Hiro had already checked the bus times to Shosenkyo  and we had enough time to supplement the  ume boshi  onigiri I had made in the morning.

The bus went through Kofu and up a narrow winding mountain road and we got off at the terminal station where there was a ropeway.  I suspect Asia contains the vast majority of the world's ropeways... where there is a mountain there shalt be a ropeway. It puzzles me that Mt Fuji has remained ropway free - I guess it's too high and would only be accessible a couple of months of the year.   Against our better judgement we decided to see what there was to see at the top.  The view was pretty, though we couldn't see Mt Fuji.  The shrine and the like on top were a bit tired and tacky - toss some money into a collection box, beat the two sticks of the taiko drum at the same time and good luck would be yours for a long time.... A short wander from the ropeway up was a car road up to the summit... hmmmm...(something that always leave one feeling a bit duped) 

But the view from up top was pretty, and we didn't feel it a waste of time;  on a clearer day I imagine it would be spectacular.

View from the top

Looking down on the Arakawa dam

The shrine to the Taiko drum

The top of the ropeway

Bus times from Kofu to Shosengyo http://yamanashikotsu.co.jp/noriai/timetable01.htm