April 8

Thursday morning, before heading back to Tokyo, Erik persuaded me to take a bus even further into the mountains to go for a hike and see some famous waterfalls. We attempted to dress warmly for the occasion with at least 4 layers each:


In order to get up higher into the mountains, the bus had to take a famously super twisty route called "Iroha-zaka". There were 48 hairpin turns right in a row. Count them. Now count them in Japanese! (Just kidding. I think too much blog posting is making me silly. But if you're curious... Counting in Japanese)

Anywho, the hike was quite beautiful. It started at the Ryuzu falls...


... after which the path meandered along the lakeside to the Kegon falls.



(Note: There are a lot of pictures of my butt on this blog. I want to clarify that this is because Erik is usually holding the camera, and he walks slow. I'll figure out a way to get my revenge...hmm...)


Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the cold lake air straight at us, and parts of my face were literally freezing (or in the case of my ear, hurting like heck). Erik had brought an extra shirt in case he got cold and wanted to add another layer. Using my intuition and know how about these outdoorsy sorts of things, I quickly came up with a solution.**


Them's survival skills, Billy!

We had to pass through the small onsen town of Chuzen-ji to get to the other waterfall. Along the way we thought it might be nice to stop for some hot chocolate to warm us up.


You can visibly see the warm relief rolling off of me in this picture. But! The best part was that based on my saying good morning to her in Japanese, when the owner of the cafe sat us at a table, she said, "The English menu is at the table, but here's the Japanese one." (in Japanese of course). She thought that I actually spoke Japanese! Granted, this was based solely on my "ohayō gozai masu!" (when means good morning), and she may have changed her mind after I attempted to order in Japanese, and my American accent became more apparent. However, I still felt very complimented!

We finally made it to the Kegon falls:


It was kind of cool because not only was the water coming down the big fall, it was also streaming out of all the little tiny holes in the volcanic rock:


We took the bus back down to Nikko and wanted to get some lunch before heading back on the train to Tokyo. Indian food sounded like it would have the potential to warm us up, so that's where we went.


The first thing we noticed when we went inside was that the owner of the restaurant looked like he was potentially one of Skewers' roommates. We weren't certain, though, because though Skewers' roommates had been in and out the whole time we were there, we didn't really get a good look at their faces. Suffice it to say that Skewer's roommates were Indian, as were the owners of the restaurant. And how many Indian families could there be in a Japanese town with very few permanent residents? Also, the two restaurants were across the street from each other. Anyway, we had not been sitting there long when another interesting character came in. The man was visibly drunk (at 11am) and was talking in a goofy way and gesticulating wildly. Every once in a while he would do something very strange like hold his umbrella like a gun, aim it back to the kitchen and make explosion noises. He would then turn to us and say in English "Sorry. So sorry." And do this kind of bow thing. I don't know if he was also kind of crazy or just really drunk, but he was pretty hilarious to watch. He took his stuff to a little table outside, where the owner brought him an alcoholic beverage. Drunkie then stood up, drink in hand and started dancing on the sidewalk. You can actually see him at his little table in the picture of the restaurant that I posted above. We were watching his amusing antics for most of the time we were there in the restaurant. Then, to our amazement, in walks Skewers! Skewers goes to the back to talk to someone, then comes back out and hangs out with Drunkie for a little while. He kind of pats Drunkie on the back in the way that says "I want to comfort you, but I also don't want to stand too close." It was awesome seeing 3 of our favorite Nikko characters interacting with each other.

A few more notes on Nikko before I move on.

1) The whole time we were in Nikko there were these little vans with megaphones driving around and making announcement at all hours of the day and night. Inside each van was packed with people wearing neon green/yellow ponchos. They usually waved as they drove by. We have no idea what it was, but it was a bit creepy. Our suspicion is that it was related to a political campaign, though we're not really sure why we suspect that.


2) I suppose this is more in regards to my experience in Japan as a whole, rather than just Nikko... but I have seen more of Leonardo di Caprio in the past 2 weeks than I had in the past 10 years! He is everywhere!


In any case, we then hopped on a train and came back to Tokyo. Happy to be back in a warmer environment, yet still feeling a little bit homesick, we headed out to Roppongi. I've heard Roppongi Crossing called the Times Square of Tokyo, and though I don't know if I would go so far as to say that, it was pretty built up with neon and clubs. We headed over to Little Beverly Hills, which is essentially a bunch of American restaurants clustered together. Yeah, it was a cop out, but sometimes a girl needs her french fries.