Another Great Day in Nikko

I spent the day in Nikko again - this time for the wedding party of Michel and Yoshiko. It was a perfect day for it too. Stacy and Motoki picked me up at 9:30 and we beat the traffic and arrived by 10:30. So we parked near the restaurant and decided to walk the short hiking trail to the view of the falls. I suggest you try Michel's blog for the name of the falls cuz I can't for the life of me remember the name. The translation is something like misty mountain falls I think. Here are a couple of shots:

Here's a picture in the restaurant of the happy couple amid the wine and water glasses. I quite like this one:
The meal was the best I've eaten since I have been in Japan. Everything was perfect. The wine:
The starter (trout, I think):
The (squash) soup:
The salad:
The BEST durned steak I've ever eaten in my life (I'm serious):
Dessert was amazing as well:
All these things were lovingly cooked by about a zillion chefs occupying a very small kitchen. Here are a few of them:
After dinner, I went back to the falls with Yoshiko, Anne, and Michel to snap some photos. Here I am with the happy couple (my body looks weird in this picture and I think it's because my camera case is underneath my jacket and it makes it stick out funny - at least that's the reason I'm sticking with):
When we got back, we found Stacy and Motoki sitting and reading (and magically they appeared in sepia):
We decided, despite the filling meal, to go to a mountain farm that sells homemade soft serve ice cream (and stands with roasted salamanders as well, by the way). Along the way, we stopped at a couple of places to take in the view:



We got our ice cream - which was also amazing - like everything else today - and stood around talking and enjoying the day. Here's Yoshiko's grandmother enjoying her ice cream cone.

Well, Michel and Yoshiko, congratulations. I wish you both the best of luck in your future together. And thanks to Michel's mom, Anne, and Yoshiko's family for the great meal and gifts!

Nikko - Lake Chuzenji

Monday couldn't have been better. I got up early and biked over to Michel's apartment to meet him, Yoshiko, and his mom (visiting from Canada) and go to Nikko to see the fall colors. Perhaps it was a bit early, but the weather was perfect and helped cure my "fall-in-Minnesota" homesickness. This place was gorgeous.

Here I am at lake Chuzenji - this lake is high up in the mountains - you have to take a switchback road to get up there, but it's worth the mild car-sickness you might get. The water is so clear and beautiful and if you can overlook the gaudy swan paddle boats in one section of the lake, you can really enjoy the beauty.
Here I am right after we got out of the car after driving up the mountain.
Here's a picture of Michel and Yoshiko. After hiking about and having lunch, we stopped at a foot onsen and relaxed in the BOILING HOT natural spring water (that smelled like rotton eggs, of course, because of the sulpher).
Here's another view of Chuzenji from the boat house.
Earlier in the day, we went to Kegon falls.
Here's the mountain again with the cable car coming down.
This shot shows you how clear the lake was. I would have loved to have gotten a row boat and just sat in the middle of the lake reading a book and drinking coffee.
Across from Michel and Yoshiko, Anne (Michel's mom) and I sat in the relative safety of the cooler area of the foot bath - nevertheless, as you can see, my feet still got quite red.
It was a great first day in Japan for Anne (later, we took her to meet Yoshiko's family and we all went out to dinner) and a much needed escape from concrete and metal for me.

Matto, meet Nikko.

Well, I finally made it up to Nikko today. Michel and I met outside of our office building this morning at 10 and biked to the station. From there, it was a short 40 minute train ride. Nikko is by far the most beautiful place I've seen in Japan so far - and today it was exceptional - it was warm and misty and the mountains were beautiful. I'm not good with historical commentary (I'd just be plagiarizing my "Lonely Planet" book anyway) so I will simply let you look at the pics, which don't begin to capture the beauty of the place: