Mountain Adventure

Love this part of the trip, I don’t know, I just love love going to the mountain. It’s just so majestic. Like what the emperor in the movie Mulan said,
“No matter how the wind howls, the mountain will never bow down to it”.
So where did I went last year?

Ibukiyama:
 - this mountain stands between Shiga-ken and Gifu-ken.
 
 My companions, Miss Ono and Mr. Kakuta or should I say Mr. and Mrs. Kakuta, met at Karasuma station in Kyoto. Then the long drive began. THere was a bit of
 traffic that day. Our route was Kyoto to Shiga-ken passing by Lake  Biwa in Otsu. The drive was fantastic. Lake Biwa was so big that accdg to Miss Ono, the whole Awaji Island could fit into it. There were lots of families having picnic , kids running here and there. Would have love to stop and venture out, but it was so hot that we
 decided not to. We stop by in Nagahama City, and had our lunch. It was the famous Udon with a very large mushroom on top, as in so large that its diameter is basically the same as with bowl. It was so delicious..
 So yummyyy.. then we tour some of the different store selling  beautiful glassworks.. from the tiniest piece to a very large and  very expensive piece. I was so careful looking at the place, I had to refrain my clumsy me or else I might broke a piece hehehee..

 I remember this famous warning :
 ”Lovely to Look At, Nice to hold but when you break it we consider  it sold.” Lots and lots of beautiful stuff, but what I was looking for was postcards, there seems to none. So on with the trip, it was a couple of hours more before we reach the gateway to Ibukiyama.
 Damn the way up was so fantastic ( looking in the GPS monitor ), all those hairpin curves, I feel like Takumi of Initial D hehehe. The drive up was so amazing , the view below us was breathtaking. The climb to the summit was so refreshing. The air was a bit thinner up there, so it was a bit difficult to breathe at first.. but that did
 not stop me from running up there. From the summit, the view was so.. soo.. soooo.. breathtaking..  The one thing I regretted was that I don’t have a powerful camera that could at least capture those scenery ,
 but here are some of what I took ( celfone quality )
 The downhill drive was a challenge, it was so foggy that we could barely see the road ahead, it was actually a bit scary.. thank goodness for gps we can navigate without much worry. Though I jokingly challenged our driver to do a drift at one of the corner but I guess it was just
 impossible hhehehe..  We stopped by a ramen house on our way back to kyoto. Then the couple showed me where there wedding would be held before taking me to the station. It was really an energizing day, yappari I am
 really a mountain kinda gal Thank you again to Mr. and Mrs. Kakuta for such a memorable day.
 
HitokuraKoen
 - this is a mountain park in Hyogoken
 - take the Hankyu Nissei Line and get off at the last station.
 - the park is a bit far from the train station.
 
 A good friend of mine Ri Kou Mai invited me to go hiking there last autumn. From Mikuni, we drive all the way up. It was a great climb. I was out of breath when we reach the top. I guess I am really out of shape. We had our lunch/snack at the top and visited the children’s
 musuem there and its all free. Then we played a little badminton before going home. It’s a very nice place for families to go. Children can  go running here and there safely and discover great things about nature. And also a great place to just lie down in the grass and stare at the
 sky while spacing out ( which seems to be my hobby lately ) …
 
 
The hills are alive with the sound of music… la.. la.. la..

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 11:49 am and is filed under Japan Trips, Life In Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.