2nd Blogpost

I’ve returned, translation will resume normally.
The rest of this post is just me blogging about my vacation, there’s nothing related to translation.

All in all, my trip ended somewhat badly due to weather and perhaps typhoon Lan.
I encountered a lot of rain and foggy scenery, also, it’s unrelated to me but apparently the typhoon flooded some area near Yamato River and there’s a train struck by lightning too during the day the typhoon got near Tokyo.

I still had some fun with my trip though, and I want to share some of it in no particular order.
I went to the obvious tourist spot like Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Skytree and others common spot, but those are normal and I won’t mention it here.

So without further ado, here’s some of my memorable activity :

1. My favorite part of the trip, climbing and descending Mount Takao.

I climbed using the trail #4. It’s labeled 2 star, medium difficulty.

Pic is the short suspension bridge people will pass when they used the route and also the pic of the uphill section. I still encountered some people here.

I rested for a bit in the top, ate tanuki soba with some yakitori, and drank an energy drink.
Afterward, I went down using trail #6. It’s labeled 3 star, hard difficulty.

It’s the track the girls from Yama no Susume used in the anime, but in my case it has become harsher due to the wet terrain and rain. That last photo is blurry, and I didn’t attempt to take many photos during my descend because I’m not exactly an athletic person and I was afraid of triggering any accident.
The trail isn’t exactly dangerous, it’s quite safe and the paths are well defined, but an injury there would spell big trouble since there’s no one else around me.
A beginner shouldn’t be inviting trouble after all
Both ascend and descend lasted around 90 minutes, the hard part for both lies near the top. My cheap ankle braces and walking cane helped me quite a bit in here.

I like it enough to want to do it again if I visited in different season, or perhaps I’ll climb another mountain mentioned in Yama no Susume.

2. Renting an electric bicycle and circling Lake Kawaguchi.

People normally stay the night there, but I just visited it for 1 day, so it’s not exactly a good idea.

The sky is foggy and I can’t see Mt. Fuji, but I still have a pleasant time cycling around the lake.
I think I traveled around 30 kilometers including some detour, if one stayed the night, it might be fun to cycle around the Fuji Five Lakes.
Here’s the whole pic of Lake Kawaguchi viewed from above.

3. Watching the Unicorn live show in Odaiba.

There’s lot of video of it already in youtube, but when in Rome do as the Romans do right ? So here’s my recording of it.

My first one is angled badly, I still didn’t know the good spot to record back then.
The second and third ones are better, but still not the best because the main spot is taken by other people already.

4. Alone in Hitachi Seaside Park.

It’s raining heavily, but I’ve already reached the place.
There are other visitors too, but they’re focused on the autumn flower area and some are riding the park bus to sightsee the park’s main road.
I walked the whole area under the rain, I’m sure I looked strange to those visitors inside bus.

The total amount of visitors I encountered in spring area and summer area can be counted in one hand. The outdoor attraction in theme park area was also closed, and I only encountered 3 workers, one in castella shop, one in crepe shop, and one in indoor attraction shop. I wonder if the atmosphere of the place will looks like silent hill 3 when the sun sets.

I visited the autumn flower area last, and it’s kinda fresh seeing lot of people after walking alone for some time.

I even thought that I made a big mistake during my time walking alone in the park, but looking back at it, doing stupid shit during a travel is part of the fun, and it’s part of a memorable event now.

5. One day in Nikko.

Again, people normally spend more days here, they usually stay the night at one of the inn famous for its hot spring. Heck even the bus pass is valid for 2 days, but I can only allocate 1 day to this place (and a hot spring inn is expensive anyway).

I skipped the temples since I’m more interested in nature, but again, it’s very foggy so there’s nothing much to see.
I still managed to visit the Senjougahara marshland and scouted its tracking route, the waterfalls, the kanmangafuchi abyss and other nature themed area.

My bus passed the Irohazaka of course, and there’s a lot of fallen leaves just like the scene in Initial D.  I recorded both the uphill and downhill rides from the front row and got motion sickness thanks to it.

Those are my 5 memorable places that are somewhat unique.
I didn’t have much to write about the other aspect of a trip like culinary and shopping since I don’t have much money to spend. I’m pretty satisfied just by eating in food chain stores. i.e. place like Yoshinoya, Matsuya, Saizeriya and other daily food/fami-res places. Here’s some pics of the food.

The food at the top of Mount Takao

The salmonella thread derailer

Hueg Gyoza

Ichiran Ramen, very famous, try googling it if you never heard of it.

Train Bento

SAIZE YO SAIZE

Besides main food, I had fun eating various famous Japanese snack.
From the takenoko and kinoko biscuit, the gari gari ice, the papico ice cream, and many others.
I made sure to allocate some money for snack since there’s so many of it I want to try, it’s not expensive, fun, delicious and satisfying.
As for shopping, I only bought some onahole, not having to pay for shipping price makes a big difference.
Giving in to temptation and spending money on other otaku goods in japan won’t end well for your wallet, make sure to restrain yourselves well.

So in conclusion, even though bad weather ruined my trip, I still have fun with it and definitely will visit Japan again, preferably before 2020 Olympic and on a month with less weather fuck up next.
I also want to see sakura, but spring is the most expensive season, so it’s time to start saving.
I think that’s all from me, if you have any question that I might be able to answer, feel free to ask.
Thanks for reading.

Omake : watching Heaven’s Feel.