Day 8 - River Tracing

Today, we woke up at 8:30am to enjoy some Japanese Miso soup to start the day. Yum yum! Then we spent the morning staying at Rocky's house while he and his wife Ikumi went to work. After lunch, we headed down to the fishing center. Rocky works in a building next to the river which promotes tourism in the area. It is called a fishing center, but he does more than that. Today, we were trying something new, river tracing. I was very excited to try this. Basically, it is walking up a river in a wetsuit with some rock climbing involved. By the end of the trip, you get to see a waterfall. It was pretty challanging since it has been raining a lot and the river was full. Rocky said it was the highest he's ever seen it.

We walked up many hard bits, until we came to the toughest part. Rocky mentioned that he was worried if he could make it up, but he did. The next person to go was very tall and not quite coordinated. Rocky through down a rope to give some support. Along the way up the wall of rushing water, the man slipped, and so did Rocky. Everyone help their breath for just a moment as we were all prepared to see two bodies falling down the waterfall. But, Rocky reacted fast and braced his body against a big rock while being plunged into the torrents. It was pretty exciting to see since in the end, everyone was okay, and Rocky pulled the man up to safety.

It wasn't so easy to climb this part, especially after watching that display, but, I was prepared and it went smooth enough for me. The water was cold, but we got used to is and enjoyed some diving into the water soon after the hike up the river was finished.

Next, we had to hike out of the river through a forest up the a steep hill. This was nice because we saw a temple at the top, next to a cliff. We gave thanks and headed off, when I noticed a strange animal walking around like an inch worm. Was my eyes decieving me? Was this a leech on the forest floor? To my surprise, it was, and a big one, too. Then Dennis told me a story about how he had three leeches on his body while walking through the forest of Malaysia in Borneo. In Canada, you see, leeches are always in the water, so this was news to me.

When we got back to the fishing center, I was shocked to see on Dennis, a small leech sucking his blood above his waist on his side. That made me do a very thourough check of my body, and to my relief, I was clean.

We said goodbye to the Japanese group that joined us, and then I saw something on Dennis' ankle, another leech! And this time, it was huge and full of blood! My god! Dennis didn't panick, so we took some photos. Rocky used a cigarette to burn it off of his ankle. It dropped to the ground in pain. Next, he took some salt and the poor creature shriveled into a raisin as it oozed out Dennis' bright red blood into a neat puddle onto the pavement.

Later on, Rocky had some customers over for a barbeque. It is Rocky's mission to increase tourism to this part of Japan, so he hope I could pour their drinks and talk a bit. My Japanese is really bad, but I was able to answer some of their questions and ask some of my own. Eventually, I went upstairs to wake up a friend of ours, his name is David Peyrot.

The reason he was sleeping is because he had been hitchiking all over Japan. And this day, it took him two days to reach us, and he had only two hours sleep, so he was exhausted. We know David originally from Hokkaido, Japan, where we were teaching snowboarding and skiing for the winter. we also traveled Okinawa together. He became a good friend of ours, and it was nice to see him once again, even if for just a short time. Our first full day at Rocky's proved to be one to remember!

Day 7 - Welcome to Rocky's

The morning, it was raining a lot. It was still the raining season and we didn't get out of our camping site until the afternoon. This day was nice, because we are now in the mountains of Japan. With the windy roads and cool rivers, I was quickly impressed by the beauty. The rivers have a strange way of keeping a thick mist floating above it, giving off a cool breeze on the body as we were scooting on by.

Now Rocky is a Japanese ski instructor friend we met while in Hokkaido. We became good friends when we worked together in the winter. He asked us to visit, and I made a promise I would, it was nice to be able to come and keep the promise. The days that awaited us were not expected. Driving into the unknown is exciting for the soul.

He wanted us to meet him around 4pm, so we stopped in a small town and did our laundry. The day had be woken up with a lot of happiness. Our team, Above & Below had been accepted, along with another 51 other teams, to compete in a 4 day trip around Taiwan to promote tourism to the country. Our hearts were filled with joy at getting the opportunity to compete in the contest, as we are confident we can do a very professional traveling job. go to www.taiwanbesttrip.com for more details.

We finally made it to

a town called Higa-Hagawara just north of a famous town called Gero. Here, we met Rocky, his wife, and his parents-in-laws.

"Welcome to the real Japan," says Rocky. After some tea and food, we drove to his home where he lives with his wife, Ikuma. There house was nice with a garden.

There, we had some fantastic Japanese cooking, and drank some sake before going to our first onsen. An onsen is a Japanese word for hot springs and in Japan, they take it very seriously. In fact, I never tried an onsen because of the fact you must go naked and hang out with other men. I felt pretty uncomfortable with this and never tried for this reason, but since it was Rocky's chance to be host, I couldn't say no.
My impression of the onsen was definitely relaxing and cleaning. They had various baths with different temperature both inside and outside. I was wondering how nice the ladies one was since ours was amazing. For me, it felt a bit strange having Rocky showing us around while we were all completely naked. But that's the beauty of travel, having to do things you normally wouldn't. The next day was going to be a lot of fun, so we needed to have a decent sleep and the onsen helped for that!

Now, we are in Maze, the heart of the real Japan!

Day 6 - To the Japanese Alps!

After having a nice sleep, we left early to start the day. We drove to a beach near the lake for our final morning bath. It was so nice swimming in this clean water. We had breakfast and started off to a city nearby called Hikone, to visit its famous castle. This I have a photo of.

At the castle, we met a cute Vietnamese girl with her mother. And her mother shared with me a very interesting story about her country, the war, the aftermath of the commuists and how her brother took a small boat across the ocean to America, with no English and no money, only to get a degree in univeristy, a job, and then sponsor his sister and niece to live there. They moved to California in 1994, and now, her daughter, Jenny, likes to spoil her mom every year by traveling to a country of her choice. This year, it is Japan. Nice to meet you guys!

After this nice morning, it was time
to hit the road. We had a long drive to the north-east. We had to travel through some large urban sprawl, and then we made it high into the Japanese Alps, where were are now.

Our campsite is a small bungalow, and this time we did pay for accomodation, about 1200 yen each. It is comfortable and a very beautiful site surrounded by nature and woods and rivers. There are no people here, though! Nobody! Very quiet, I don't think people like camping in the wet season, only us!

Day 5 - Rain Season

Who would have thought that July isn't the best time to travel Honshu, but that was definately the case today. We were pounded by rain all night long. It continued hard into the morning, not stopping until about 11am. By this time, everything was either moderately wet to soaking. My rainproof tent just happened to be on top of a very wet ground, that the water soaked through, onto our bags, sleeping bags, clothes and just about everything else.

This wet situation slowed down our day a lot. We had to find a shelter where we could hang up everything, including our tent before packing and leaving. We managed to make everything about 80% dry, but still a bit damp as we packed our things and finally left our free camping site on the northern part of Lake Biwa. Our destination was to go to a camping ground on the eastern part of Lake Biwa, about half way down.

That was about a 60km drive through some country and busy roads. Dennis was happy today to recieve his 12 000 yen tax rebate. Something I still haven't applied for.

The drive was long, and we eventually found the 4th campsite for our 5th night. The place was closed! What shall we do? Well, actually, that is good news because it means we cans stay for free! So,.. we drove up the hill to find these premade tents. Increadible! What a beautiful place with a view of the lake.

Actually, I am writing now in this tent and I can admit I am a bit paranoid of being discovered for tresspassing in the morning. I just hope we can leave early enough before any people come and discover us here. The best part about these tents is, they are huge! And they come with some free bedding, too! Even though we are staying in another place for free, we are comfortable!

Day 4 - North Biwa Lake

This day we enjoyed a drive to the most northern part of the lake, near a town called Makino. We found a wonderful campsite and were disappointed to see the price for one night was 4000 yen,.. about $45 US. So, we decided to find another spot. We found an abondoned campsite farther up the road and stayed there for free. The water is great. So clean, lots of fish. We had our baths in there. We also noticed a bird coming out of the water with a big fish in its mouth, gulp!

Along the way, during the drive, we saw a shrine in the water and stopped to take some photos. Plus, Dennis saw a sign to the turn off towards a town called Obama. In Japan, Obama means small beach, but I don't think we will see this town.

We were happy with our campsite, the scenery is gorgeous and peaceful, the problem is that it's the rainy season and it rained all night long and the following morning. Making the camping experience a little wet for comfort.

Day 3 - lake Biwa

This day was a bit uneventful, but still very nice. Dennis had to wake up early and catch the train to get his computer back while I was able to stay in bed sleeping in. A caregiver to the beach told us we couldn't camp there, but, I liked the spot, so we stayed there a second night. It was on a nice beach, and the water was so clean! It was nice to go for a swim and enjoy the fresh water. I was tired of swimming in the salty ocean.

Basically, we stayed camping on the beach, and late at night, there were some drunk teenagers near our tent, keeping me awake at night, giving me a broken sleep. It rained quite a bit and was sunny too, as this is the wet season now.

Day 2: The curse of Kyoto

This day was so cursed, that I finished this blog already and somehow lost everything and now have to write it again.

Day 2, we woke up on our nice campsite very early in the morning. We had stayed in a nice park, on an island on Japan's largest lake, Lake Biwa. It was looking to be a great day. Our camp was setup, it was early, and we were ready to drive to Kyoto to have a look at this ancienct capital of Japan. The cultural center.

Then the groundskeeper came. And he told us that we can not stay there that night on a Sunday night! Oh great! So now where do we set up camp? We were disappointed. The solution was to leave our bags in a locker at a train station. The good news was he offered to give us the night camping for free.

As we packed our tent and bags and got ready to go, the groundskeeper offered us to go inside to use the computer to look for another campsite. It was too far. 20km north, we would waste too much time. So, we decided on the locker idea. It was all good until the other groundskeeper showed up, because he made us pay for camping after all! Ugh!

So, anyways, we left early and went off. We dropped off our bags and started driving the 20km from Otsu City, to Kyoto. It was a nice drive, when we took the wrong turn and started driving in the wrong direction. Getting lost took up another hour of time, but we got back on track and headed for the Imperial Palace. Sounds nice, right? Wrong! Closed on weekends! Ugh, Sundays in Japan!

So,.. finally we made it to some famous temples and had a nice walk around just the same as the other tourists. I must admit, they were nice, but I didn't get much culture out of the experience. Later, we went west to some famous golden temple. Made good photos, but not much else.

After our temples trip in Kyoto, it become apparent that Dennis' bike's headlight was broken and we needed to fix it before leaving the city. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong! OUr rental bikes are made in Taiwan, and being in Japan, the part is hard to find! So, first we went to a bike shop, no, then a huge motor department store, no! Another motor department store! No! Gas stations, no! A Honda bike store, no! We were running out of options until finally Dennis called the shop in Osaka. They pointed us in the right direction, at at 7:55pm, five minutes before the shope closed, we found a shop to fix his deahlight! Relief!

Hunger!!

We went to a restaurant to charge our computer batteries, and of course, eat. Success! time to go get our bags and drive the 40 km to our campsite. It wasn't until 15 km into the drive that Dennis realized he had forgotten his computer in the restaurant! He would have to return the following morning by train to get it back!

After the long drive, at about 1am, we found a perfect spot to put our tent. A beach, on Lake Biwa. Wow,... so nice. And that is where I am writing to you now, on day 3 of our trip. Enjoy!