I was fascinated by trees that were growing on rocks.
Maddie brought a friend on the trip. The fall colors were brilliant.
This area is famous for growing wasabi. This is the green spicy radish they serve with sushi. The Japanese put it in all kinds of food from crackers to ice cream. (We tried the ice cream. It was very strange and delicious but we couldn't finish it.) This picture above shows how they grow the wasabi. The water from the river is flowing down these terraces where the wasabi is growing.
Still walking on the trail! This was a rustic wooden bridge over the river.
This was one of the seven waterfalls we walked past on the hike. This was one of the higher ones.
This bridge was swaying quite a bit as we walked on it. Fun and scary at the same time!
The rock formations were very interesting here. They were almost tubular, five sided formations. It is hard to describe and the pictures don't do it justice but we thought they were cool looking.
Click on the picture to see it full size.
At the bottom of the trail there was a rest area with some shops and a nice lady to join you in a picture
This was a basket and a small shrine along the river. You could make a wish and throw a rock into the basket. We threw several rocks and Maddie was the only one to get the rock in the basket!
Maddie made a couple of new friends! She asked them for directions to a nice restaurant but they were too shy to respond.
After the hike we went to a hot springs place called Amagi-so. This place is situated along a cliffside and has 28 kinds of hot baths. At the bottom is the Oho taru (waterfall.) The water was icy cold in the river but oh so hot in the baths.
Vanessa and Maddie decided to get in the cold water after soaking in the hot baths. The water was so cold it took your breath away! I thought they were crazy to get in it.
They encouraged me to get in so I manned up and gave it a try.
I ended up swimming out to the waterfall. My body adjusted to the cold for a while but then my muscles began to freeze up and ache. I couldn't swim all the way to where the water was falling because the current was too strong. The hot baths felt amazing after being in the icy water.
After the hot baths we had a quick lunch and got back on the bus. We had to run to the bus and were a little late but we were not the last ones. On the way back we drove along the coastline of Izu Peninsula and it was spectacular scenery. We stopped at a roadside rest stop. The rest stops in Japan are pretty amazing. They usually have restaurants and shops in them. This one was really cool and had a great view of the ocean.
Vanessa enjoyed the hot water where you could soak your feet! 
There were a couple of places for dogs to run around too. They had obstacle courses and things for the dogs to play on. Too bad Jelly Bean couldn't join us for this trip! We decided we would return to Izu Peninsula some time on our own so we can have more time to check out all the sites. Thanks for reading our blog and we wish you all the best!
2 comments:
You really had a nice trip, that young couple Maddie met is Japanese famous writer's(Yasunari Kawabat who got Nobel lit prize first time in Japan)novel characters.
Thank you for posting this with all of the pictures. My wife and I just booked a couple of nights at Amagiso for our honeymoon. It looks like such a beautiful place. The hike you took also looks really cool. How long was the hike ? Was it steep and difficult ?
Thank you,
Alan
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