We spent the night with another English sensei who had organized the rafting and had to wake up early to hit the river. It was spectacular!!! We parked our cars and drove up river and launched two boats for fourteen of us. Then we hit the rapids! There were at least five major sets. And in between them we got to get out of the boat and swim around rocky areas with little half caves in the rock, and we stopped at this natural spring and saw almost a hundred black and blue butterflies the size of my hand drinking the water. After we climbed a few rocks and jumped into the rapids and let them carry us to the boat. We played balancing games on the edge of the raft (and fell off) and then went cliff jumping near the end. It was all so exciting and fun and I wasn`t scared at all! We ended the trip at a beautiful park. Some of the rafters did have water proof cameras so hopefully pictures are to come.
So after rafting Rhee and I decided that there was lots in the area to explore. The night before, as we were searching for Nanbu, we stumbled upon this little village with a big temple and lots of people wearing yukata. By that time it was dark so we decided to come back the following day which we did. Along the way though I stopped and saw a rickety old bridge so of course I wanted to cross it to the shrine on the other side. The shrine wasn`t much but the bridge was entertaining.
Minobu, the small village, is built on the slopes of Minobusan, a mountain, and is talked into a really gorgeous valley. We found a gigantic temple there, Kuon-ji, with a big gate and a ton of stairs that reach the top. Not really knowing where I was going, I continued up through the town and it turn out we avoided the stairs all together and took this weird outdoor elevator to the temple ground a little ways up the mountain. It might be the most impressive temple I've seen yet and the only thing that could have made it better would have been some good weather for it was a cloudy nearly all weekend and then later the rain fell for three days. I really want to go back on a clear day! Regardless, it was a beautiful place! I`d love to see it in sakura season because the trees were everywhere. When we went for dinner at this cute little curry cafe in town, the owner showed us books called the 'Four Seasons of Minobu,' and the sakura looked amazing but so did Autumn so maybe that`s when I`ll return.
After Minobu it was off to find an onsen and a place to park the car for the night. Want to know how to do Japan luxurious but cheap? Go pay 1000 yen (about ten dollars) to use a four star resort`s bathing facility, complete with two indoor tubs and three outdoor and spend a couple hours there and then sneak around the hotel checking it out before heading out into the cool mountain car to find a nice place to park your car and camp out in the back seat. It was awesome and I slept actually really well! I had brought a little futon with me and after putting down the back seats and laying down the futon I slept like a log. Rhee got the front seat.
The next morning was heading back up into the mountains (I live near Mt. Fuji and the base is 1000 meters above sea level) to explore the Fuji region some more. We stopped at Lake Motosuko again in hopes of seeing the view that was photographes for the 1000 yen bill, but Fuji was hiding in the clouds. I did find pancakes for breakfast though! Then we just wound our way back into town. We stopped at an old village overlooking Mt. Fuji and went to the bat and ice caves that were formed from past Fuji eruptions. They were really cool. The bat cave was pretty long and required us to crawl through parts and the ice cave was really deep and cold!
We ended yet another weekend with a return trip to the parfait place for sundaes the size of our heads. I got chocolate custard!
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