yatsubuchi no taki

Firstly: what is Japanese breakfast? Sometimes it is toast made from bread baked by my homestay mom. Sometimes it is Japanese cereal--strange fruit granola, very strange chocolate/banana cereal, or pretty normal corn flakes. The milk is different, somehow, but also the same. Sometimes Japanese breakfast is a delicious egg creation. I always drink (surprisingly really great) orange juice and sometimes coffee (even though apparently you aren't supposed to drink these at the same time?)

More importantly: yesterday I went on an epic hike at Yatsubuchi no taki with friends Richard, Kendall, and Hannah. Taki means waterfall, aptly named, because the first half of the hike consisted of going up a river canyon gorge, climbing up/around seven or eight waterfalls. WHAT?!?! Someone long ago installed chains and ropes so we could rappel up rock faces, and hand holds and bolts so we could scamper up rocks, and wooden bridges so we could transverse huge divides. At times it seemed a little dangerous....and not just from the hiking. When we saw some enormous and terrifying spiders I knew we were for sure on the Island. Some hikers told us not to go on a specific trail because there were angry wasps ahead. They gave us an order and told us it was important but we didn't listen, and unfortunately Richard got bitten a couple times by these monstrous creatures (at least it wasn't the smoke demon, right?). We also saw some adders, but snakes are polite and quietly slithered away. 

Monsters aside, this hike was probably the best hike I have ever done. As we went up the canyon, each waterfall became progressively bigger, cooler, and more fun to climb around. We stopped towards the top for a bento lunch break (thanks host mom). We followed the top of the ridge for a while and then made our way down to Lake Biwa (the largest lake in Japan, in Shiga prefecture, about an hour from Kyoto). We didn't end up exactly where the guidebook told us we would be, but we were determined to swim in the lake, so it was a bit of a walk at the end of the hike. And the lake was glorious. 

We played Kings on the train back to Kyoto.