August 19th

I have been really busy, but that's not a great excuse for not keeping this up to date. At this point, I'm two months behind. 

Anyway, after a decent night's sleep in the hostel, we headed out early in the morning to Kyoto Station, and then up to Omi Takashima on the western shore of Biwa ko. From there, we caught a bus, which dropped us off sort of near the trailhead of the "yattsubuchi no taki" or "eight waterfalls." We hiked in for about 45 minutes and, since it was really hot and humid, when we reached the first waterfall, we had to go for a dip. Which was great. And then we started hiking again, and were hot (and pretty dry) by the time we got to the next waterfall. So we went for another dip. This continued throughout the canyon. Not every waterfall, but maybe three for me and four for L.

The trail climbed up and around some of the falls, with a bit of what the guidebook referred to as "almost rock-climbing," but was really not challenging at all. 

After the falls, we followed the trail up to the top of one of the mountains, with a great view of the lake. After lunch, we followed some ridges back down towards the lake, and enjoyed hiking in pouring rain and thunderstorms. Needless to say, we were soaked through. But since it was warm, it wasn't a problem. We found one more waterfall near the bottom, and then walked out to find ourselves in an exceptionally cool park/playground. 

In a previous post, I put up a video of "The second best playground slide ever." The following videos show "The BEST playground slide ever." 

Part 1

The greatest playground slide in the world - Part 1 from matthew on Vimeo.

Part 2

The greatest playground slide in the world - Part 2 from matthew on Vimeo.

Part 3

The greatest playground slide in the world - Part 3 from matthew on Vimeo.

Not only did the playground have the slide, but it also had the coolest jungle gym, made of rope held together with steel s-hooks! Dangerous (for smaller kids) and completely awesome!

(Be warned, the last video is quite long and might take a while to load.)

The coolest jungle gym ever!

A Personal Injury Lawyer's Dream from matthew on Vimeo.

Afterwards, we hiked the last couple kilometres down to the station, and took the train back, still slightly damp, and pretty beat. The hike was about 14 km, but I was (and really still am) out of shape, and my legs were pretty sore for a few days. Once again, we cooked (yakiudon with veggies and tofu) and crashed at the hostel. Pictures of the hike are here.