Autumn season is definitely here, and slowly deteriorating, that means the trees put on another spectacular show...this time with the gorgeous colours of the leaves.
We were invited to go back to Mt Shosha (w went there in Feb, all rugged up in beanie, scarf and gloves) by Chiaki and joined some of her Japanese friends and Mitch and Merry + the kids. We did it the hard way this time, we actually climbed to the top while the others took the rope way and met up with us! The road was really, really steep and we got a great lower body workout! Though I must admit that the treck back down was more painful. It took about half an hour to climb.
What we saw when we got to the top was pure beauty...leaves of red, pink, orange, yellow and green colouring the mountains. Just gorgeous. Though we had been to parts of it before, it felt somewhat different. This time around we set off early in the day and so had more time to explore and walk around. We got to see the building where "The Last Samurai" was filmed. So we have now walked where Tom Cruise has walked. 
For lunch we packed our own lunch boxes which included salad, rice and tempura. V. yummy! We sat with Mitch and Merry and witnessed the challenge of getting a 4 years old and 20 month old to sit still and eat lunch! RJ was very generous and passed out some American candy to all the Japanese people, friends and randoms, and he actually came back with more candy than when he left!!! People had given him random sweets to take back! Sarah felt a bit left out so she grabbed the bag of carrot sticks and handed one to an old Japanese guy! So sweet!After wandering around and seeing a few shrines it was time to go, and like I said, the treck down the mountain was a tiring one...but well worth it!
