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Kaleb K

@viewswhileriding

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Just a guy who likes to play outside in various places, eat, and snap the occasional pic.

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From Mie, we continued to Wakayama, stopping first at Nachi waterfall, Hiro shrine and Seiganto-ji temple. We got to take in most of the sights before it really started pouring. I'm sure the rain made the waterfall even more impressive. It certainly gave the mountains a moody look.

Then on to a foot onsen and lunch at a fish market (at least for Kaleb).

After that, we stopped at the Hasiguiiwa rocks and then on to a hotel near Kansai airport.

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Mie prefecture - road tripping out of Nara we entered Mie. It's a very mountainous area with challenging driving up and through mountains. Some of the tunnels were more than 4km long.

We made a few stops, the first of which was a very remote town with a pond (not that exciting) and zoo (didn't go).

We then made a stop at an old bridge (still in use). Then on to a rest area dedicated to sunfish, where we walked around a lake.

The family owned lodge we stayed at was small and cute and we luckily didn't encounter any of the very dangerous insects they warned about (seems there are some venomous ones, but we didn't get details). We also once again managed to avoid bears.

On our way out of Mie, we stopped in to visit the Kumano Hayatama Taisha shrine where priests and priestesses were busy cleaning and sweeping despite the rain.

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Tsuruga has sculptures from an anime all over town. We managed to get a walk in around town and to the port before a storm rolled in. There was a surprising number of historical signs and places associated with the receiving of Jewish refugees in 1940-1941.
This morning, once the storm had cleared, we took some share bikes out to see the old train tunnel. Getting there was on a road with a lot of construction vehicles, so not the nicest ride. Luckily we found a different route back to town.
Now on to the tourist chaos that is Kansai.

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Stopped in Fukui on our way to Kanazawa. There have been a lot of dinosaur discoveries in this area, so the city and region have plenty of dinosaur sculptures and museums.
We also went to the water piping museum. Unlike the sewerage museum in Nagoya, this one focused more on drinking water.
In Kanazawa, we visited the Nishi Chaya district and the ninja weapons museum. We then hit up an inu (dog) shrine, the castle and Oyama shrine.

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We're in Maibara on Lake Biwa. We hired some single speed bikes for a little ride. We weren't going to attempt the 200 km ride around the lake with these, but definitely want to come back and do it some day.
We also saw another castle in Hikone and another shrine. The cat exhibition that was going on in the shrine was closed for the day, so Kaleb had to just find some neighborhood cats to photograph.

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Nagoya and Gifu - we ended up by chance in Nagoya for the opening weekend of the para Asian games. Though we didn't get to see any of the games, there was a lot on in town. We visited the castle, found mascots and visited the sewerage museum (yep, what it sounds like, only in Japan they have fun art on their manhole covers).
We also took a quick train ride north to Gifu city. There we went on a bike ride, visited the park and pagoda, and went to the old town to see the cormorant (shags to Kiwis) fishing (though most we saw were fly fishing with the latest gear).

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We went full circle around Mt. Fuji today. We started with a bike ride around Lake Kawaguchi at the northern end. We then stopped at Lake Showji, Jimba Falls, and Shorato Falls. Fuji had a rare cloudless period for most of the day, only gaining a small skirt of clouds in late afternoon.

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We drove around the Izu Peninsula, which I highly recommend. Our first stop (after a terrifying mountain one lane, 2-way road) was Mt. Omuro. We hiked around the bottom at the geopark, then took a chair lift to the top track. You could see all the way to Fuji.
After a stay which included some onsen time, bowling, and other games, we went to the Jogasaki Coast for an early morning hike. We were early enough that there were very few people out.
We drove to the other side of the peninsula to Dogashima Park, took a boat ride into a cave, and did another short hike.

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It's been a full on week in Tokyo area. It was good to see some old haunts and areas we haven't been before.
A few highlights:
Tokyo Sky Tree from the Sumida river
Park along the Sumida river
Catching up with Kaleb's classmate from Uni, Tomomi
Kaleb learning camera operation at SKIP film museum
Hanging out with NHK children's show characters
The Hachiko scramble from above
The rainbow bridge and walking across it
Watching the massive container ships get loaded
Kaleb visiting Kanda University for International Studies 20+ years after graduating

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Heading to Tokyo for a week from Nagano and stopped in Maebashi and Takasaki for a bit. Rode on the Tone River Cycling Road, which stretches all the way to Chiba. We then wandered around Takasaki and checked out their parks.

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I'm sure Nagano is a good place to live and great to visit in the winter if you're into winter sports, but we found it a bit boring this time of year. The only excitement seemed to be a type of golf that's caught on here - played with a club that looks like a croquet mallet and a larger ball in more confined areas.

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Wandering through Toyama, we found the castle and visited the glass art museum (photos of exhibits are prohibited from being shared, though easily findable on Google). It's a nice town and seems to have more happening than some of the other winter sports focused towns.

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