Hakkosan Hike

Even though CNN's Anderson Cooper was telling me I would certainly die if I stepped outside, we made it out for a hike up to the top of Hakkosan mountain yesterday. With everything going on here in Japan it was nice to get away from the tv and the coast for a little while.

Again, asking for directions from the locals to find the trailhead.

Our prefecture, Shizuoka, is famous for tea. Near the coast all you see are rice fields, but once you get into the hills and mountains there are rows and rows of tea leaves.



Japanese ceder trees (i think) cover the mountain here. Easy to get lost in.

Slow shutter pan shots from inside the forest.





The top of the mountain is over 800m, supposed to take 2 hours but it took us about 2.5, all uphill. Almost to the top is this clear cut area, looks like the mountain side was shaved by a giant razor.


Lost in the tea fields on the mountain.


On a related note, we have been watching the news about the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant everyday. We are still OK down here in Shizuoka prefecture, well to the southwest of the quake, tsunami, and power plant. We are keeping the people in the Tohoku area affected by the quake, tsunami and power plant in our thoughts. I have never been up to that area but from what I hear it is similar to central CA with a lot of beautiful coastline, fishing towns and tons of local surfers, all affected by the tsunami. Ganbatte Nihon!

earthquake

Had a lot of emails from everyone, figured I would post on here to let everyone know we are safe here in Japan. Most of the damage was way up to the north of us and we just caught some leftover shaking and smaller tsunamis, not enough to damage anything. Keep you all posted.

CALIFORNIA 3

^ Ventura County Secret Left.... aka Hobsons

C-Street in the morning.







^ Tanks


The Doc and his Speed Machine



Rincon

Surfline

Thanks to Bird for pointing out that Surfline ran a shot of me surfing from the same day I took the "California 2" photos. Unfortunately they couldn't identify me from my patented frontside tube squat.

CALIFORNIA 2

CALIFORNIA

Mori-Town

Koyo season here has already ended, but luckily I still had some photos on my other camera to show. These are from a mini-hike up in the hills above Mori-town.


We got a little lost and needed some help from some friendly country-folk.



Waterfall #1. We didn't make it to #2 and #3 this trip. Next time...





The sign makes it look easy enough, but a landslide took out the trail past the first waterfall and we couldn't get past it.



Scenic firewood clearing on the side of the road up to the trailhead.



More Koyo color...



You've heard of Chia pets? Well in Japan they have Chia Lions!
We were both very surprised.