I popped by the bakery early this morning, but they didn’t have my bread yet made so I had to buy some buns instead and another chocolate hedgehog. I also tried some bun that had an edamame paste inside (I think). It was interesting. I also had to pick up my bike from the repair shop. I had dropped it off yesterday after school. I had the words brake pad and tire written on a post-it and showed it to him with the words, my bike and new. He could say the words front and back so he understood both tires, wrote a price down, and told me to come back tomorrow at ten when the shop open. As I was picking the bike up, I ran into Kocho-sensei who was biking to the concert given by our students at the train station. I already had plans to meet with K and do a waterfall hike up in Nanmoku so I couldn’t go.

 K picked me up at my place and we headed off into the mountains. It took us about an hour to get to our hiking spot. We were quite close to the border to Nagano. The drive was gorgeous! Such nice weather and I love to be in the mountains. The roads got super narrow, filled with blind spots. Luckily we didn’t encounter many people. We ended up waving to several tour buses filled with hiking tours. Look at us two gaijin! We parked and set off on what we thought was the trail. Together we could read about three characters on the sign, ha.

The first part of the trail had a really decrepit bridge that was falling into the river. It had been roped off and the trail didn’t lead that way, whew. The trail was beautiful. We followed along a river filled with rocks, shadows and sun, small waterfalls, and so much greenery and moss. Everything was rather slippery though. We had to traverse some rotting bridges so it was a little scary! The one had some serious holes in it. We even got to the end of a snake, He was moving too quickly to get a photo. After climbing a ladder next to a waterfall, the trail ended at the final Sandanno Falls, 50 m tall. You could barely see the top! We picniced here for a late lunch. It was a tad chilly at this point as the trees were quite thick. No sun for us and since the hike wasn’t too strenuous, I didn’t heat up a lot. K had planned to go swimming so during our descent, we stopped by a pool of water and a good waterfall. Perfect to take a shower! The water was frigid and the air cool, but he went in anyway!

On our drive back, we stopped by this one rest area we had seen. There was a ravine where the river had hollowed out rock. We walked a short path to a suspension bridge. So pretty! Would love to swim here during the summer, but no way down to the water. We later also stopped at the Nanmoku road station aka rest stop. They had a little restaurant and a shop that sold local food and products. Nice and cute things! I picked up a free hiking and waterfall brochure to plan future trips. They even have a camp site out there and an observatory. I’d imagine the skies would be amazing. The waterfall hike that we did was listed as #1. We got ramen back in Tomioka before K dropped me off. The bowl is always so big. I can never finish it all. Quite yummy though. I then had to go grocery shopping still. The sunset was so beautiful. One of the best I’ve seen. I wish I could have gotten a better shot with the mountains framed against a pink backdrop.