Nikko --Water Falls - Yumoto Hot Springs - Lake Chuzenji - Wood Carving Center

Started the day out with cereal we purchased from the grocery store.  Turned out to be frosted flakes.  It's been a long time since I had those!!   This was my morning coffee...hot and straight out of the beverage vending machine.  they are everywhere.  We had hot tea available here or we could have a breakfast here, but we had to let them know last night.  Then into the car and off to see the Falls.

 

Ryuzu Falls - 210 meters

 

 204 steps to the bottom..back up and on to...

 This road was described as windy...very..unbelievable switchbacks!

 

 70 meters straight down.

 There was a nice boardwalk trail through the forest...lots of cedars.  We didn't go very far before we were into snow.  A little tossing of snowballs.  Beautiful trail.

 This vendor was at the top of the trail by the parking lot.

 Dave couldn't pass up the grilled fish on a stick...pretty good!

 Ryan waiting for all to catch up.

 Then on to Lake Yunoko where we saw some beautiful
 
  English Widgeons
 
 Sankeien Tufted Duck
note their cool ponytail!

A fair amount of snow in those hills.

On to Yuomoto Hot Springs

Provides the water for several local spas for their onsens.

Some very unusual sites here on the ground.

Colin said it looked like the strokes from van Gogh's painting "Starry Night".

Then on to Lake Chuzenji where we stopped for lunch.

The fisherman in the lake was one of many we saw...

first day of fishing season.

Grilled tuna sandwich.

On to Kegon Falls

and a female snow monkey

and her baby - in the middle under the twig.

We then went to the Wood Center to see the samples of their work.  This gentleman was making wooden clogs which they still use for formal and traditional events.  They were quite complicated.  I found it fascinating that he was using a very sharp knife and using his food as the support for it.

 

 And this is a carver who was cutting a bamboo plant onto a plate...

and then carving John's name and his name in Japanese on the back

Nice Job!!

Then down the hill from the Wood Center was 

a small park with a FABULOUS roller slide!

Grandma got in on this one too...it was GREAT!

Then there was a small Japanese garden just beyond the bottom of the slide.  This was a water wheel they had made out of old bicycle parts.  There was also an old mill and several wonderful bridges.  Quite nice.  Dave had gone back to the parking lot and met us at the top of the hill.  A fun place!  Dave dropped us off in town and took the boys back to the hotel.  We had a couple of places we wanted to shop...but unfortunately, both were closed.  We did find a good place to return for dinner.  About 2 minutes after we got out of the car it started to rain and by the time we walked back to the hotel it was pouring and the streets were running streams!  We did have our umbrellas though. 

We returned to the tiny Mom and Pop restaurant - 3 tables.  The wife asked which hotel we were from and we told her the Turtle Annex and there were 6 of us.  She seated us and we ordered and had gotten one of our food orders when another couple of folks came in and sat down and then 3 more who said they were expecting three more.  Turns out they were the 6 folks from the Turtle Annex that had the reservation so we scrambled to a smaller table and everybody fit just fine.  Not sure they got everything they wanted to eat, but the food was fabulous.

 

They had a collection of business cards, foreigncurrency they had collected from all their customers.  Very interesting reading while we were waiting  for our dinners. It was still pouring rain when we left and continued to do so a good part of the night.  Very interesting day though!