I Have A Life.

I did not plan to visit Lake Yunoko(湯ノ湖) and Senjogahara(戦場ヶ原), but the master of minshuku recommended to, so I took one day to visit that area.Yumoto is far away from Nikko City, and the bus fare is very high. It requires 3200yens for only taking bus to Yumoto Onsen without getting off the bus on the way and then returning to Tobu Nikko Station. When I arrived at the bus station, I saw an ad for a discount free-pass for 2 days. It costs 3000yens. With the pass I can get on and off buses as many times as I want. I went to buy a pass in Tobu Nikko immediately. The pass was expensive for me, so I decided not to go to Nikko Edo Wonderland and Kinugawa and travelled to the Yumoto area for two days.

I saw a road map after I got off the bus at Yumoto Onsen Terminal. The area including Lake Yunoko, Senjogahara and Odashirogahara(小田代原) is called Inner-Nikko National Park(奧日光国定公園).



Walking down from Lake Yunoko, I reached Fall Yutaki(湯滝). Near Fall Yukaki, there is a trail to enter the wood conservation area. The wood is very beautiful. Stream running from Lake Yunoko is very clear. The temperature in the park is lower than that in Nikko City. It was only 12 to 15 degree Celsius. There were no cloud on the sky. It is the best weather for hiking. There were many hikers in the park, so it was very safe for me to hike without any company.



On the first day, I hiked from Lake Yunoko to Senjogahara, then took bus to visit Fall Ryuzu(竜頭の滝). It was too difficult to get on the bus as I returned to hotel during the rush hours. On the second day, I arrived at Yumoto Terminal as early as I could and tried to return to the city before the rush hour. I hurted my left ankle in the wood near Yunoko once on the pervious day. That day, I hurted my left ankle again in Odashirogahara. I was alone in Japan, I couldn't allow the condition of my ankle to be deteriorated. I returned to minshuku around 2pm.

On the second day of hiking in the park, there were a lot of people having a bell. Later I found out there are bears in the area, so people hang a bell on their bag to protect themselves from bear's attack.



(Updated on November 3)

There are 2 "Iroha Slopes" (いろは坂)between Lake Chozenjiko(中禅寺湖) and Nikko City. An old man in Nikko told me that they did not memorize Hirakara in the order of "a,i,i,e,o" sequence when he was young, but in sequence of "i,ro,ha". There are many G corners on the slopes. At every corner there is a sign showing one hirakara character, and there are totally 48 hirakara characters along two slopes. I saw two traffic accidents happened on the slope. People should drive more carefully on the slopes because some bikers are riding on narrow slopes.