I saw an active volcano and then went to Buddhist hell

[rkold]

Happy Belated to my favorite giant blond, I should draw something. >>;;

I am attempting to rid myself of VHS tapes for the move, unfortunately Disney does some ridiculous thing with a vault to make it annoying if you missed buying their DVDs when they were reasonably priced. *shakes fist in anger*

My house still does not yet look like normal people live here, I wonder if we can do it.

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving, and what better way is there to spend Thanksgiving week end than seeing uhhh pictures of Hokkaido and Tohoku!



Hakodate Hachiman Shrine in Hakodate














Hakodate across the bay




Monument to the dead Tokugawa retainers




Hiking trail I decided to follow for fun






Gokoku jinja




Pumpkins on display near Onuma Quasi National Park






Komagatake, BTW for those curious yes it is an active volcano and last blew in 2000






























The hotel I was staying at in Aomori was holding some sort of wedding conference lol


For those not well acquainted with Tohoku, a map of Aomori prefecture


The bridge to cross into the land of the dead, Osorezan. For those who don't know Osorezan is one of the 3 most sacred Buddhist mountains in Japan. (The other two are the much more visited Koya-san and Hiei-san) Osorezan is very hard to get to without a car or tour bus and is closed from November to April (I think for snow) It's in the middle of that little peninsula of land that looks like an axe handle. I had to: take a train to Noheiji, wait 1 hour there, take another train to Mutsu/Shimokita and then take a bus to Osorezan. If I ever go again I am so renting a car or doing a tour bus.













Jizo












The small onsen you could use for free at the temple. No real facilities but they are gender segregated. It was really nice :D

Comments

[cc-lemon.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous photos. I love when you post trip photos. They really take me to Japan.

[rkold.livejournal.com]

*BLUSH* Thanks! I love having a chance to share some of the places I've been, particularly places that I don't know as many people who have visited.

[twotone]

*cough* Would this be a bad time to mention that we're ready to return your "Mysterious Cities of Gold" videotapes?

[rkold.livejournal.com]

Uhhhh yeah, yeah it would be >>;;;We're trying really hard to make the house look like normal people live here so we can do a quick sale. Once the house is sold even if we've not picked a new house out yet then it would be much better.

BTW did they ever release it on DVD or just in the UK?

Right now we're looking at Dutchess and Columbia Counties

[twotone]

Okay, we'll hang on to the VHS tapes until your move. :)

Mysterious Cities of Gold is out on DVD now! The Complete Series! Looks like it even has some special features involving the English cast. :D

[rkold.livejournal.com]

I noticed. I realized that when you see DVDs you want you need to sometimes just get them because they go out of print and you then can not find them, or at least this is now happening to me. ~.~

And thanks for being willing, hopefully we can get the house sold fast and find some place new relatively quickly as well. :)

[twotone]

Good luck! :D

And let me know if there are any specific Disney DVDs you're looking for? I think we might have a few extras (e.g. if something came out on DVD and we later bought the Special Edition with More DVD Extras, or if we have something on both DVD and Blu-Ray).

[rkold.livejournal.com]

It's just frustrating, one of the DVDs I really want is the Stratford Festival Mikado from the 1980's. I own it on VHS. I'm queued to get it via swap, but I've been #1 for the animated Transformers Movie since October and the two in stock films I've requested haven't been shipped either o_O;

If you have Toy Story 1+2 and Bug's Life those are the ones we are most trying to get on DVD. I have: Monsters Inc, Nemo, Ratatouille, Wall-E and just ordered Up. I am going to buy The Incredibles, and I swapped away our copy of Cars since I hated it >>;; I need to get you the stuff I have for you, I've been slow but I want to pack everything up.

The other Disney we have on VHS and I was going to start looking for DVD prices for were: Hercules, Beauty and the Beast, and Hunchback.

Thanks so much for offering to look :)

[ad-exia.livejournal.com]

Awesome pictures, as usual! :D

[rkold.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :D

[mec]

The trees are all so beautiful! I love the leaves, especially in the Komagatake pictures. The owl is slightly freaky, though...

[rkold.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I liked how freaky it was it seemed very incongruous with the rest of the shrine.

Komagatake was amazing and I was glad I took the time to go there to hike around. I have some more gorgeous leaf pictures from some of the other places I visited. :D

*hugs*

[rkold.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, we want to move somewhere where we can have more land and don't have to worry about our neighbors complaining about our garden. Having to remove 6 feet from the garden was quite depressing. I knew you were moving but not quite sure as to where, I am not even sure where we are moving yet lol

Yeah, I was a little late for Tohoku foliage, but I caught a few lovely trees. Overall I saw some amazing places that I feel lucky to have visited.

[rkold.livejournal.com]

I think they and the city and the neighbors are picky, but it got me thinking and I want to be able to have a large garden, a greenhouse and if I move I can get my dwarf orchard and some livestock. ^^;;

Sounds nice! So you're renting or buying? It's a bit easier with renting since you can just sort of leave when the lease is up. We need to actually sell and then buy something new which makes it all more complicated.

We are also hoping to get a much smaller mortgage.

[rkold.livejournal.com]

Yeah we want to cut expenses which is another reason we want to move further away from NYC. It's funny we can actually have a house the same size or larger and a lot more land and cut our expenses.

Yes but it makes it harder to sell our house which we need to do first. The other issue is a lot is out there, but a lot of people are refusing to admit their investments have lost value so a lot of property is still very over-valued. I'm not saying it is fun to lose money on things, I've lost money on many things over the years, but it is something one has to accept sometimes. ^^

Someday I want to go out to LA. I desperately wanted to go to the Trunk Show tomorrow, but airfare was too much and the timing is lousy. *sighs* Someday!

[rkold.livejournal.com]

There are things I want lol I've desperately wanted to try Blue Phoenix. I commissioned someone to try for it for me along with 2 other scents I wanted but I missed out on trying to get Jingo Kogo.

I definitely want to go to a future event, it's more a matter of timing. The only thing I know for sure is I am planning to go to Japan in February to try to sell more doujinshi and to hopefully go to a seiyuu event.

[(Anonymous)]

Gorgeous photos and gorgeous places!

From the red of the momiji to the azure sea, little pink kimono to lunar landscapes, Japan is endlessly beautiful and fascinating - and you capture her well.

~Bruce

[paleonaturist.livejournal.com]

Why does it keep plugging me in as "anonymous" . . . (Sorry about that . . .)

~Bruce

[rkold.livejournal.com]

I know that feeling, I always need to make sure I am logged in myself.

BTW did you see the Sato picture I posted in my last entry? I thought you would get such a kick out of it. :D

I'm so glad you are enjoying the pictures, I love trying to share different places in Japan. :D

[paleonaturist.livejournal.com]

I hadn't seen it, so went and took a peek - What a mega-kick!! Had to share with all present family, of course!! (I see Nancy's plaque over on the righthand edge, as well!)

I never realized that the Yos were commemorated in that way - and I'm quite tickled. (^__^)

~Bruce

[rkold.livejournal.com]

Yeah all the volunteers names were up, but I knew you and my friends Marsh and Miranda would most appreciate seeing your names up they're all for the Yuhs.

I think it's just dolls purchased from Sato (so Tenshi Yos, not like Dolpa Yos) and then you need to check for them to put up your names. There are a huge number of Sato FCS names but I've never seen mine there despite definitely checking to get a plaque. lol

[misspaulette.livejournal.com]

Wow, your photos are wonderful. Your camera really captures the colors perfectly! And your shots from the mountain shrine were stunning! You make me want to travel more ;)

[rkold.livejournal.com]

It's very very very expensive to get to Osorezan from most places within Japan, well to get to Tohoku in general. This is one of those many times it really helps to have a rail pass/though being able to rent a car would also be useful. There are just 3 buses today and I missed one by 20 minutes and had to wait 3 hours for the next. I was glad I had a book lol

I've been practicing with my camera to get better pictures, at least of nature since that is what I love taking pictures of.

Now to share my leaf pictures from Oirase lol Though I think my favorite place was still the Nagano area.

[jougetsu.livejournal.com]

All your pictures came out gorgeous! I can't wait to go to Tohoku and Hokkaido one day!

[rkold.livejournal.com]

I really really love Tohoku but heard from ee970 it's really expensive for people in Japan to get there. Depending on where you are going I would recommend renting a car just because train and bust times can be very sporadic. (but find someone who doesn't mind driving on mountain roads >>;; The one to Osorezan wasn't all that bad, but the one between Aomori and Oirase while gorgeous was so twisty, I had no idea how the bus managed it!