Took a trip to Yamagata prefecture on Saturday. It was quite foggy, and rainy, but the 45-something of us all packed onto a charter bus and did the whole tourist thing. After a nice traditional Japanese meal at a local restaurant, we hiked up the 1100 stone steps of Yamadera, a mountain known for its many temples and shrines.

Most of this hike was in some light rain, and the fog was so thick you could almost taste it.

Finally, at the top, separated from the group by my incredible hiking speed (and my propensity for taking steps two at a time), I found the temple, doffed my shoes, and entered. This is what I saw.

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When I left, a side path led off to one side, and I took it. Just then the fog lifted, and I could see the village where I had started.

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Sometimes as I was hiking up to the tops of mountains to view temples, I had wondered why monks would choose to build these structures in the most inconvenient place possible. But the sense of tranquility at such extremes is nearly tangible, and the view is spectacular.

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I couldn’t leave it at that; here’s another photo taken from the bridge at Naruko Gorge.

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I took a trip to Naruko onsen yesterday with some of my friends. This place is famous for its fall colors, and I took more than a hundred photographs.

Please click on each image, as the thumbnails don’t do the image justice.

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When we were finished hiking around and getting lost in the forest, we walked back to the onsen (public bath) for a nice long soak. In my opinion, a trip to one of these places should be near the top of the list of things to do when visiting Japan. The onsen was made completely of old wood, and the water was piped in through channels dug through logs suspended from the roof. The resulting waterfall effect was perfect for a little water massage, and it also created an excellent white noise background well-suited for relaxing.

After that, we ate a hurried meal and hopped on the last train back to Sendai.

Here’s a photo of one of the smaller Buddha statues on the ground floor inside the Big Buddha.

It seems to be saying, “Talk to the hand, girlfriend.” Also, check out the animated hair.

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To clear something up, all the photos I post here which are clickable are actually just crops of the full image. To see the whole thing, you HAVE to click on the image.