Autumn....season of the red leaves

>Kelly
Yeah....I worked very hard for them. There was once where I waited with my arm outstretched for a whole 2 minutes before being able to snap a decent shot.

>stevelee
Don't think I want it. There's a guys in that video....you can have it.

>Clem
Hmm...you may be right, but there's that "running jaguar" symbol at the front.....

>MayC
Wow......you know my taste for girls. even I myself don't know exactly what I like!! you must tell me more....

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YES....I know it's already December and it is winter...and I also know that this blog is long overdue. But I also know that you all miss autumn and red maple leafs.....so here it is. I didn't really manage to get any great shots but hope that it'll do.

The place that we've been to this time is　竜神峡(pronounced ryuujinkyou） which means Gorge of the Dragon God, and 袋田滝(fukurodataki) which means.....umm....Waterfall at a umm...paddy field of bags. Or sacks of rice on paddy field waterfall....you make the decision which sounds better.

The special thing about 竜神峡 is that they have a long bridge that connects the gap between two mountains....and that's it. It doesn't leads to anywhere....good view from above though. And as for 袋田滝, they have ...well, a waterfall. Said to be the 3rd best waterfall in Japan. Before you go "OOOooohhhh....Wahhh...." , there's something you should know. The title "3rd best" don't really means 3rd best....you see, every prefecture in Japan have their own "3rd best". For example, there's a "3rd best" park is here in my place....whereas the park near my friends, is also "3rd best". BUT....but the view at 袋田滝 is great nonetheless.

Anyway here's the pics...


View from the hanging bridge at 竜神峡.


The dam at the bottom. There's a river that goes along very beautiful ravine behind it. Just wished they had a kayaking rental service. Would be great to experience autumn on a kayak.


This is ......must I say it? Okay...this is a bridge.


More view from the bridge.....nice spanning view eh? You don't get too much of this in Tokyo.


From the front....
Girl who don't drink Coke...don't eat McD...don't eat potato chips....drinks green tea. She's the nightmare of any fast food/drink companies.
Girl who loves eating and is not afraid of putting on weight...she actually brought a pack of potato chips there!! Who on earth would......okay, there are all kind of people in the world
Boy whose cooking looks like rubbish but is worshipped by my tongue
Boy whose cooking looks nice but taste like rubbish.....yes, he shares kitchen with the previous one.
Boy who once used to crap(not sh*tting but talk nonsense) a lot but have lost touch somehow .


They've put a piece of transparent glass at the bridge. Japanese mostly avoid this piece of glass for fear of breaking the glass and discovering that Newton's law is true.....


They've put a piece of transparent glass at the bridge. Foreigners usually fight among each other to stand on this piece of glass and try to confirm "In case of emergency, glass breaks"......or was it "....break glass"

Anyway, here's something funny. There are numerous transparent glass along the bridge and this is the second one. Jap tourist mostly walks past the first one without too much comment or pointing. But when we stop to chat about this piece of glass, we're suddenly surrounded by jap tourist who ...for some reason...got very interested of this and started making comments like "Wahh....it's so scary!" ..."I wonder if I would fall through if I stood on it?" .... and such...

Makes me wonder, why are they striving so hard to look cute? I mean, they could have done the same at the first piece of glass but they had to bring their "cuteness" over to us at the second piece.


See the dragon mural painted at the back? That's the dragon god. No history or folklore about this place. I suspect that they held a meeting and decided to name this place "Gorge of the Dragon God" during the time when Dragon Ball were famous......what a knockoff.....


This place houses bells. There's a coin box inside and the bells will ring if you put in 300 yen. There's three type of rhythms to choose from.....love, happiness and peace. They all sound the same though.


here's another look at the bridge.


May not look so but the view here really is nice...and oh, the pathway you see in the pic, they lead down to the dam.


This one is nicely taken I think. Any comments on this, Clement?



some yellow maple leafs...


The lake at the bottom. There was a man painting this scenery. Tried to take his pic but the sun was in the way and I couldn't get a good shot.


One last look at the bridge...


At 袋田滝. One of the nicer views I've seen this year. Couldn't take any other pics cause we stopped for late lunch along the way and by the time we reached the falls, it was too dark to take any blog worthy pics....but trust me when I say this place is superb for autumn.

All thanks to Hafizah(Fellow Malaysian in my college) for arranging this outing. Looking forward to the ski trip I'm going this 27th....SNOW!! SKI!!! SNOWMAN!!....YAHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!