We arrived at Yakushima and drove into one funky looking place. Almost like a beach side cafe in Malaysia. Ordered a fusion noodle which was pretty much weird and oily. The server is a plump dude who really entertained me as he was breathless by the time he brought us the menu.
I found the weird box made out of cedar tree which is a public phone booth.
We stayed at a Minshuku, which is like a Ryokan but at someone's house.
Actually, it was almost chalet like. We had a whole place to ourselves.
Basically all you do in Yakushima is trek, see the trees, trek, enjoy the nature, trek...
The water here is SO CLEAN, you can literally see the bed. The water is drinkable, I am a living proof.
They have all sorts of routes planed out, ranging from easy to difficult. And lots of such informative signs. The routes are pretty easy to spot so you will not get lost.
This place is really nature at its best. The natural formations created from the simplest things like roots.
Have no idea what is this, but anything not green is pretty striking over here.
Notice the trunk that my hand is measuring up to? That is the old cedar tree which was cut off. Then the smaller one on top of it is a new cedar tree which grew on top of it. They call it the 2nd generation cedar tree. They even have 3rd generation.
After climbing on the 2nd day, we had curry rice with onsen egg (3/4 done egg)
Breakfast from the minshoku was a very nice too. Flying fish, curry egg, natto.
Dinner was of course....SASHIMI!
Long life water!
We had barbeque on one of the nights.
I expected to see plenty of wild life, but only saw monkies and deers.
Waterfall...
This waterfall is awesome.
This place is were they came to take pictures for the animation Princess Mononoke. Very crowded place and took quite a walk to reach here.
The nights always start early and thus we got cards to past some time.
Our last dinner was at another Minshoku. The amount was AMAZING. So much food that they had to come in different servings
Check out the amount of plates
This was some local dish, almost like glutinous rice.
The most celebrated Cedar tree is the Jumon Sugi, it is estimated you have to take 10 hours for the whole journey. The first 2 hours, you walk a railroad track which as easy as it sounds, it is a pain to try not to trip on the tracks.
On the way, you get to see this HUGE tree bark, which can house at least 5 people in it. I call it Frodo's house.
The 2nd part of the trek is a tough uphill trek up moutain roads and paved steps. Sounds easy right? My advice is, do some training before you go.
Finally we reach the goal, estimated 7500 years old - the Jumonsugi
For the record, we took 7 hours to complete the journey...try beat that!
I seriously like this place. Good place to reflect and just get away.
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