An explosion of Fall Colour

View from the bus: I tried to get a paraglider, but the bus was moving so fast, I only managed to snap scenery!

View from the bus: I saw a lot of valleys with colour and large, fluffy white clouds overhead.

At the public park, there was a tree going through all the colour stages of autumn: green, yellow, orange, and red

Since coming to Japan, I've noticed that the Japanese have an inherent appreciation for nature. So far, I've taken photos of snowfalls (really... not massive snowfalls... but just snow falling in Tokyo), taken photos of the cherry blossoms blooming in the spring (it's a really, REALLY BIG thing here), taken days off for the spring and autumn equinox, and now I've gone on a Kouyo tour as well. Kouyo is the pronunciation for the kanji that means "changing leaves".

The tree in the foreground only has brown leaves and they are hanging on for dear life! The trees in the background are still going through their explosion of colour!

This the 375m long Ryujin Tsurubashi. This name means something like dragon luck suspension bridge. This bridge is so strong it can hold the weight of 30,000 people! As you can see, at this point in the day, it started to get overcast and a bit chilly!

Fukuroda Waterfalls. This name literally means "bag of ricefields". I can't see the rice fields in the falls.

It was another Hato Bus tour departing from Hamamatsuchou station. The first stop on the itinerary included getting to a national park and walking around, taking photos, and enjoying some small waterfalls. We then had a bento lunch served on the bus, but we waited until we got to the next destination, Ryujin Tsurubashi to eat a picnic lunch. The last stop was the Fukuroda Falls in Ibaraki Ken, supposedly famous for being one of Japan's prettiest 3 waterfalls.

I've included some photos. For this post, I've decided to put captions on them because I have a sore arm and I don't feel like writing long descriptions of all my impressions for the day.

On the suspension bridge, there were a number or grates where you could look straight down. Under this grate, there was a beam and apparently, like at the shrines and temples, people threw coins through the grate. Much farther below the grate, you can see the changing leaf colours.

At the very end of the day, we were lucky to see a Heron down in the river flowing out from the waterfalls. He stuck his head in the water a number of times and I managed to get a snap of him in flight!