Day 3 - Mino-O, Osaka

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Decide to go to Mino Quasi National park after seeing it in a guidebook on
Osaka I purchased the day before. About a 20 min train ride from
central Osaka.

A road meanders up the side of the river to the
waterfall about 2km from the station. Along the way we pass the very
ugly mino Hotel, looking like some throwback from a soviet era
factory. The lift looks like fun, one of those open glass ones with
the nice view, but sadly I see a man at the hotel entrance guarding
it, or whatever. We continue up the hill, taking in the sights. I
love the maple trees that line the river, and the small waterfalls
along the way. We go to the Insectarium (270 yen), unfortunately the
displays are in japanese. It has a not too large butterfly house, but
the amount of butterflies make up for it. I think I get good shots
using my old telephoto lens, however later find out they are blurry.
Vow to go there again before I leave Japan.

I stop along a bridge to get a
jump shot (a new "project" of mine) next to a temple.


We continue up the hill to the main waterfall.



Rather nice though I have seen better in new zealand, and closest you can get to it is obscured a little by trees. We keep walking up the hill to look for the much signposted
monkeys, though we never see any. We decide to keep going to the temple, apparently only 3.5km from the waterfall. We trudge uphill for at least an hour, thinking the temple on the map is close by..until we get to the visitors centre up top. Not even halfway to the temple,
and it getting close to 5 we decide to take a quick look at the dam,
however the path up to the top of it is closed.

I see some japanese men with nikons set up on tripods, and a giant lens on closer
inspection proving to be a 600mm! one tells us they are taking
pictures of birds and they go to other countries to birdwatch. I take a pic (really i just wanted a picture of the giant lens, but how do you say that in japanese).



Me and chris take a different route down, which proves to be a route up a
large hill. Rubbish dots the hillside, strangely, since the japanese
appear to be big on cleanliness. Perhaps an old landfill site? though
why would they have it in a beautiful valley i dont know. We eventually walk our way down back to the train station. Not before buying a packet of battered maple leaves. Yes deep fried maple leaves. This area is known for them, lots of japanese tourist spots seem to have some token food or something that numerous little stalls sell. Because Mino is famous for its maple trees they sell maple leaves. Only Japan could deep fry nature.

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Photos

Butterfly
at the Insectarium