The next morning I woke up early, thanked the hostel owner for his amazing hospitality and headed out to my last two stops before heading home.
My first stop was to a little castle about twenty minutes south of Daisen in a little town called Yokote.
Here is an alcohol vending machine in Yokote as well as the manhole cover.
There was a little castle there next to a lake. The castle grounds had been turned into a large park with many different “attractions”, including a running park, a tennis court, a Shinto shrine and a red bridges that crossed the lake at different points.
I first walked up to the castle, and took a few photos, it looked like it was closed for the new year so there wasn’t much more to do than look.
I then walked across the parking lot to the shine. It was old and worn down. The offering box was broken and the bell and rope was worn and didn’t look like it would ring anymore. This place was a little neglected it seemed.
After that I walked down to where the entrance was for the red bridge that spanned the pond.
There was a little trail that lead out to the bridge, it looked well-traveled, but I didn’t think much about it.
As I turned a corner right before the bridge I saw a tent pitched right next to the lake, nay, slightly hanging over the surface of the lake!
I thought it was a strange place to go camping, but then I caught some moment in the tent. Then I realized that I was looking at the back side of the tent and the tent opening was facing towards the water and there was a fishing pole sticking out of the opening. I was momentarily confused for a minute because the lake was frozen over, but then I noticed hole in the ice in front of the tent. I was a little amazed.
I walked up on the bridge, it was quite steep and the snow reached my knees.
I took a few photographs including a sneaky photo of the arm of the man who was ice fishing.
After I took my photos I walked back to my car and I passed a woman who was carrying an armload of wood and walking towards the tent. When i got to my car I turned around to look at the bridge once more, and I saw the woman with a large stick cutting another hole in the ice.
After that I headed the couple of hours west towards the last destination on my trip.
I drove out to Nikaho, Akita where they have some famous waterfalls called Mototakifukuryusui. I drove most of the way but my car was unable to drive up an icy, unpaved hill so I reversed about 300 feet and parked. I then walked to the trail head.
The trail was easy enough and most of the snow had melted. I followed a beautiful river and took a lot of photos.
I kept going wondering where the waterfall was, it wasn’t supposed to be this far down the trail. Then I popped out the other end of the trail about fifty feet from where I parked my car. I missed something. I could either go wandering in the woods or get in my car and end my tip early. I decided to try again and turned around to follow the trail back to see if I had missed the real trail.
I followed it almost all the way to the beginning when I saw a small trail going down. I didn’t see it the first time, but I was back on track! I only walked about a minute more until I came upon the waterfalls.
They don’t originate from a spring, but are purely the runoff of rain and melting snow.
It was beautiful and I stood for quite a while in the cold watching the waterfall and the river.
Some time later I walked back to my car and drove back to Minamisoma, Fukushima. It was rather early, only about 6 p.m. or so. So I got out my computer and played video games until it was time to sleep. It was the perfect end to a busy weekend. Time of my life.
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