What a Difference a Week Can Make
Back to Oku-Nikko for the weekend
I went back to Oku-Nikko for the weekend as the sunny weather forecast was too tempting. The fall colors in the Lake Yunoko area were just beginning to show last weekend. But barely a week later, they were already almost beyond their peak, but still mesmerizing.
The forest section between Lake Yunoko and Ryuzu Waterfall was the highlight of my weekend. The entire forest felt like a scene from Hayao Miyazaki anime, which could likely be titled “The Rainbow Forest”. I have never seen fall colors as bright and as vivid in my life. I hiked the whole forest twice with my head up in complete awe.
I spent the night in a little inn right by Lake Chuzenji, the Little Forest Inn. The nightly fee for their single rooms is around 8,000 Yen. It has the perfect location and just the right amount of coziness.
The evening was cold and windy. I had a long dinner at another nearby cozy place, Cafe de Savoie run by a husband and wife duo - tasty food and great atmosphere/decoration. They serve bistro-style French food. I had the roast chicken, which was delicious.
Last weekend, the Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto kept me company during the train ride to Nikko - a short book that I did not necessarily like but somehow could not stop thinking about. It is a detective story starting with a double suicide murder. It involves multiple characters and places from Tokyo, Kyushu, and Hokkaido and reads almost as an ode to rightfully praised public transportation system of Japan, particularly its train network. Among the several characters that Matsumoto based his story on, only one felt interesting enough, unfortunately the one with the least “screen time”. The plot twist was also a little too predictable.
This weekend, I had Going Infinite by Michael Lewis with me. In his new book, Lewis, famous for the Big Short and the New New Thing (which I really liked), ttells the story of Sam Bankman-Fried - once a golden boy of crypto who is currently on trial for fraud charges. I knew almost nothing about crypto, so it was interesting to read about the early days of crypto and how SBF got involved with it. But as many more informed reviewers pointed out, Micheal Lewis came out to be too forgiving, almost trying to justify a crime in the tune of USD 8 billion.
While the autumn foliage season seems to be over in Oku-Nikko (the area between Lake Yunoko and Ryuzu Waterfall), it looks like the colors will be at their peak at Lake Chizenji and the Kegon Waterfall area next weekend. Other than the areas surrounding Ryuzu and Yudaki Waterfalls, the hiking trails were fairly empty, but there was a lot of car traffic causing the public bus to run late (something to take into account if you try to make it back to Tobu Nikko or JB Tobu Stations on time to catch a train back to Tokyo).
These Sunday Posts that I do not separately email but just post here intend to replace Instagram for me. I have been using the platform less and less since it moved on to become a more reel/short video-focused platform, and I enjoy the notes/communities here a lot more.
In addition to Sunday Posts, I publish one newsletter per month (that I post here and also email to my subscribers list).
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Have a wonderful week.
Burcu