Post 65: Monday 6/17 - Takahatafudo Kongoji and the Zoo

I went to Takahatafudo Kongoji to see hydrangeas. It was so pretty….before that though, went to Tully’s to get my mind and schedule in order. They almost always have little pop up stores at Big Box. This one was particularly cute.

This is the Takahata Fudo Station. It is a pretty modern place. I can’t actually remember which lines I took to get here…Chuo maybe? I think it was before Mt. Takao.

Toori to enter a shopping street, but it had an electronic ticker for information….talk about modern!

Cool little street.

Ok…this melon guy is pretty cute. He’s got like little sausage lips. Also, the “T” at the top of his head is actually part of the stem. The Japanese will usually include the stem in pictures of melon, particularly cantaloupe.

This is when you enter the temple grounds.

This pagoda is friggin’ beautiful. Very new looking.

Takahata Kongoji area before getting into the little “mountain” path.

The hydrangeas were not in full bloom mostly, but it was still neat seeing them in all different stages of growth.

Lots of statues and rocks….

This plant was just too pretty to not have a bigger image of it.

Some of the gates and the surrounding area has some really nice and intricate wood work.

Child statues.

And here we go into the hilly area. I was coughing going up.

View of houses part way up. It was cooler up here. I think there was a graveyard in this area too.

Some of the flowers and the trail.

They had these statues everywhere. There were something like 88 of them. You have to go all around to collect images of each one. There were quizzes at some of the statues…I think answers at others. each one seemed to have a different purpose.

People would leave 1 yen coins or origami cranes or turtles.

This is the entrance to a really nice view……and they were not lying.

I stayed up here for a really long time. It was me practicing on living in the moment and just really enjoying the view. Really sucking it up. The air was cool and perfect. The little tram that goes around the town looked like a little caterpillar….it was kinda cute.

Here is some of the trail, perfectly lit.

More of the cool statues.

Here are a bunch of the hydrangeas that I saw. I loved it so much! So many colors!

Towards the bottom is another pagoda, but not as tall as the fancy one at the entrance. This is clearly made of stone.

I had to pee, so I went back to the temple area which was beautiful from every angle.

Back to see a hydrangea walkway. Perfect season for the ones down here.

After I left, I went to a local curry shop at the station as I was really hungry. I saw an add for a zoo nearby, so I decided to go to the zoo….I had nothing better to do.

So, the zoo was bigger than expected. No, the kangaroos are not dead….its’s just hot out. I was a little sad for some of the animals….there was generally a lot of space, but for some areas, there was a lot of space, but there was A LOT of animals….for instance, the Japan monkeys….they had this island and the really deep moat around….the island had a bunch of monkeys….nothing out of the ordinary, but in the moat area, there were SO MANY…..it looked over crowded.

All in all, it was a good day. I was so exhausted afterwards though.