At the top of Mt. Tsukuba

I showed you a hot spring at Mt. Tsukuba, and after that I climbed to the top of the mountain by ropeway gondola as it was so clear that I thought I could see beyond my city. 

 This was one of the two stations where the gondolas departed. I had to drive for dozen minutes to come here, and it was a bit cooler there than where the hotel was. 

 Before I got in I took this pic. You can see the name of my city "Tsukuba" on its side. Our city was named after this mountain, and people come to this mountain to visit the shrine during New Years that I showed you in this posting.

 I was looking down all the time while I was on this gondola. Somehow I saw lots of old people, but it would be hard for such people to climb to the top of the mountain on foot after they get out of this.
 

 There was this stone at the top that was inscribed with the directions and what you can see beyond from the peak. According to this stone, we'd be able to see Mt. Fuji to the southwest on a sunny day without fog. 

I took this pic while I was looking to south. This is the highest spot people could climb up to, and I wanted to show you the center of my city that could have been seen beyond if there hadn't been fog, but unfortunately....sorry. 

It was a bit early to see autumn leaves, but I think one or two weeks from now most of the trees at this mountain would be yellow or red enough to entertain your eyes. 

Roten Buro at Mt. Tsukuba

I had a chance to go to a hotel that had a hot spring. I think the best season to bathe in hot springs in Japan is definitely fall, as you can see yellow leaves on trees.

 This hotel called "Aokiya" was basically an ordinary hotel where people stay overnight, but it was accepting people who came only for the purpose of taking in the hot spring. This hotel was at Mt. Tsukuba, which was just a 1 hour's drive from where I live.
 

 I had to pay 1050 yen to take a bath. According to this ad, the hot spring would make you recover from fatigue, and ladies have smooth skins.
 

 There is this type of hot spring on the roof of a hotel in Japan which is called "Roten Buro", and "Roten" means "open air" and "Buro" is a bath. And the name of this "Roten Buro" was "Unjyou no Yu" or, "The spring above the clouds".
 

And this was the hot spring this hotel had. I could command the magnificent view from here. Basically the water in hot springs should come from the ground, but I thought this hot water had some groundwater mixed in the running water. 

Foreign people aren't accustomed to taking a bath with strangers, but we Japanese just do that.

Milano Sandwich

Have you ever had any sandwiches or some other foods at Starbucks? It is considered in Japan that the foods you can get at Starbucks are not as good as ones you can get at Doutor. 

 I've introduced Doutor several times, but have you gotten used to seeing this logo? The second "O" is red probably because they wanted it to resemble a coffee bean.

 Had this Matcha latte. Matcha is basically bitterer than ordinary green tea, so it went well with the sweet cream on top of the glass. I usually have coffee, but in order to show that this blog is about Japan, I purposely ordered it.

There are always three types of Milano Sandwich, A, B, and C, but their ingredients are often changed so that customers would never get tired of the menu. And this one became available recently, which is another Milano Sandwich with soft chicken and half-boiled egg. You can compare it with the picture Doutor uses as an ad by clicking this and scrolling it down. I thought the real one really differed from the ad, but the taste was very good.

Sorry, my blog has been on Japanese food many times recently, but I haven't had time to go to interesting places in a while. Whenever enough time is available, I'd go and take some pics for sure.

Inaka no Nichiyoubi (Organic restaurant)

There are two restaurants in my city where they serve "organic" dishes. You know, there are so many foods out there that have chemical substances and additives, so Japanese people are starting to appreciate foods free of those potentially toxic stuff.

 This organic restaurant called "Inaka no Nichiyoubi" opened several years ago, and it has been doing good business until now. The meaning of this restaurant's name is "A Sunday in the countryside".

 I came here for the first time, but I was already familiar with this style of offering foods. I don't know why, but organic restaurants serve food in the buffet style. The fries you see nearside are Japanese tiger prawn. You can see a pic of the prawn by clicking this.

 I was looking for meat but all I could get was made of vegetables, eggs, and grains. I didn't think I was supposed to eat something greasy at a shop like this. 

As you can see, this is rice and curry. Or are you familiar with its Japanese name, "curry rice"? This curry didn't have any meat, and was full of vegetables like onion. And this grain replaced ordinary white rice. 

Had this as a dessert. The white balls (Dango) you see are something like rice cake, but they are not so elastic as rice cake. These balls are similar to the ones in this pic that I uploaded before. The brown stuff that is sitting on the balls is red bean paste.

It has been rainy over the past several days and the low was about 10 degrees in my area. It is considered very cold for this period of the year.