Last month I realised that November is my favourite month here. Japan's Autumn is such a great time to get outside - the air has cooled after summer's onslaught, but it's not yet packing the sharp chill that winter brings. The leaves show more colours than the Spring's cherry blossom display and lasts much longer (not so elusive!). I was able to truly appreciate what an awesome place this is - having seen the scenery of better known places in Japan, I think my humble little neck of the woods has views to rival them - often on a smaller scale, but just as scenic. Last month I saw some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. This place is not quite at the top of the list, but it's getting there. You're looking at the view from a trail that goes from a place called Takedao to the afore-mentioned Takarazuka. At the moment we're still in Takedao. Some parts reminded me of the setting of that old TV show, Grizzly Adams. (Thankfully, though, the bears are way up north of Japan).

Oscar and I went straight after Japanese class and hopped on the train a couple of stops to this area. The line we took is the one that goes to Osaka. I'd long wondered what great sights there were to see beyond the train line - it's a bit of a frustrating trip through this region as you are tantalised by amazing valleys and rivers in tiny grabs as you speed between tunnels, drilling through mountain after mountain. So, when I heard someone from class talk about this walk I was determined to check it out - and quickly, seeing as it was the time of kouyou - the changing of the leaves (everything here has a name! Except foot! Same word as leg. I really can't figure that one out!)

Having said all that about wondering what lies beyond the train line, we were actually walking on another. Now disused, we were tracing the path that trains used to take along here. The new line is much more direct. Motorways and railways here do incredible things in mountainous parts - you fly elevated above a valley and then go straight through rock and out over another valley. I guess they pick an optimum height to engineer all those bridges and tunnels, bridges and tunnels, but you often seem to be quite high up. As you can see, in the old days things were more grounded. Here we are exiting the first of four tunnels.

There was a stretch of momiji, or Japanese maples, forming a canopy over us. The colours were brilliant.

Life seems very simple when you're in a place like this.

Sometimes you see things straight out of a screen painting, a woodblock print or a kimono print. It works the other way 'round doesn't it, but you know what I mean! Yesterday morning the mountains along the road to work were shrouded in mist, silhoutteing trees in different layers, and rising from valleys just like in those paintings that I always used to think were stylised. But yeah, you really do see scenes like that.

About a week or so after we went I saw this same view on TV. They were doing a short story on the walk we did.

There were some nice pockets of colour among the evergreens. There's a lot of bamboo, cedars, pines and oaks that make a backdrop of green for the more showy trees.

This tunnel was a bit longer than the one before. I've turned up the contrast a lot to see if there are any ghosts or other spooks, as we were warned! haha... thankfully, no. Funnily enough, back in Australia I have a PS2 game called Project Zero (the guy I bought my console off chucked it in for free), in which you are a Japanese girl in a haunted house. You can only feel the presence of an approaching ghost through the heartbeat-like vibration of the controller. When it gets really strong you look around through your camera, and when the viewfinder lights up you know there's a ghost in front of you. You have to capture the ghost by taking their picure. When you do they become visible for an instant and are often right in your face and really freaky. I hate that game! I've only played it about 3 times. haha

Well, back into the open, we were met by this bridge.

Oscar's a Londoner. We met at Japanese class and have become good mates. His last name should be Wild. He's hard to keep up with and there's usually a point where I see it's not a good idea to try! haha. Despicable but very likeable. Him, that is... not me. Well, ok... I'm very likeable too.

See what I mean? As if he knew at that moment what I would type onto the internet a month later, Oscar gives me the one finger salute as we exit the longest and darkest tunnel. We were tripping over rocks and sleepers at one point. It has a bend so it was pitch black in the middle and after a while we pulled out our phones for some light! I'm guessing from my street directory that it's about 300m long. I got a bit spooked for about a minute - the wall of the tunnel felt a bit wrong.

Nice outcrop ne?

Whoops - this is a little too red, but I can't be bothered tweaking it. It was a bit more orange. This was the peacock of the lot, sitting there yelling for some attention. It got it.

Well, we decided not to walk all the way to Takarazuka, as the rest of the path would be in "civilisation" anyway. This is a good example of what I was talking about before. To get an idea of the scale of these overpasses, look at the rooftops around the columns. The scale of public works here is nuts - I've heard things like these roads are often the result of cushy deals between politicians and construction companies - the company gives money to a party campaign, the guy gets elected, he then sees to it that they win the tender for some massive government funded scheme that services very few people. I wonder who will maintain all this infrastructure as the population keeps getting older and the younger people keep getting fewer through low birth and tragically high suicide rates.

Okay, I'm creeping into territory that I really don't know about, so...

g'night!