Ok, by popular request, here are more pictures. First, these are 4 more of the 7 Lucky God statues outside Takayama. (You can see another of the set in the "Statues" collage). The ladders beside them show their impressive scale!
Next we have more pictures of Nachi Falls, the tallest waterfall in Japan, and the traditional first major get-together of the Wakayama AJET each year. (You can see another picture of Nachi Falls in the "Rural Japan" collage) This first set shows the main falls and a little of the temple near it (I have more shots of the temple there if you're interested). It also shows some of the difficult trek through the Japanese countryside, wading through rivers and climbing over rocks, to get to the 2nd and 3rd Nachi Falls, which very few visitors ever see. The trail is barely marked, as you can see, and it was a tough 90 minute hike 1 way!
Here is more of the hiking trail, and some of my fellow JETs, and finally, Nachi Falls #2! It's much smaller than the main one, but after the exhausing hike, many of the JETs just had to dive in and swim out to the base of the falls, as you can see!
