The first place we saw on our second day of the trip was Goshiki-numa, the 5 Colored Ponds.  We started off at the foot of the trail which has a nice visitor center and restaurant.  Bishamon-numa, the first pond, which was a beautiful blue and we saw some people feeding ducks.  ^^  I couldn’t believe how vibrant the color of the water was, very cool stuff.  Then we hit the trail and walked for a bit and came to the next pond, Aka-numa, which was a very creamy green color.  We were getting pretty warm out by then, but it felt really nice in the shade.  Then we walked for a bit more and came to the next one, Midoro-numa, which was a crazy reddish and green color.  You can definitely tell that there is some iron in that water XD

Along the way we saw some families enjoying the trail too, and some of the kids had nets and little insect viewing cases.  Bug collecting is very big here from what I can tell, the popular insects to catch are these gigantic beetles that scare the crap outta me XD  They sell them in some pet stores, and I can’t imagine having one of those in my house, blah.

Well, then we headed to the next pond, Benten-numa, which was a bright blue color with a bit of a creamy blueness around the edges.  Very interesting.  And then we were off to the last one, Ao-numa.  It was a creamy greenish blue color, with more on the green end then blue.  Between Benten and Ao-numa we passed a nice little bubbling brook.  I love that sound, its so soothing ^^

Then it was a little more of a walk to the end of the trail, where there was a rest center and bus stop.  The bus stop is for a quick ride back to the trail head, and I have to admit we took it.  But we didn’t have the time to walk back because we wanted to see some other places that day.  Oh, I’d like to note that I used past-tense for all the lake colors, because apparently they change color over the course of the seasons, so even though they were a particular color when we went they don’t stay that way all the time.

After that we to the Noguchi Hideyo Museum, which is dedicated to a famous Japanese doctor who helped cure Yellow Fever and Syphilis in South America and Africa.  When he was an infant he fell in a fire pit which severely burned his hand and quite a bit of his body.  When he was a teen he was sent to Tokyo for surgery on his hand which gave him the use of his hand back.  After being healed so dramatically he devoted his life to medicine and became quite a distinguished doctor.  He won many awards and found the vector for Yellow Fever, saving many peoples lives.   But unfortunately he died while in Africa, working on a cure.  He’s on the 1000 Yen note, which is a pretty big honor.

Then we went to a Glass Museum and saw some lovely pieces.  Then we headed back to the hotel , which I’ll talk about a little because I really liked the place.  It was pretty cheap too, for the niceness of the accommodations.  In the driveway they had a van painted like the Neko-basu (Cat Bus) from My Neighbor Totoro.  That’s such a great movie, and I’m pretty sure every Japanese person has seen it ^^  If you ever get a chance, I highly recommend it, it’s such a happy kids movie. 

Well, inside the main building, they had this wonderful eclectic assortment of stuff.  They had these really nice wall paintings of trees and flowers, and right off the dining room there was a big koi pond.  There were some crazy big fish in there XD and some pretty colored ones too.  What was really neat was they had a bunch of wood walk-ways going all over the place with picnic tables stationed throughout.   We called it a night after that, we were pretty worn from being on our feet all day.

 
These are from the town where the Hideyo Noguchi museum is at.

The Hideyo Noguchi Museum

The Hotel X-Teru

Picture Hosting - PicTiger

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