Hata-san

After we finished up at Kakegawa Castle, we hopped into the car and drove to Fukuroi to check out Hata-san. Hata-san is one place that I have been to a couple of other times, once on New Years eve 2 years ago and the other time to see the Sakura. Therefore, once again I didn't take enough pictures to do justice to this beautiful gem in Fukuroi city.

When you arrive, you have to start out on a 10- 15 minute walk through the woods until you finally encounter a wall of stairs. Of course I hadn't taken into account all the stairs we would have to walk and the poor ladies had to make the climb, but they did well and they enjoyed the pay off in the end.
I sound a bit like a broken record, but Hata-san is another example of the Japanese love for balance between the beauty of nature, the beauty of the Japanese architecture and the serenity that one enjoys from a clean and green environment.

I really enjoy going to Hata-san and I think the ladies did too. On the way out, I picked up some dango(rice cake balls with a bean paste topping) which is quite famous from this place.

Afterwards we made it home and the ladies made us some chili and Ritsy's sister Setsuko came over with some Chirashi rice. We enjoyed a very international meal and some laughs. Ritsuko's sister really surprised me, I had never heard her speak so much English before. Unfortunately we all realized the next day that we neglected to take any pictures together.