It was the Emperor’s Birthday on Weds 23rd February … another of Japan’s public holidays. Thanks Emp! Via train, buses and much walking we took ourselves off to explore around Ito. Although known as a hot spring town, we only had a quick walk around …. and disappointingly, the red carpet and reception wasn’t for us ….

….. before we caught a bus to Mount Omuro, an extinct volcano.

I’m not sure what I expected of an an extinct volcano, but it probably wasn’t this! It looks like an inverted bowl and is covered in grass. All the signs show a bright green bowl, but it was covered in long dried grass, awaiting the annual burning off to encourage new grass growth. Some 580 metres high, with a 300 metres diameter crater, with a tarmac path so that you can walk the perimeter. Mount Fuji is supposed to be visible from the top, but it was cloudy & he was hiding.

After volcanoe-ing we headed to the coast we find the Hashidate Suspension Bridge … so much nicer to have soil under our feet.

This area of the Izu Peninsula is an Unesco Global Geopark, with rock in columns: an example of the phenomenon of ‘columnar joints’ with systematic cracks that have occurred when lava cools and its volume decreases.

The bridge was built in 1971, is 60 m long and 18 m high. It can hold 20 people at a time … thankfully we were the only people there so we didn’t have to calculate average weights!

A few other photos

More early cherry blossom (and some orange fruit) … it won’t be long before I will be sharing lots of blossom photos! And Mt Omoru peeping above some houses and just because I liked him/her, a soft toy of station staff.