Happy 50th Anniversary Tokyo Tower!

I will soon enter my sixth year of living in Tokyo, and before yesterday, I had never visited Tokyo Tower.  Amazingly, Aya had also never visited Tokyo Tower since perhaps an elementary school trip.  I had ridden in its general neighborhood on my bike once or twice, but that didn’t do it justice.  Now I can claim to not only have visited this Tokyo landmark on its 50th anniversary, but also to have walked up the 600 steps to its observatory decks!

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Saiko Lake Camping and Mt. Ashiwadayama Hiking [photos]

Aya and I went on our first backpacking trip with all the new ultralight gear we bought together.  We took a special express train from Shinjuku all the way to Kawaguchiko station in Yamanashi Prefecture.  From there we took a bus to the Saiko Lake area.  All travel went very smoothly and was organized by Aya. She found us a great ticket package to include the train and all buses.  Around the Saiko Lake area is very large and you have to take the local sight-seeing bus.  The schedule for that bus is pretty good, allowing one to string together a lot of sites in one day.
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