♥: More Nature/Waterfall/Minoo

Sort of continuing from my last post regarding nature appreciation, a couple of weeks ago I went on a scenic hike with 3 of my friends. One Wednesday, class was cancelled, and none of us had plans. So, we all spontaneously decided to visit Minoo, which had a beautiful mountain trail hike that led up to a waterfall.

Minoo is super far from where I live (Kobe), but thanks to the Japanese train system, it was very simple to get there. Once we all met up, we set off for the hiking trail!

Also, this post will likely be another huge photo spam of nature photos. Please enjoy!

A statue we came across at the beginning of the hike

I love the look of stone stairs

Architectural appreciation

A little garden in front of a building that had a cute red wagon

The hike was not at all strenuous and was really relaxing because of all the scenery surrounding us. Once again, as someone who has lived in Las Vegas for so long, all greenery is to be marveled at.

My friends on a bridge

They decided to roam through the river to recover a dropped Polaroid photo

Another statue along the way

Throughout the hike, we came across a little temple. It was very simple looking and fit the aesthetic of the nature scene very well.

Side note: I really love this photo of the red bridge plus the scenery

And as we further approached the waterfall, I snapped a few more pictures of another set of stone stairs we came across along with some overall "there-are-so-many-trees" photos.

At last, we finally arrived at the waterfall! There were quite a few people there, but the view was still breathtaking.

Even though it's not a huge waterfall or anything, I was still in awe, trying to take in the whole view. If I had packed some food and it wasn't so late, I could've happily spent hours sitting in front of the waterfall. Before coming here, my host family told me that there were monkeys in the mountains. Along the way, I also saw many signs warning hikers of monkeys...but I never saw any of them :( What I did see, though, was a deer, not too far away from one of the hiking paths.
As we were heading back down the mountain, we decided to try momiji tempura, a famous local food in Minoo. It's basically fried maple leaves. Eating maple leaves definitely sounded like a weird idea at first, but hey, I'm in Japan, so why not try everything once? It was actually really good. It was crispy with a slight saltiness along with a maple-y sweetness to it. Unique!