Yakushima is beautiful! The mountains in the middle of the island are covered in dense forest full of cedars. Some of the trees are thought to be 3000 years old. We spent two days exploring some mountain trails. The local buses take you fairly high up, along the most precarious narrow windy roads I have ever seen. We crossed tiny concrete bridges with traffic cones still marking the edge, next to a precipitous drop into trees far below. Yet the bus driver merrily swings along, reversing where necessary to let cars pass. Several times I was holding my breath!One of the highlights was after a couple of hours of wandering through the woods, bursting through to a fanstastic outlook, with views of the surrounding peaks. Another was meeting the local wildlife. The yakushima macaques played in the branches above us, and occasionally strolled on the ground past us, ignoring us on the most part. Then the local deer came to join in. I felt a connection with the monkeys - as Steve pointed out, they have sunburnt faces like me!! We could have watched them for hours, only we had to hurry to catch the last bus down the mountain. Otherwise it`d be a very long walk home.
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It was great to read your stories and see the pictures of your trip. Too bad you didn't take me with you :D
I dream about travelling to Japan some day (when I'm old enough), but one thing bothers me. Do you have to speak alot of japanese, or can you deal with english just fine? Should you learn to speak japanese befor going there?
Aleksi,
from Finland (not e very exotic place)
PS. Sorry for my bad english :)