Don,
Looks great! Hope you have a wonderful time. When I visited Japan, I was very surprised how "white" the older culms of Moso could get. I had always heard of Henon being the "Grey Ghost" but some of the white Moso I saw looked like old bones. P.S. Thanks for the Bashania trades. Eric

Those are two great pictures. One day I will make it to Japan, and I wish I could grow Moso here. Japanse gardens have always been a favorite of mine.

Thanks Eric for the tip on the bamboo garden,. we found some other people that also plan on going once we get to Kyoto (3days),. I will post pictures if I can find another hot spot (Free wi/fi) :)

Cliff, Japan is great a little expensive but not out of reach for anyone. I'm actually with one of those tour groups (First time) and its been a great experience! Lots of nice people and package covers Hotel and one to two meals a day depending on the schedule.

Don

Thanks for the advice Don.
Do you have any other pics from Japan you could share?
Off subject, but I have backpacked through Europe by myself and built a house for Habitat for Humanity in Costa Rica, so the tour groups usually aren't my style, anyways I just had a craniotomy done in late August so I can't travel for a while.

Here are a few pics from today.
We visited Mt. Fugi, in Hakone State Park, and took a boat ride on Lake Ashi, then a cable car up to the shinto shrine over looking the lake.

The ride to Hakone was about 2 hours and I spotted many different types of bamboo. Lots of big Ph. Timbers, some Sasa looking var. You can see that the entire hill where the shrine is located is covered in a Humulis type bamboo.

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cable car destination at top of mountian 6000'
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bamboo covered mountian (also sasa grass)
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View of Fugi from Shinto Shrine
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very cool

Ah, the days of yesterday...things still look beautiful there as always.Haven't been there since the late 80's early 90's...way before digital cameras-took out my old photos from a "disk" camera and a "110"camera....

Don,
When you were in Hakone did you eat any of the sulfur eggs? They hard boil them in the sulfur vents. Supposedly they add one year to your lifespan.
Those pics are awesome. I have always wanted to visit Nikko National Park in the Japanese Alps, but Hakone looks great too.

Cliff-
Are those similar to the Japanese "century eggs" or the Chinese "1000 year old eggs"? (Which are not cooked, but simply coated with a mud mixture that turns the yolk gray-green and the white portion a translucent black....beautiful, but an acquired taste.) The Chinese ones are called "pidan," which, means "leather egg." The Japanese word for them is pronounced something like "piitan." And they're also a Filipino delicacy. Here's a link explaining the process:

pidan

Kudzu, the filipino delicacy is Balut...[one must have a San Miguel or Red Horse beer before 1 tries this-lot of personal experience after living there for a number of years].

Kudzu,
I am not sure what they are called in Japanese, but a friend of mine who studied in Nagoya visited Hakone and its local steaming volcano.
He said they sell eggs that are hard-boiled in the sulfur vents and taste and smell like awful. I just googled "japanese sulfur eggs" and they look to be the same thing.
I have never heard of the Chinese "1000 year old eggs" before. Interesting stuff nonetheless.

Hi guys,.. I mere in Kyoto and in two days we are going to one of Kyoto's largest and most beautiul parks with world famous Bamboo groves. I really wanted to go to the bamboo garden but we have been told its quite a distance from our hotel and a small group of us are going so everyone must be happy.

Will post more photos later today of our travels.

D