Kitayamazaki

Beautiful rugged coastline with picturesque rock formations? Sounds like it's worth seeing! Oh, there are 1,000ish stairs each way involved in seeing this awesome site? Hmmm, Ninoosh and I, both of us currently living the single life, decided it was worth it! Bean may have thought otherwise, but she didn't have much of a choice. She cooperated pretty well, except for the part where she spit up all over Ninoosh and screamed for the last 30 minutes of the drive home. I suppose since she's a baby we'll give her a pass on that, it was a lot of car-riding for one day!

Kitayamazaki is part of the Rikuchu Coast, this stretch of coastline on the east side of the island is 8km long and has cliffs 200m tall. It's near Tanohata Village south of Misawa. Our drive from was about 120km (75mi) and it took 2 1/2 - 3 hours each way.

GPS coordinates: 39.980220, 141.953490

Once we arrived and got Bean strapped into her carrier we were off. There are several observation platforms, a couple are near the parking lot, another is 363 stairs away and then there's another one at sea level...510 more stairs. I know that doesn't equal quite 1,000, but we felt like there were plenty of stairs unaccounted for and it was easily 1,000+. Didn't look like very many people take the trek down to sea level, in fact, we only encountered one person on that portion of our hike. An older gentleman in a business suit, who passed us on our way up. When he got to the bottom he started yelling. No idea what he was yelling or doing. Didn't sound distressed though. It kept us puzzled for the rest of the day.

The stairs were tiring. Totally worth it. The scenery was beautiful. 

We've got a long way down to go...

The stairs were numbered, that way
we could see how little progress
we were making.

Huge rock at the base of the stairs.

Ugh, we have to climb back up

After returning to the car we drove a little farther south to check out Bentenzaki. We weren't really sure what to expect, it was just something I'd noticed on a map. Bean had decided to take a nap so her and Ninoosh guarded the car while I took a hike to check it out. I found my worst nightmare...a bunch more stairs. There were a few places with great views though. 

The trail could have used a guardrail,
or maybe I just felt that way because
my legs were already tired...

I'm sure these wouldn't be poisonous...yea right.

We finished off the day with some pasta and an all you can eat bread buffet...yummy! We definitely earned every bite.

Up next: Didn't think I'd do this again in 2014...'Merica!