A last glance at Iya.

Guided by a rough map, we wound our way up and up a mountain, to the end of the road, to find this house. A renovated Samurai homestead. This wonderful building has a relatively new thatch roof. They rarely (if ever) light the fire inside. The care taker was quick to say that the roof will not last long without smoke.
Throughout the Iya valley, we stumbled across bridge after bridge. This was a particular favourite. It is actually a walking bridge. A mighty feat of engineering that doesn't seem to lead to much at all. Beautiful view though.
The peeing statue. Everyone stops to take a photo of this very European statue in the middle of Japan. He is perched precariously on the edge of a very deep valley. It was actually pretty with the low rain clouds. Everything was so green and clean.