Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture

Tsukuba is a small countryside town in Ibaraki that's connected to Tokyo by the Tsukuba Express (TX). It has a high density of foreigners because of the university and research centres that are situated in the area.

Saturday night was spent seeing a friend off at their farewell party, and on the next day, I borrowed a grandma bike and was given a tour around town that included seeing early autumn leaves on the top of Mt. Tsukuba (877m).

We had lunch at a buckwheat noodle restaurant called Sukegawa, where in fact, we shouldn't have gotten any food because we hadn't made a reservation. But we entered the restaurant and plonked ourselves at a table without knowing this, nor did anyone question our presence until we called over a waitress to place our order. Fortunately, they had made enough extra food for their two unexpected customers, and the service was polite, as was expected in Japan.

[Fukuremikan.]

[Akebi.]

[Rice ice-cream.]

[The soba noodles with tempura and complimentary fukuremikan oranges.]

[Queuing for the ropeway down.]

[Autumn Leaves Light-Up at Mt.Tsukuba ]