It’s mid-Sept which means it’s koyo, JapanMan’s favourite season. The typhoon season is (fingers crossed) over, the humidity is going away and the winter cold is yet to come. There are plenty of fairly warm days and little rain, which is ideal for Japan’s millions of hikers to take to the mountains and national parks for leaf-peeping and seasonal treats like momiji manju – a maple-leaf shaped cake filled with sweet red bean paste. I happily ate three once when I was en route from Hiroshima to maple-filled Miyajima island and didn’t have time to stop for lunch!

There are countless autumn leaf hotspots to chose from, Miyajima would certainly be in my top ten, but the uncontested number one for me is Chuzenji Lake plateau high above Nikko in the mountains north of Tokyo. Check it out:

Strolling around that lake amongst the leaves is about as blissful as this world gets, in my opinion. You can walk all day, stopping for breaks at the pier one end of the lake and Ryuzu falls the other. I’ll leave you with this beauty:

More autumn leaves soon!