Katharina-san, Jonna-san and I took a trip to the nearby mountains to visit Mount Takao. I really want to climb mount Fuji but as you're not technically allowed to do this until July and I'm leaving on 30th June it can't be done. So Mount Takao instead and a fab day it was.
So we took the train from Shinjuku, transfered to the next train like the instructions said and ended up in the wrong place. Turns out we had to stay on the same train the whole time...doh! Stupid internet. Got a little bit of study done trying out some adjectives and whatnot and eventually arrived in the lovely mountain town. It was strange to be in a place so green and fresh and yet still be only 30 minutes away from the monstrosity that is Tokyo. At the station they have maps and inside the map they have these cute stamp things. You find these all over the place at tourist locations. The deal is, scattered across the place you are visiting are stamp points. You have to visit each one and stamp your map to show you've been there. Jonna and I stamped ours whilst Katharina was getting a drink but we had an epic fail and only got half a stamp. What are we to do? Steal more maps of course and stamp them again, only better this time. The old map I put back muwahahaha.
When we got to the place we decided to take the chair lift half way up. It was a little expensive but a really nice ride. Jonna is afraid of heights so she wasn't so impressed but I found it rather pleasant and could have gone around again with no complaint. I found it funny that there were people taking photo's of you on the chair lift and you could by them when you got to the top. Surely, a photographer at the top of the mountain would be better.
And then the hiking/walking began. We strolled along the fairly easy paths and took pictures of the different things around us. The mountain has two gods that are all over it (don't know the names) and they're rather creepy. Red faced guy with a big nose and a green guy with a beak. I wanted to buy a keyring or something with them on but I don't know who I hate enough to give one to. Kanto san maybe?
On the way up a lady beckoned us in to some area where they were doing tea ceremony. I thought first we'd be watching something but it turns out they were givng out free tea and mochi. Score! I do love that stuff. Maybe not the mochi on it's own but with a good tea, it's great. And when it's free it's even better though you were expected to make a donation so I gave 50 yen. Ever generous aren't I?
So we go up and up and up and then we make it to the top. It was easy. Like a stroll through a park but then it's a tourist spot so I expected it. At the top we got to see Fuji-san again which was rather cool. All snow topped and stuffs. Here's a picture or two.
And then we had to decided what to do next. We wanted stamps so we decided to go to the next moutain...shiroyama...it didn't look that far. But it was that far and it was 14:30 by the time we set off which is really the wrong time of the day for this sort of thing. It was pretty tough because of the heat but we got there and I'm glad that we kept going. More views of Fuji-san from this mountain top as well but we were all too tired to care by this point so we headed back with the thought of food as a reward.
Back down from the mountain most of the food places were shutting up. Nooooooooooo! But there was still one place selling ice cream and it was wine ice cream no less. Strange, not so great, but ok.
The need for one last stamp was calling us so we decided to climb down to the Biwa Falls to get it. We had to climb down some steep (well steep for me) rocky muddy path for about 20 minutes. It was horrible and great fun at the same time. Katharina was like Legolas on snow walking down while Jonna and I were all "ah crap...ah crap...." the whole time. We made it eventually to find that the water fall was the most pathetic one in the entire world haha! I didn't mind though because it was adventure^^
Tomorrow we go to Yokohama again. This time it will NOT rain^^
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