Mt. Takao

It took us over an hour of fast paced climbing to get up Takao mountain. The mountain is 599 meters high (for those baffled by the system the rest of the world uses, that’s about 2000 ft). It was a beautiful hike as you can see by the pictures. After getting to what we thought was the top of the mountain we saw these stairs. It turns a corner and keeps going! The tiny white speck is a hiker.

If you notice in the pictures, I was not prepared for the hike. The Japanese hikers had appropriate gear including boots, walking sticks, backpacks, and headbands (I guess sweatbands). I had on my church dress and heeled sandals and had my plastic umbrella in hand. A girl’s gotta always look her best. Anyway, we had a great day and a great end to the day, i.e. a great dinner. The Japanese have a type of restaurant that is similar to Spanish tapas. You order several small dishes and share. It’s a good way to try different items. The chicken on a stick, yakitori, was very tasty. We should have taken pictures of the dishes; I’ll spare you a full description.

This is one of the views from the top of the mountain. It was too overcast to see Mt. Fuji. The mountain had many very old, large trees. They were impressive. Below is a statue of a tengu. I can’t remember exactly what they are (that’s what wikipedia is for if you’re interestedJ), but they were all over the mountain temple area.