Current location: Kyoto, Japan
After a week of fear and loathing on the alleys of Kabukicho I decided I needed some exercise to clear the fumes out of my head.
Mt. Takao stands 599m tall and is an hours train trip away from Tokyo, being an ideal place for me to sweat out some of the Sapporo beer I'd been chugging for days.
So I checked out of my manga-kissa early, took the train to the base of the mountain and started to climb the main path up. There was no end to the surprise of all the pensioners when they saw me climbing the mountain that early in the morning and I received many an "ohayo!" and "konnichiwa!" along with a puzzled look.
On the way down I encountered hordes of kids on a field trip from the kindergarten, and my "konnichiwa" was responded in near harmonious chorus.
Having gained the necessary mountaineering experience at Mt. Takao I decided to tackle Mt. Fuji.
So a couple of days later I took the last bus from Tokyo to the 5th station, to climb the mountain during night in order to catch the sunrise at, or near the summit.
The weather forecast was ominously predicting thunderstorms with a probability of 70%, but being a hardened mountaineer I thought I could take a little rain.
When I reached the 5th station, I could see it had rained not too long ago. The clouds hung low and the mountain was out of sight. But as I started my climb in the dark, the skies started to clear, and after some hours of climbing I had no more need for my headlamp, as the stars and the moon were illuminating the path.
At +3000m my heart was racing at 200 bpm after every five steps, and since I was only wearing a t-shirt and a thin wind stopper at 5 degrees Celsius and sweating like crazy, I was pretty cold.
It took me 9 hours to reach the top, with an hours stop at the 8th station to refuel and rest.
The sun was shining during most of my descent, but about an hour before I reached the 5th station the clouds started to roll in. Not 20 minutes after I reached the safety of the 5th it started to rain like hell, with thunder accompanying the downpour.
Climbing Fujisan was tough but definitely one of the most rewarding tasks I've ever undertaken.
The day trip to Kamakura was my bid to try and beat some culture into my head. But I'm no culture-vulture, nor am I really interested in history, so I went through the motions, checking out the "must-see" temples and shrines, snapping pictures as I went.
At the end of the day I decided to check out the beach, which made the whole trip worth while.
I happened to wander into a beach bar named Little Thailand, so I sat down on the beach with a cold Chang-beer in my hand, listening to Thai pop-music and watched the sun sink behind the horizon, having travelled, for a moment, through a rip in the fabric of space-time, to a little island in the Gulf of Thailand.
After a week of fear and loathing on the alleys of Kabukicho I decided I needed some exercise to clear the fumes out of my head.
Mt. Takao stands 599m tall and is an hours train trip away from Tokyo, being an ideal place for me to sweat out some of the Sapporo beer I'd been chugging for days.
So I checked out of my manga-kissa early, took the train to the base of the mountain and started to climb the main path up. There was no end to the surprise of all the pensioners when they saw me climbing the mountain that early in the morning and I received many an "ohayo!" and "konnichiwa!" along with a puzzled look.
On the way down I encountered hordes of kids on a field trip from the kindergarten, and my "konnichiwa" was responded in near harmonious chorus.
Having gained the necessary mountaineering experience at Mt. Takao I decided to tackle Mt. Fuji.
So a couple of days later I took the last bus from Tokyo to the 5th station, to climb the mountain during night in order to catch the sunrise at, or near the summit.
The weather forecast was ominously predicting thunderstorms with a probability of 70%, but being a hardened mountaineer I thought I could take a little rain.
When I reached the 5th station, I could see it had rained not too long ago. The clouds hung low and the mountain was out of sight. But as I started my climb in the dark, the skies started to clear, and after some hours of climbing I had no more need for my headlamp, as the stars and the moon were illuminating the path.
At +3000m my heart was racing at 200 bpm after every five steps, and since I was only wearing a t-shirt and a thin wind stopper at 5 degrees Celsius and sweating like crazy, I was pretty cold.
It took me 9 hours to reach the top, with an hours stop at the 8th station to refuel and rest.
The sun was shining during most of my descent, but about an hour before I reached the 5th station the clouds started to roll in. Not 20 minutes after I reached the safety of the 5th it started to rain like hell, with thunder accompanying the downpour.
Climbing Fujisan was tough but definitely one of the most rewarding tasks I've ever undertaken.
The day trip to Kamakura was my bid to try and beat some culture into my head. But I'm no culture-vulture, nor am I really interested in history, so I went through the motions, checking out the "must-see" temples and shrines, snapping pictures as I went.
At the end of the day I decided to check out the beach, which made the whole trip worth while.
I happened to wander into a beach bar named Little Thailand, so I sat down on the beach with a cold Chang-beer in my hand, listening to Thai pop-music and watched the sun sink behind the horizon, having travelled, for a moment, through a rip in the fabric of space-time, to a little island in the Gulf of Thailand.
 |
| The main path to the summit of Takao-san. |
 |
| The tengu of Takao-san |
 |
| I took one of the more off-roady paths down. |
 |
| Sunrise somewhere between the 8th station and the summit at Fuji-san. |
 |
| My climbing stick with the brands of visited stations. |
 |
| Entrance to the summit. |
 |
| At the summit I rewarded myself with a can of ice cold Kirin. |
 |
| The partially snow-covered crater. |
 |
| Entrance to the... Uh... Don't-Remember-Which Temple at Kamakura |
 |
| The Great Buddha of Kamakura. |
 |
| Kamakura beach |
 |
| Chok dee! |
No comments:
Post a Comment