When I told my brother where we were going, he told me he took me and my niece last time I went back to Japan, till then, I didn't know the little mountain we went was the same place!
Anyway, my mum kindly made us a couple of rice balls (with salty sour plums called Umeboshi) and pickled cucumber (called nukazuke), and some nuts, we were ready to go.
Apparently, last a couple years, "walking" became very popular in Japan, everywhere you go now packed with people. Always like this, but now even worse.
We got on Yamanote line from Ootsuka station to Shinjuku(新宿) station, changed to Chuo line (中央線) kaisoku (fast train) got off Takao (高尾), then took local train to Takaozan(高尾山). Took us about 1hour or so. It was lovely sunny day and warm, about 16℃.
As we were close to Takao, we saw Mt. Fuji from the train window (it was beautiful!) and the same time, more more hikers got on the train. The most of them were older generation of people and O.A.P (Old Age Pensioner) we call them here in U.K. ☺☺☺ Arr, bless them, they all were in the hiking outfit, wearing the north face jacket, and chunky walking shoes, Jack Wolfskin racksack, walking sticks and hats etc....Wheres young people, I saw them walking on high heel shoes, sandals, fur coat/jacket or mini skirt... They didn't look like walking/hiking in a mountain. That gap was quite big, stamina wise, although the walks was easy and very good tidy footpath, I saw "young (20's and 30's)" people were struggling to walk up. O.A.P people were enjoying their walks and chat, didn't look struggling at all.
When we went up to the top, cor, blimey, loads of people there. They took the cable car from the downstairs, about 10-15mins or so. There we saw a loooooong que. There was very japanesy house welcoming visitors to the mountain.
Way in to the mountain
Japanese people seem to like to que everywhere
Very Japanesy
Ojizousama
Never seen monkies in this mountain!
It was just started to change colours, so, it was still really green everywhere. As we went up, started to see more colours, orange, yellow and red. It was very warm, I took my jacket off and wearing my tee shirt, but not shorts weather.... But quickly, temperature dropped, inside the mountain was cooler.
Jizou with a woolen hat on, ready for the winter?
My first Kouyou(紅葉）in Tokyo
By then, we were nearly to the top. Carried on walking, I noticed some people were praying to an octopus (getting octopus blessings), Marcus walked and stood next to it, and an old lady started to praying! It was funny!
Touch the octopus head to get good luck blessings
Brothers?
Walked another 5 mins or so, we saw little steps to the right. Not many people go up there, it was really quiet. There was 100 monument (busyaritou 仏舎利塔 ) and this place was cool.
Middle one was donated by Shaolin Temple! Cool!
100 of those were circled the Busyaritou. If you look at the stone monuments, there was small circle on the bottom. Apparently, inside it, it has some pebbles from those temples who donated, and if you put foot on it, be able to connect to all those temples. How sweet! Of course, me and Marcus did it, and especially Shaolin Temple, I gave a big hug too. ♥♥♥
I'm not a religious person, but I love visiting places like this, I think it's awesome.
More leaves changing their colours
When we were top, I saw funny things. Here again, people were queuing, queuing for what? Blessings.
Long que for blessings for their wishes
Little que for cleaning sins...
The top was absolutely packed, we wanted to have our snack, but gave up. I got a little grumpy, after a few mins walking down, we found a bench to sit down and had our snack. More and more people started coming down to this way, before sun went down, they wanted to go home.....
It didn't take long time to go down. We took a bus to Takao station. If we had more time, we walked.
All in all, it was good day out, I would defo recommend this walk in Tokyo.
My mum made us lovely seaweed salad and cooked kabocha pumpkin for dinner. It was lovely to go home to "mums home cooked food".
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