Mt. Takao

Well I have been out of blogosphere for a while now. I was busy having loads of fun! It was a three day weekend...again! There are soo many holidays in japan! (and I am not complaining one bit). Anyways we wanted to do something different this time. It was fun riding on all those rides at the amusement parks but we were kinda tired of it. Thus, we decided to go outdoors this weekend. We went to Mt. Takao. Its a li'l mountain near Tokyo..where you can spend the day trekking. We started at about 10:00 from Kawasaki. Its a 1.5 hour journey. It would have been better if we had started at like 7:00 in the morning. Anyways we reached Takaosanguchi station at about 11:30. There was a bit of rush being the weekend and all. Thats why I felt we should have started earlier. But we really cudnt help it..I was busy drinking the night away on Saturday and could not have gotten up earlier. Anyways, there were 6 trails to choose from. Each one promised a lovely setting for a trek. We decided to choose Trail number 1 which was the longest and the rockiest (from the descriptions). We started and half-way through it, we were tired! We stopped for some rest before "climbing" further. Its a nice steep trek. Along the way you see springs, big trees and really cool statues. After every few kilometers you have restaurants which offer picturesque views . But we dint stop at any of those. You can see entire Tokyo from up there. There are loads of japanese temples which have the meanest looking statues of gods. It was real fun. The top has an awesome view of Mt. Fuji (if the weather is really clear). We were a bit unlucky since it was a bit cloudy at the top. Nevertheless, we were pretty satisfied with the view that was being offered to us. We chose a li'l corner and opened up our picnic basket. We had a really nice lunch and just sat there admiring nature and soaking up the moment. We started our descent at about 4:30. in the evening when it started getting dark. We decided to choose a different trail for our descent. We switched trails at every turn to experience every one of them. I think Trail no. 2 and 6 were the most awesome ones. Descent was a li'l dangerous. The terrain was nice and slopy. I had a tough time balancing myself..the momentum dragged me along and it was tough to stop. It was dark by the time we reached the foot of the hill. I was kinda sad when we reached at the bottom. It was soo much fun! We dragged our tired bodies and aching limbs back to Kawasaki and had dinner at an Indian restaurant. I reached home at around 10..dragged my ass to bed and fell asleep after reminiscing about the day..reliving every moment of an awesome day.