Day 10: Takaozan

Today we got up super early so that we could meet Kyeong-jin (chris' girlfriend) at the bus station to go to Mt. Takao. The little village of Takao was very cute and everywhere we looking there were shops selling skewered dango (like mochi which is sticky rice pounded so much that it turns into a cross between dough and taffy like consistency). The skewers were always stuck into some ash sand that was around a small fire pit which slightly charcoaled the sugary sweet on the outside. After gaining the strength to go up the mountain and stretched we headed out. The trails were very nice but more steep than I had imagined. Also we noticed that there were many strange unwritten rules on the hike, such as, say "konnichiha" when passing people and the women go ahead of the men because they're "slower" etc. It took us about 2 hours to go up to the top where all the jinja (temples) were. once we got there, there was a cute shop to relax in and ice cream, shaved ice etc. was available for purchase. James and I had vanilla cones and kyeong-jin and chris got shaved ice. Afterwards we walked down the other side of the mountain on the various winding and steep slightly cobble stone roads (which ended up taking a toll on my knees and mine and james' feet). We then took the various trains home and the one bus that went fairly close to chris' place which was nice.

To be continued...