Note: Friday has been intentionally left blank. I didn’t leave the house except to take out the trash at six in the morning. I just studied and watched movies all day.
Saturday was a different story. I slept in a little bit, then jumped in the shower and got my hiking gear together. I also got a chance to talk with my folks before heading out the door.
My destination today was to hike Mt. Takamikura in northern Takasago. It has been a long time since I actually hiked to the top. The last time was about three years ago I took the train directly to Sone – it’s easier access now that we live on the JR line.
From Sone it was a longer walk to the mountain than I remember, maybe 20 minutes from the station to the base of the mountain. I had a little trouble finding the official path up the hill, but an old guy showed me a shortcut, literally some trampled grass behind a tiny mysterious shrine hidden in some trees. When he told me about it I couldn’t help thinking that it sounded like something out of an old samurai movie, but sure enough, there was a path behind the little shrine. I took the path and started up the hill.
Just after I started climbing, I noticed this weird smell. It took me a while to figure out what it reminded me of – kitty litter. Used kitty litter. At first I thought maybe I stepped in some old cat shit or something, but my boots were clean. I smelled it all the way up and down the mountain, so it must have been from some kind of plant. It wasn’t a pleasant smell, though, especially when you are gulping air as fast as you can to catch your breath.
Maybe it has been too long, maybe I’m not in shape anymore, but this was a steep path. When you are climbing the face of the mountain is right in front of you. You use your hands a lot to pull yourself up, too. A little steeper and you might need ropes. The nice thing about a steep path like that is that you climb fast, and it wasn’t long before I was sitting on a rock catching my breath with a great view of Sone.
The old guy had said that the path would join the main path about a quarter of the way up the mountain. When I followed the path and came out of the bushes onto a small clearing I shocked an older couple sitting on the rocks eating lunch. I smiled and said hello, but they were still too surprised to speak. From that point on I had a little more company climbing, as there were a few people heading down, and I passed a few people heading up.
Every time I passed older people they would laugh and complain that their legs were too short. I just smiled at them, mainly because I was too out of breath to speak.
I finally reached the top and got to sit down and rest even longer. The view was really nice depite slightly overcast weather. I rested for about 10 minutes, and then headed back down. Down was not as strenuous, but it was tough to find footing, so it took a little longer than I expected. It was nice to get away from the cat litter smell.
From the base of the mountain I traveled back to Sone and headed to the southern part to catch the Sanyo train line. I had never really been there before, but I had downloaded a map onto my pocket pc, and I figured if I headed south eventually I would find the train tracks and then it should be easy enough to find a station.
I did make a few wrong turns once I found the train tracks, and ended up walking through kind of a weird neighborhood. Everyone was watching me carefully, and I felt really out of place. Since I was just passing through I smiled and nodded at old people that stared, but they didn’t really react. Maybe this part of town had a bad foreigner experience or something. Near the end of the street a squad of little girls on bicycles rode by and each one of them said hello in English, so that was kind of nice.
I found Sone station, and I took the train through Takasago to Nishi Futami, and I was back in my old neighborhood. I looked around Ito Yokado a little bit, and then decided to head over to Denya yakitori for dinner. As I arrived the weather started to get a little worse, and rain drops were starting to fall. Talk about good timing.
Inside Denya it was empty – just the master waiting for customers. I sat down and we talked for a while to catch up. He asked about Kuniko and I told him that she was in New Zealand. He asked my job and I gave him the update. I asked about his family and everyone was doing well. Right then, Kimura-san, another yakitori regular came in. He was surprised to see me there, and sat down next to me to drink and eat. He was exhausted from a day of playing pachinko. He sent a message to Kazu who came over soon after. By then some other customers had shown up and the master had to start turning away people because all the seats were full. It was pretty rare for me to see it this full – but good news for the master.
We ate and drank and talked for a couple of hours. It was a really good chance for me to use Japanese. There aren’t many opportunities for me to use Japanese for a long time – just the occasional greetings at the store or with strangers. This was really fun. My repetoire is slowly getting bigger, and I tried out a few new expressions that I learned to see how they worked. These guys are really forgiving, though – sometimes I think they don’t understand but nod anyway.
They were talking about how much they enjoyed coming over for tacos, so I figured what the hell and invited them over for a taco dinner Sunday night. They were surprised, but they accepted. So now I’ll have a little Mexican party Sunday night. Good thing I already cleaned the house.
On my way home it was pouring rain. I stopped in at Ito Yokado and bought tortillas and meat for the taco party, and then caught the Sanyo line into Akashi and doubled back on the JR line to get to Okubo. That saved me some exposure to the rain, because I didn’t bring an umbrella today. In Okubo the rain wasn’t so bad, but a block from my house it really started coming down. I ran the rest of the way and wasn’t too soaked upon arrival. Tomorrow it’ll be taco time!
