Bikuishi hike

Last Sunday I joined one of my teacher's hiking club's seasonal "clean the trail" outing on Bikuishi, a rocky mountain in our town. Legend has it that a "bigfoot" of sorts took a huge amount of stones from the Kyoto area (the hole created Japan's largest freshwater lake, Biwa-ko) and brought the rocks to Shizuoka, creating Mt. Fuji. Along the way, he dropped some and that "pile" is now Bikuishi. Regardless of its origin, it's a beautiful (and rigorous!) hike.

This sign directs us to the trail (believe it or not, I can read it!) :)

Somewhere under all those vines, there's a shack

A bamboo forest (with green tea fields on the hillside in the background)

Views from the summit, where we ate lunch, including miso soup with pork in it (delicious!)

That's the Pacific Ocean off in the distance
A few guys brought harnesses and ropes to teach us about "bouldering"

The day was memorable, physical, and very fun. I've been hiking with some members multiple times now and it's really cool to practice Japanese and learn who they are and what they do in addition to hiking. One is a well-known artist who made the sculptures in the city park, one is a photographer, one is a receptionist at a medical clinic, one has a son working in the U.S. Sure, we have lots of differences and a language hurdle, but even so, I'm learning we have a lot of similarities too.