Rokko-San mountain hike!

Today me and a group of friends went and climbed Rokko-san, the mountain I can see from my balcony! The weather was lovely (It seems it always is here, it has barely rained at all and almost every day is sunny - even if not sunny, every day is warm enough for me to wear shorts and vest, although Japanese people keep asking me in a shocked voice if I'm cold! I don't know how they can walk around in long trousers and jackets)

Here we are in the train station at about 9:30 in the morning, just before we set off. We all met at Ashiyagawa train station. 

We walked up from the train station to Rokko-san, it was nice that the mountain was so close!

The bib-wearing statue photographed here is Jizou, the guardian of children, specifically stillborns/miscarriages. According to Japanese mythology, Jizou helps the souls of children who died before their parents cross into the after life - without his help they have not lived long enough to amass enough good deeds to get their on their own. The yellow bib you can see is representative of a practice whereby parents who have lost a children make bibs and put them on Jizou statues in the hope that he will help their child.

The view from the top was really beautiful, and I could even see Rokko Island from up there.

Some of our group didn't quite survive the climb, one of our team mates passed away on a rock at the top of the mountain, he is pictured here in his last moments, crushed under a rock.

But we got over his death pretty quickly and went back to photographing the pretty view.

We came across many obstacles that we had to climb:

(just kidding, we didn't really climb that)

Also we had some tight squeezes! And more nice views:

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Here I am halfway up, with some Japanese hiker photo-bombing. What surprised me the most about this hike was how crowded it was. We diverted from the main easier route because it was so busy and  crowded, and the slow speed was annoying. The other surprising thing was that it was mostly old people who were doing the hike! Old people here do a lot more exercise than in England, the government has lots of schemes to encourage it. However, it seems the Japanese hike in the same way they walk, cycle and swim - veeeery slowly! ^^

Here we are resting at the top!

And a final shot of me! Thanks for reading!