Up The Mountain - Alex vs. Maruyama

As I was about to leave the zoo, Tara's voice rang in my ears: "You should hike up the mountain while you're there, it only takes about thirty minutes..." Although I had already cycled forty minutes in inhospitable heat to get to the zoo, my body temperature was back to around normal and I felt pretty good so I thought - ok then!

Maruyama is not a very big mountain, it does only take a little less than half an hour from bottom to top, but it is nevertheless a mountain, and as such is pretty tall. So even though it's a pretty quick hike, in the sweltering heat it turned out not to be the wisest thing I attempted last week. At times on the path I thought "I'm bloody glad I'm not running into anyone because I'm sweating like a bastard and my heart may try to make a run for it, separate from my body..." When I got to the very top though I met some people and one guy looked a hell of a lot worse than me. The little old ladies all looked fine, but then they were all stacked to the gills with hiking gear.

Despite this I'm glad I made the effort because if I hadn't I would've missed out on stuff like this:



And that is some good stuff. At the top the view was really nice, and it seems a lot less of a touristy viewpoint than Moiwa or Asahiyama which are just a little south.


Oh and here's a picture of some dude that I took because he framed himself so nicely amongst the rocks and branches:


Mountains are awesome, and I want to go up some more, but I need the temperature to drop severely before then.