We were up early Saturday to head up to Japan’s busiest mountain, about an hour and a half away from where we were staying in Kawasaki. It’s one of the world’s most-climbed mountains, with more than 2.5 million annual visitors.

Mount Takao is closely associated with the Shinto-Buddhist tengu, supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore. The mountain is also renowned for Shugendo, the mountain asceticism focusing on strict discipline.

Mt. Takao has many hiking trails to the top, ranging in difficulty. You can also take a ski lift or cable car halfway up the mountain. Initially Mike wanted to climb the bottom half, but I have fond memories of ski lifts up into the mountains around Japan. I told them they could hike up and I would wait for them, but they decided to join me! Later they were glad for that choice!

I loved the ski lift ride!

When we got off, we still had to climb up half the mountain. Fortunately it was mostly shady, and we were ushered along by the wonderful sounds of cicadas and birds and mountain/tree smells. Living on the west coast, I hadn’t heard the sound of cicadas until I lived in Japan.

Not too far past the ski lift station we encountered Yakuoin Yukuji, the mountain’s temple.

At the top of the mountain we were treated to beautiful views. On a clear day you can apparently see Fuji-san, but that wasn’t in the cards.

Hot and tired, we had soba and nonalcoholic beer in a restaurant at the top. I was happy to have “sansai soba” with mountain vegetables.

Our plan was to take route #4 down the mountain so we could pass through the suspension bridge. But somehow we took a completely different route downhill, venturing off to another mountain! As we passed lots of people going uphill, I thought to myself, “I’m so glad we’re going downhill!”

However, about a half an hour later we realized we were going the wrong way. Some kind Japanese hiker noted our confusion and explained where we were. That meant we had to climb all the way back up before starting our descent. Oh dear!! Now you know why it was a 24,000-step day!

It turned out to be quite a strenuous hike…even just going downhill. We actually came across a man who had fallen quite a long way down the mountain and was unconscious and receiving medical care. We counted about 12-15 people there to help transport him off the mountain!

By the time we got back to halfway down the mountain, we were all tired and decided to take the cable car back down! It wasn’t as enjoyable as the ski lift because it was very crowded and the steepest cable car in Japan! 😂

After getting off we stopped for an affogatto (coffee for Kay and matcha for me) on our way back to the station.

After our five train transfers back to our hotel and saying goodbye to Kay, we went to go retrieve our luggage from our hotel and take a bus to Haneda Airport.

We decided to stay in a cool hotel inside the terminal since our flight to Australia was at 6:50 am the next day.

Haneda is a beautiful airport with an old Edo style area with shops and restaurants. That’s where we landed at for dinner before heading back to the hotel and having an early night.

Wake-up alarm set to 4 am for our trip to Sydney!