Coming from an equatorial country, I was really looking forward to my year long stay in Japan. Ah, to experience the four seasons. I came to Japan in the middle of winter and remember seeing steam in front of me everytime I exhale. Then came spring and I went cherry blossom viewing with some of my gals. It was followed by summer which I commemorated with a trip to Okinawa. The white sands, blue waters and clear skies!
As I am near the end of my year long stay, I have also just gone through the fourth and last season since my arrival 10 months ago. Thinking how I am going to commemorate this season, the chance came when one of my friends showed me pictures that he took of the autumn leaves when he went to Takao san. Takao san is roughly 50 minutes by train from Shinjuku and the fare costs 370 yen per trip. Seeing that autumn is near its end I thought I should do it soon.
After looking at the week's weather forecast, the best day was mid-week. I also wanted to avoid the weekend crowd. As school starts in the afternoon, I woke up at 05:30hrs, board the train at 06:47hrs and reached Takaosanguichi at around 7:20hrs. I paid 900 yen to take the cable car up in order to save time.
For about 3 hours, I walked around enjoying the fresh air, taking pictures and at times just simply enjoying the view.
I arrived early so there were not many people save for the ardent hikers and photographers. By the time I started making my way to the train station there were a steady stream of people arriving to enjoy the autumn leaves.
I stopped on the way to have a sake manjyuu. Whilst waiting for the train I took a good bye picture from the station.
The energy that I had in the morning quickly disappeared as I boarded the train. I snoozed off very soon after the train took off and was contemplating whether to go to school. As tired as I was, I decided to attend class and bought a box of souvenirs to share with my classmates and teacher.
A truly wonderful experience.
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