Yesterday we went on a wonderful hike up mount Mitake, which is about 1.5 hours out of Tokyo on the train. We went with Chris and his daughter Sophie, and also Anna and Hope, two friends of his. We spent most of the journey there talking about our karaoke attempts on friday night. We'd had dinner at Chris' house and then he'd rolled out the karaoke machine for a quick sing song. As usual, we were all pretty timid at first, but after a few glasses of wine and some dutch courage, we couldn't be stopped! I dread to think what the neighbours thought...
Anyway, we got to Mitake station at about 9.30am and slowly made our way up the steep slope to the top. There was a lot of snow around (which was quite surprising when we had come from a snow-less Tokyo) and it was stunning. Everything was covered in a light blanket of snow, the twigs on the trees were enveloped in ice and there were regal pine trees all around us. The nice thing was that we were the few people who were walking up. I think most of the Japanese had chosen to get the cable car. We were pretty hungry when we got to the top and found a basic cafe selling hearty fare. After a big plate of curry and rice, we headed on up to the temple - a beautiful structure perched atop the mountain overlooking a stunning view. It was so serene. By this time it was getting pretty cold (note my fetching "tea cosy" hat!), so we decided to head back down the mountain and got the cable car as a treat. There were a lot of snoozy people on the train back to Tokyo.
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