Mountain Climbing

Today Hunter and I went for a hike with Koji, a Junior High School English Teacher associated with the AET program from the time when AETs taught at the Junior High level instead of Primary School. We climbed Mt Atago, a little past the edge of Kyoto. Wikipedia tells me it is 924m high.

It took us about 2 hours to climb up the mountain. The first half an hour or so was incredibly steep. Koji and his friend seemed to effortlessly bound up the track, with me glaring at their backs. Koji has been a teacher for 30 years which must make him about 50, and his friend is retired. Both run Marathons for fun, so they easily outclassed us young whipper-snappers. Fortunately, it leveled out a little after that, with the track winding a bit more and even going flat for a few sections, punctuated by some steeper uphills. The scenery was impressive, a dense pine forest, interspersed with maple, very different from the Australian scrub and sub-tropical rainforests I'm used to. We never walked far withough seeing a mini-shrine by the side of the path, reminding us that people have been walking this path for a very long time.

At the top, we stopped for lunch, and then I was presented with a rather rude shock. We weren't at the top. There were a couple of really nasty flights of stairs to climb before we reached the 1300 year old shrine at the top.

This photo does not do the stairs justice. They were much steeper than they appear.

The shrine was much simpler than some of the famous ones I've seen lately, but still had some very intricate and beautiful carvings. As always, there was the ever-present commercialism in the form a stall selling trinkets, which to my eyes significantly degrades the "spiritual" significance of such a space.

We then proceeded to head down by a different, less used path. The landscape on the way down was a lot more open, and there were some spectacular views. The path down started off very easy, with just a mild downhill slope. Then we turned off down another path, and suddenly we were slipping and sliding down a very steep downhill, alongside a little streamlet that we occasionally criss-crossed. I slipped a few times, but wasn't hurt. Then, after a bit, we reached the bottom of the gully, and the path leveled out again, and walking was easy once more.

Suddenly, I was sitting on the ground clutching my ankle. I don't really remember how I got there, only that I somehow stepped badly on the now level ground. We were only halfway back down, one out of two hours.

After a few minutes, the pain subsided enough that I was able to get up and test my ankle. After attempting a few shaky steps clinging to Hunter's arm, I suggested that a stick might be better, and very quickly, Hunter and Koji's friend had rustled up a couple of large, slightly springy sticks, which were soon after replaced with a couple that were a bit more solid. With these functioning as not-quite crutches, I was able to keep most of the weight of my dud ankle, and kept moving.

A little later, we worked out that if I put one arm around Hunter, and held a stick on the other hand, we were able to move in a three (or maybe 5 - with sticks) legged race style, which was very effective, and allowed me to move at a reasonable pace, with a minimum of discomfort, except the odd mis-step. Along the way, a lovely group of Japanese people overtaking us rubbed some sort of gel on my ankle, and then sprayed it with what must be ice-pack-in-a-can. The gel seemed to at least temporarily help. Nevertheless, what should have taken us roughly an hour took two. By the end of it, I was exhausted, and now doubt my gallant knight was a bit worn from carrying a fair bit of my weight, although he claimed to be fine.

Once we reached the bottom, we should have walked a bit further to a bus stop, and caught a bus, then two trains back to Takatsuki. However, Koji called a taxi, which took us to the train station, and saved a bit of a walk, with only two trains left to navigate.

Once we got back to Takatsuki, I needed to ride my bike back home, but that turned out better than I feared. I took it easy, and it was barely a discomfort. Three cheers for bikes!

Hunter cooked dinner (spaghetti bolognese - from scratch), and went and got me an elasticated bandage, and I'm set, although planning to take it very easy tomorrow, hopefully not leaving our 3rd floor apartment. Nothing that a little rest won't fix.