Communing with nature
An extremely active day was had yesterday, which saw me at the crack of dawn to go meet Joseph for our regular Sunday morning trot around the Imperial Palace, followed by a 3 hour hike through the mountains Tenkaku and Ootaka.
The hike wasn't really planned, but seeing as I was at home alone and what with my thinking recently regarding the importance of nature to the human body, it was a good opportunity to follow up on it. The trip out to the mountains took just over an hour, on the Seibu Ikebukuro line, which was spent reading a translated manga called "Death Note". It's a pretty good read, and questions human morality and the battle between good and bad. I got off the train at Higashi Agano, a wee little station nestled in a valley, surrounded by tree covered mountains. The first thing I noticed was how quiet it was, and how sweet the air was. The smell of freshly cut wood hung in the air, as there was a logging company just 5 minutes walk from the station, with about a hundred trees stacked on top of one another. I found the path which began the trail quite easily, and almost immediately was engulfed in forest, birdsong and a few stray butterflies that crossed my path. An involuntary smile creased my face, and with a deep breath I set off.
The hike was described as Moderate in the guide book I was using, although some of the steep inclines left me quite winded, and I was soon working up a good sweat. It wasn't until I reached the peak of Mt. Tenkaku that I met some people. As is usual when hiking in Japan, the party I met were made up of 10 or so retired men and women. They had come the opposite way to me, so that they were almost finished, having started out a lot earlier in the day (about the same time I was huffing around the palace). We bid farewell, and it wasn't until I was descending from Mt. Ootaka that I met another party, a couple in their 30s, also going in the opposite direction to me.
By the end I was pretty exhausted, but could only stand on the train back to Tokyo, as it was full of other hikers, the majority old, who were resting their weary feet. When I did eventually get a seat, I promptly fell asleep, and may even have snored a bit before jerking awake when we pulled into Shibuya. Walking home, surrounded by concrete and steel, I couldn't help muse about the stark contrast of surroundings I had experienced in one day, leaving me feeling stimulated but also tired enough to fall into a deep slumber soon after getting through my front door.
The hike wasn't really planned, but seeing as I was at home alone and what with my thinking recently regarding the importance of nature to the human body, it was a good opportunity to follow up on it. The trip out to the mountains took just over an hour, on the Seibu Ikebukuro line, which was spent reading a translated manga called "Death Note". It's a pretty good read, and questions human morality and the battle between good and bad. I got off the train at Higashi Agano, a wee little station nestled in a valley, surrounded by tree covered mountains. The first thing I noticed was how quiet it was, and how sweet the air was. The smell of freshly cut wood hung in the air, as there was a logging company just 5 minutes walk from the station, with about a hundred trees stacked on top of one another. I found the path which began the trail quite easily, and almost immediately was engulfed in forest, birdsong and a few stray butterflies that crossed my path. An involuntary smile creased my face, and with a deep breath I set off.
The hike was described as Moderate in the guide book I was using, although some of the steep inclines left me quite winded, and I was soon working up a good sweat. It wasn't until I reached the peak of Mt. Tenkaku that I met some people. As is usual when hiking in Japan, the party I met were made up of 10 or so retired men and women. They had come the opposite way to me, so that they were almost finished, having started out a lot earlier in the day (about the same time I was huffing around the palace). We bid farewell, and it wasn't until I was descending from Mt. Ootaka that I met another party, a couple in their 30s, also going in the opposite direction to me.
By the end I was pretty exhausted, but could only stand on the train back to Tokyo, as it was full of other hikers, the majority old, who were resting their weary feet. When I did eventually get a seat, I promptly fell asleep, and may even have snored a bit before jerking awake when we pulled into Shibuya. Walking home, surrounded by concrete and steel, I couldn't help muse about the stark contrast of surroundings I had experienced in one day, leaving me feeling stimulated but also tired enough to fall into a deep slumber soon after getting through my front door.
posted by TOK at 1:30 pm
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