Sunday, November 27, 2005
Outing in Takao
We talked about visiting this place for a little while and we were just waiting for the right time to enjoy the changing of the autumn color.
Too early! Not yet! Akiko has been monitoring this on the Internet as we certainly didn’t want to miss one of Tokyo's most popular koyo (autumn foliage) spots.
Today, Sunday is the day!
So we woke up early (well, kind of) and took the Keio train from Shinjuku for the 45 minutes ride to Takaosan (Mount Takao). This place is still located within metropolitan Tokyo! We took the cable car (featuring the steepest slope of all Japanese cable cars, with 31 degrees!), walked around a few temples and reach the peak at 599 meters. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t allow us to see neither Tokyo nor the Mount Fuji.
The various leaf colors were amazing. Lots of beautiful spots, each with numerous photographers around — after all, we are in Japan. I started to use my new tripod while Julien enjoyed using “our” Nikon D100 and my tripod….
Had a quick look at the monkey mountain where we shot a few nice pictures.
Mount Takao (Takaosan) is considered a sacred mountain and has been a center of worship for more than 1000 years. The attractive Yakuoin temple stands near the mountain's top. Visitors pray there to Shinto and Buddhist mountain gods (tengu) for good fortune. Statues of the gods, one with a long nose and one with a crow beak, can be found at the temple and all over the mountain. 
We knew that this place could become crowded, mainly at this period, but . . . Well, we had to wait almost one hour to get a car to go down the mountain, and were able to catch a train right away for Tokyo.
