I was thoroughly exhausted after my first day in Tokyo with Mr Brighton, but apart from an unexpectedly thick and robust pillow, which caused me to wake in the night thinking that I was suffocating, I slept well, woke early, and messaged Mr Brighton at 6:00 a.m. suggesting that we hit the road early.
Without the options of either proper cycling in the wilderness or Boris biking in Tokyo, we decided to go hiking. When I lived there about 20 years ago, I had an English-language book called Day Walks Near Tokyo, many of which I managed to complete on my all-too-rare days off. In stark contrast, having huge amounts of information online and at our fingertips was a mixed blessing, and we probably wasted just as much time as we saved while fiddling with Google Map et al. But this was a trifling matter on what turned out to be a strenuous, epic (for me, at least), and thoroughly enjoyable day out.
First, we caught the subway from Nihonbashi to Nakano, then the Chūō (central) Line to a station called Ōme. From there we boarded a smaller, local train to one of many stations in the western outskirts of Tokyo that are often unmanned and devoid of passengers. Today the train was busy with hikers, many of them in-between, late-early, semi-middle-aged women who were heading to the same mountain as us to see the rengeshōma (false anemone), flowers that are rare enough to be on the Red List of Threatened Species. The convivial atmosphere was in complete contrast to the rush hour trains that we had boarded earlier, to the extent that we even managed to strike up conversations with one or two of the other passengers.
From Mt. Mitake station, which is designed to look like a Buddhist temple, you can catch a bus partway up the mountain to a cable car that will then take you almost to the summit, but Mr Brighton and I decided to walk all the way, which a group of high school students who we met at the cable car station were very impressed by. The climb was indeed steep, but it was a paved road rather than a path, because the top of Mt. Mitake is complex of temples, shrines, souvenir shops, restaurants, and even guest houses. Along the way we saw a large snake slither across the road and half-roll down the steep bank beside it. A tell-tale bulge in its belly was evidence that it had recently eaten, so we were unlikely to be attacked, although at the visitors’ centre near the summit, we were told that it was a tiger keelback – the most poisonous to be found in these parts.
Mt. Mitake is around 900 metres high, and a combination of the altitude and the shady forest through which the road – ahem – snaked made for a much cooler walk than the previous day’s in Tokyo. Conversely, because the gradient was so steep, we were both dripping with sweat by the time we reached the visitors’ centre. The receptionist said there had been a bear sighting on one of the proper hiking trails the previous week, and gave us directions to Nanayo Waterfall, to which we headed after eating a lunch of soba (buckwheat) noodles.
(An aside: like me, Mr Brighton couldn’t understand why the large tempura prawn that came with his noodles had been left to go soggy in the soup, when it would surely taste better on the side, still crispy and crunchy. For some reason, a lot of restaurants in Japan insist on doing this.)
We bumped into the same group of high school students on the way back from the waterfall and they gave us a chorus of ‘Long time no see!’s and ‘Good job!’s. The path there was as tough to negotiate as the receptionist at the visitors’ centre had suggested – bare earth, tree roots, and precipitous steps made from boards and uprights of tough plastic painted brown and moulded to look like tree bark – so in order to save my still sensitive left knee, I suggested that we catch the cable car back down the mountain. Mr Brighton sampled another novelty food item (wasabi-flavoured ice cream) while we waited, and rather than catch the bus to Mt. Mitake Station, we walked the final couple of kilometres from the foot of the cable car. A train was leaving just as we walked towards the station and the next one would not depart for another 45 minutes. Then again, if we had caught the bus, we would have missed this wonderful view of the Tama River – quite a contrast to the views of Shibuya Scramble Crossing we had enjoyed 24 hours previously and compensation for the fact that it had, as is usually the case in summer, been far too hazy to see Mt. Fuji from the top of the mountain.
It had been an honour and a privilege to spend the best part of 48 hours with Mr Brighton, who as well as being the ideal person with whom to talk about life, the universe, and everything, was full of the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a Japan newbie and truly appreciative of all the weird and wonderful sights, sounds, and particularly tastes that he encountered. I should point out, though, that he was often one step ahead of me when it came to checking train times and directions, and used his iPhone to pay for food and souvenirs with a recently acquired virtual Suica IC card, while I was still wrestling with cash and an old-school credit card. Even though I had promised not to make him talk shop, he also gave me lots of free medical advice.
We said our goodbyes when he alighted from our Chūō Line train at Kanda, although at this point, my evening had only just begun. Having missed the last bus back to Ibaraki, I boarded a packed commuter train at Tokyo Station. When it arrived at the suburban station of Matsudo, the driver announced that just across the border with Ibaraki in Toride, there had been a jinshinjiko (人身事故) – in other words, someone had jumped in front of a train (there tends to be a spate of suicides at the end of the summer holidays among those who can’t stand the thought of returning to school).
After well over an hour and a half of hanging around the station and sitting on the stationary train, it finally left Matsudo at about 9:15. On a normal day, I would be in bed by this point, so semi-dozed through the time it took to get to Mito, boarded a local train at just after 11, brushed my teeth as I walked from our dark and deserted local station (I had only purchased a ticket from Mt. Mitake to Tokyo Station, with the intention of paying for the remainder of my trip at the latter, but didn’t have time to visit the ticket office between changing trains – I knew there would be no one collecting tickets at my ultimate destination and in the end, figured that I deserved a discount for the delay), and eventually trudged through the front door at 11:45. I had clocked up 30,000 steps for the second day in a row, and was too tired to have a shower before tumbling onto my futon and luxuriating in a lie-in the next morning – a lie-in in my case being until the giddily late hour of 7 a.m.
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