We were supposed to wake up early to hike near Mt. Asama, but when the alarm went off at 7:00 am neither J or I were moving. So we slept in very late and lazily made our way to a hike. The night before I went in search of a grocery on the other side of the main train station and instead found a designer shopping mall. It was a surreal experience. You walk to the North side of the JR station, down the stairs and in the distance see a Nike outlet, then the Addidas and before long came to a meandering strip mall of tensile structures featuring all sorts of very fancy European, Japanese and American high end stores. I didn’t walk down to the LL Bean outlet but I did walk into the Paul Smith store and even at outlet prices couldn’t afford anything. There was also a row of restaurants that turned out to be a convenient place to get dinner. Anyhow, I found a Starbucks for J. which by the way is always crowded and we eventually made it up into the hills for our climb.
After walking through town, you get to an area of vacation homes in a quiet tree lined street. This lead up into the hills. We walked about an hour from town until we got to this little shop. It seems like most hikes in Japan are preceeded by a little shop that sells ice cream, coffee and pastries.
At the trail head was a nice map. And off we went into the woods.
The entire hike took about five hours as we slogged back through town back to the hotel.
Here is the sunset view.
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