Mt. Maya

Hello Dear Readers, Kendra here. This is a very late update indeed. This little mountain excursion took place around April 10 or so. So...with out further delay, here is our trip up Mt. Maya

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the flowers rejoicing, the hippopotamus chairs singing. The people coming with Aaron and I on this journey were Andrea, Abel, and Katherine. Mt. Maya is in the same chain as Mt. Rokko, which dear reader, I am sure you remember from our previous posts.

Here we are at the train station waiting for Katherine to arrive. She likes to arrive stylishly late. I'm not sure,dear reader, what Aaron is doing with his face...it is lovely though.

After finding our way to the start of the mountain path, we climbed for about 25 minutes before we decided it was lunch time! I think that perhaps our stomachs got the better of us. We found a nice pic-nic table and ate our benots(Japanese lunch box) and munched on various vegetables that Katherine had sliced.

We hiked and climbed and capered , it was a grand time. I found myself a trusty walking stick that must have been sadly abandoned by its previous owner. It served me well. After an hour of climbing we came to the start of the Stairs. The Stairs. It was the Stairwell to the top of the world...or so it seemed. Over 1,200 stone steps awaited us. We were keen on making a wager about who would make it to the top first. The bets were on! Whoever got to the top first got a free round of drinks on the losers. We were off, dear reader!

A few flights up and it seems I was beginning to feel the burn. Abel is trying a strange technique..not sure how that was going to work out for him. Katherine seems confident with her Romanesque pose of might, and Andrea seems like she doesn't care, and just wants to get this over with. We raced, struggled, sputtered, died, revived, stammered drunkenly, died again, and finally...made it to the top. Katherine won with her tortoise-like pace that she was able to keep up, while the rest of us, liken to the hare, ran up a few steps only to be beaten down by our horribly inadequate lung capacity. Katherine's victory dance was truly soul crushing.

The view from the top was indeed worth it. Beautiful tress (anybody know what they are?) in full bloom greeted us as if to say, "Those stairs are a bitch huh!" The man sitting next to us grilling delicate slices of meat was at first thought to be a mirage. But soon the smell of yakiniku (grilled meaty chunks) came wafting toward us. We had to vacate and quickly for fear that we might confront the old man and, like a pack of hungry bullies, steal his delicious foods.

But first, Katherine had to pay homage and give her hugs to a giant, beast of a tree. And of course, dear readers, it hugged back.

After even more stairs, we made it to the top of the mountain, which had been converted into a play ground/vending machine/landing spot for the cable car. We visited the vending machines and everyone bought sometime refreshing, or in Katherine's case, something corny and soupy seeing as how she bought a can of corn soup.

Then we made a side trip to the Buddhist temple that is on top of Mt. Maya. This edition of the temple was rather new, as is with the case with a lot of mountain temples, they seem to burn down frequently. This one was dedicated to Maya, the astrological, cosmological, totally-awesome mother of the Buddha. It also had these cute froggies who, if you rub them, will bring you luck of course!

This rather scary man was at the back of the parking lot...not sure if they just ran out of space or he scared the kids too much. Aaron thought was just awesome though.

And here are the Buddha's feet, dear reader! The whole place was really lovely and peaceful. Being on top of a mountain really does wonders for keeping out noisy tourists.

After we made our way down we cleaned up a bit then went to the World Buffet, a VIKING restaurant. And by viking they just mean all-you-can-eat. It's a decent place to get a meal that you will regret eating afterwards. It's got Italian, Chinese, Thai, Indian, Japanese, and a few random things I just can't place. All with unlimited juice drinks and dessert. We even took advantage of the month's promotion and got free alcohol-free cocktails ranging in flavor from Lime Surprise, Pinky Candy, Tequila Sunrise, and Apple Vanilla. They all tasted quite horrible. Even mixing Lime Surprise and Pinky Candy did not improve the taste.

Here are a few videos. I have a bunch from this trip so I will post more later. The first one is of Abel and Katherine going to investigate the playground on the top of the mountain. They quickly abandon the idea. Next video is from on the way down. We found this random park full of odd play ground equipment. So we kind of played around for a bit. If you think I look graceless on this thing, you should have seen Katherine...fell right on her butt.

Till next time dear reader! I will do my best to make sure that the next up date doesn't take forever! Take it easy,
Kendra.