Takatori Mountain

Our little town of Shonantakatori sits up on a hill from the main road. I love how quaint our town is with its tree lined streets. I love how I feel separated from the busy world below. There are not too many neighborhoods around here that have such a feel to them. Most homes and apartments are squished in-between busy streets or alleys with little to no sidewalks. We are lucky to be surrounded by sidewalks and trees and a normal neighborhood feel. Growing up in Tokyo I was used to living right in the middle of it all with no sidewalks, no tree-lined streets, and no backyard. Down where we live there are lots of hills and small mountains. We go through 8 tunnels just to get to our house from the base. I love it though. In fact, there are 2 small tunnels right in Shonantakatori and one of them is located right at the entrance to Mt. Takatori. Even in our small little town we are home to Mt. Takatori and great rock climbing. One afternoon we decided to make the trek up the mountain with the kids to see what it was like. The trail started out with over 100 stairs and then we entered the real forest trail. We wound in and around big rock walls and through many trees, avoided many spider webs and cool looking spiders, climbed yet more stairs, passed a really amazing Buddha carved out of a giant rock wall, observed people rock climbing, and finally made it to the first landing. It was fun to be able to see all of Shonantakatori and to see past our town to Tokyo Bay and over to Yokohama. From this landing we climbed a little higher to a field where we hiked up more stairs to the Observatory Tower. From there we were at the highest point and on a clear day we can see Mt. Fuji. The kids loved being able to be at the highest point in the Observatory Tower. Seeing that the sun was leaving us fast we decided to head back. Luckily there was a much easier and better lit way back home down a long and steep road. According to the map this road is lined with cherry blossom trees. I can't wait to see the pretty trees blossom in the springtime. We will definitely be back before then and next time we hope to do some rock climbing with the kids.