TENGU August regular tour

TENGU August regular tour was held on August 18 (Sunday). It was a typical Japanese summer day, hot and humid and far from the confortable day, but the weather condition did not spoil our Mt. Takao tour. We had four young guests from overseas, Canada ,USA and Taiwan ,and one Japanese observer who had great interest to join to our volunteer group. A Canadian gentleman was in intern course in a Japanese university, ladies from Canada and USA came to Japan recently under the Assistant English language scheme. A lady from Taiwan was a university student reading social welfare.    
Four TENGU members, slightly aged but with full of energy, hosted the four young guests.
As usual we met at the Takaosanguchi station and caught a cable car at 10:15AM and then took the trail No1 toward Mt. Takao summit. Due to high humidity and hazy the visibility was poor, could see neither Shinjuku skyscrapers nor Mt.Fuji. what a pity !

TENGU staff explained several interesting and historic points on the way to the top e.g. Monkey center, Octopus tree, Buddhist and Shinto Temple, Tengu(long- nosed goblin), nature of the Mt. Takao, Buddhist relic stupa, Goma ritual at Yakuouin temple, etc. etc.
Even though it was the weekend and middle of the summer vacation season, the mountain trails were not very busy and enjoyed the walking and chats.
During the lunch time, some of our guests were attacked by mosquitos, to minimize casualties we should prepare Katori-sennko(mosquito coil) next time.

After lunch we walked down to the station, taking the trail No.4, which was via popular suspension bridge, and arrived at Takaosannguchi. Surprisingly or/and fortunately, Hikawa jinja shrine near the train station held regular summer festival on that day. Guests showed great interests to the Festival costume ,Omikoshi(portable shrine) and colorful decoration for Bon dancing and several stalls.
However, time was rather limited for us, we had to greeted each other and declared the finish of today’s TENGU tour just before 3:00pm. It was another great and enjoyable day !

 Written by Tad,