Private tour on November８th

 We met up at Takaosan-guchi station at 9:30.  There was a little bit clouds but we could see clear blue sky among them.

Our guest was a young lady from Hong Kong. She is very cheerful, friendly and likes talking. After brief introduction, she gave us Chinese tea as souvenir. 

 She has visited to Japan for sightseeing many times. But she seems not used to be hiking mountain well.

As she said that she is acrophobia, and no experience of chair lift but she was so curious that she accepted our proposal to challenge it with us. 

On chair lift

She is interested in meaning of number which is lucky or not.  She questioned us about “8” at Tako Cedar (the place we can see the huge tree) and “Shichigosan~3,5,7” (a ceremony to pray for the health and growth of children) at the paper craft spot called Japanese Banksy decoration. 

Why odd numbers are fortune, and even numbers are misfortune. Because even number means separate or divided ,so it means bad. Why “8~八” and “9〜九“ don’t match with the theory.

 We explained “8” is like shape of a skirt spreading widely which means increasing lucky things.

 “9”pronunce “ku”means struggle, after going through Kunuke gate means over come “struggle”. She said meaning“8” is same as in Chinese culture.

Japanese Banksy paper craft.

Kunuke stone gate

She was surprised that butterfly Asagimadara fly through 2000km from Taiwan to Japan. And she was interested in the butterfly’s habit that they eat poisonous leaf Kijoran for getting immunity protecting themselves from enemies.

 This is the egg of Asagimadara laid on the underside of the leaf of Kijoran. I saw it last week.

the egg of Asagimadara laid on underside of kijoran leaf

We had a lunch at back of the summit. Before this she treated us kurogoma amazake. At lunch time our topics were about the difference of food between Hongkong and Japan. 

She said fishes and fruits in Japan are very delicious. She brought onigiri bought in convenience store, I brought onigiri I made. 

She is little bit curious and seemed a bit admire of my onigiri. Even though it is very plain ordinary food but looking back I would have liked offer her a bit split my onigiri.

On the way back we took No.4 trail crossing suspension bridge. As she did wear flat shoes and had a shoulder bag and she sometimes seemed a bit scary with so many wooden steps were there, carefully walked not to be caught by spreading roots on ground and narrow paths on muddy clay soil. 

But she enjoyed it very much and even sometimes cared about me. After that we took No 1trail road down to Kiyotaki station all walking. We arrived at Kiyotaki station 4:05 pm. 

We enjoyed very much this tour with such a cheerful, gentle and kind young lady, it was a wonderful memory.

Trail no.4

 

Written by Rie