Golden Week at Mt Tsurugi

Hello!

This week was Golden Week in Japan, which is a series of holidays at the beginning of May. Most Japanese people had Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off from work and school.

It can be a difficult time to travel in Japan, because everyone is taking a vacation. Like I have mentioned before, the Japanese tend to all travel around the same time of year (Golden Week in May, Obon in August and around the New Year's holidays). You usually need to make plans far in advance in order to get hotel rooms during these times.

Despite that, I was able to get a place to stay in Tokushima, which is about an hour and a half bus ride away from Kobe. I had been wanting to check out a nearby mountain for some time - Mt Tsurugi.

Before going to Tokushima, I went to a high school baseball game on Wednesday - my school’s team was playing in a Hyogo tournament (kind of like the Illinois state tournament) and had made it to the final 8 of the field. They ended up losing 4-0 to another Kobe-area team.

Thursday, I spent the day time doing some things at home and caught a bus to Tokushima in the evening. The train station near where I live is also a major bus stop, so many highway buses stop there on their way to the south-west parts of Japan.

Friday morning was spent getting to the mountain. It was a bit of a trip to get there - I took an hour train ride from Tokushima and then caught a local hiking bus that takes you up into the mountains. The bus ride was about two hours long.

Once I got off the bus, it was time to start hiking. Mt Tsurugi is one of Japan’s “100 Famous Mountains” that I have mentioned before. Up till now, I have visited maybe 5 or 6 of the ones on the list.

You can find the full list of 100 famous mountains on this site. Tsurugi is mentioned here. If you want more of a story about the 100 mountains, the NY Times had a Q&A about them about ten years ago here.

The hike did not take too long, only about two hours to get to the top. It was sunny but very windy so I did not spend too much time there before coming down.

After catching another bus back to Kobe on Saturday, I spent the rest of the weekend getting ready for school on Monday.

I included some photos from the trip and also a few of the local apartment buildings. One thing you can see in the apartment building photos is how Japan tends to let grass grow freely. They do cut the grass occasionally, but I would say maybe it only happens every few months, maybe less.

Until next time,

Photos from this week!