So the day started with the hike up to Mount Nokogiri, which was in the more country part of Chiba. My friend and I took the train to Tateyama and watched as the scenery outside the train turned greener and grassier.
We decided not to take the rope way up the mountain, but we had trouble finding the hiking route since the signs were small and obscurely placed. They probably wanted tourists to pay for the rope way.
We hiked up many steep flights of steps...and then some more...
I was pretty out of shape, so I definitely felt the burn in my legs and was breathing harder as I hiked up. Seeing the trees and the mossy paths along the way made it worthwhile, though.
After more struggling, we finally reached the admission gate where we paid for our ticket to go up to the very top. That area was so gorgeous. The high stone walls were covered with moss and leaves, enclosing us in a sacred natural cove. It kind of reminded me of a scene in Miyazaki's Laputa (Castle in the Sky)
Then there was this huge stone carving of the Daibutsu in the quarry walls. I gaped in awe at its immensity.
Large Daibutsu carving
I didn't really like Chiba very much because Kansai had so much more character, but seeing this place made me fall in love with Japan again.
After taking lots of pictures of pretty much the same scenery, we hiked down on the other side of the mountain to see the Yakushi Nyorai, the Medicine Buddha.
As we hiked down to the bottom, we saw many hand-carved arhat sculptures.
Did the priests get bored and decided to carve 1,500 statues?
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Beach on the way back to the train station
There were many yatai (food stalls) with the usual summer festival foods like yakitori, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, kasutera, and kara-age. People were all waiting for the fireworks show that started later in the evening.
Beautiful sunset
Usually there are many fireworks shows all around Japan during the summer, but I didn't see a full fireworks show until that night. The fireworks were so up close, and the show went on for almost 2 hours with very few breaks. That was incredible, considering how the states only has maybe a half hour fireworks show on New Years and July 4th. Every time we thought it was the finale, there would be more fireworks and another display of beautiful fireworks. We must've seen 10 finales.
On another side of the parking lot area was a group of rockabilly kids dancing to some Elvis songs. Then there was a group of three nerdy looking guys hitting on three girls, but the guys had their arms wrapped around each other and were a bit too friendly with each other. I don't think that really charmed the girls. 2 other guys intervened and seemed to hit it off with the girls. Seriously, this was a good area for social research.
Damn Kisarazu--the last train back to Chiba ended at 11. We didn't expect the last train to be so early. We were already tired from the morning hike and the beers, but taking a taxi back would be too expensive. We ended up going to a very grimy concert venue near where the rockabilly kids were hanging out. There were still many delinquents on the streets.
There was a creepy old white Canadian dude there hitting on girls, a super old Japanese dude feeling up on some young chick, a really drunk little Japanese dude that stage dived at one point and knocked my friend over, and other strange characters that night.
It was finally time to catch the first train, so bid our farewells with the nice band members.
