Scotty's Japanese Adventures!: Kaimondake!

First though i'll start with a picture of my favouite volcano, Sakurajima, as usual, taken from Dolphin port near my house:

Kaimondake is a mountain (or big hill...its not very big) in Ibusuke, which is about an hour south of me by car. Its called "Satsuma Fuji" (small Fuji) because it looks like a miniature fuji (has similar shape). So yes. Its 3.5km high and takes 2 hours to climb up and 1.5 or so to get back down. The first 3/4ths of the way are dirt paths and some rocks but the last 1/4th is all rock climbing really.

But by that time you've already seen some amazing views when the foliage breaks and you can see how high up you've climbed!

Here's Kaimondake and that adorable kitten i showed earlier

Super kawaii! So look at how annoying my camera is: the first pic is with flash, the second without.

THe trail may look hard but its not really. Im not really "in shape" and i was running up and down the damn mountain hahaha. Granted my coworker had a bit of trouble but hey he's an old man. Muahahaha!

Funny enough though - we met many Japanese people along the trail up the mountain and all were like over 50. They must be in amazing shape or its just a really easy mountain. I dont know which, but at one point we ran into grandparents with a 6 yr old....if they were coming from the very top im very very impressed.

Thats the view ^ of 1/3rd up the mountain. You may not be able to tell, but we were surprised at how high it looked we already were. A bit over 1km above ground i guess. The next pictures i think are from 1.5km up? I don't remember since this was like 3-4 weeks ago.

Whee now for some really bad photos of me, since im either too dark or making a stupid face. Being in japan hasn't helped me learn how to pose for the camera if you haven't noticed.

now for a blurry shot of the trail again

and holy crap we're getting high up now

But lets keep going! wheeeeeeee

After this you'll notice the pictures get alot darker - there were lots of storm clouds and it started to rain a bit - meaning we were royally screwed since the last 1km up we had been climbing flat huge rocks. i mean look at this:

Which means we'd be slipping and falling off the top of this mountain to our deaths...but luckily it stopped raining! Thank god since i was wearing sneakers with no traction.

Here's the views from the top - we actually saw twisters coming down from the sky or something, it was really weird, i tried taking pictures but my camera blows!