I had every intention of writing this blog post last Monday when I had the day off, but I caught a cold and the cold meds left me a bit loopy, and my energy was drained. I still have a cold, but I am feeling much better. Excuses aside, let me tell you about the Tinker day hike I took with my friends Bethany and Emma!
First, a little history. Bethany is a first year JET in Ibaraki prefecture, and she used to go to Hollins University with me. Emma, who lives in Saitama prefecture with me, also used to go to Hollins with me. At Hollins, we have a tradition called Tinker day. It’s always in October, but it lands on a different day every year. The students never know when it is, until the Seniors wake everyone up with a “Tinker Scare” early in the morning. On Tinker day, classes are canceled, and all the women dress up in crazy outfits, and pile into the dining hall to gorge on Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Later we congregate on the front quad for President Gray’s Tinker Day proclamation before hiking up Tinker mountain. When we reach the top, we eat a lunch of fried chicken and Tinker cake, and enjoy skits and singing songs. Since all three of us are Hollins alum and hadn’t seen each other in awhile, we picked a weekend in October when we were all free, and decided to go hiking together for our own Tinker day! I chose Mt. Tsukuba because it seemed like a good in-between location for all of us, and I also hadn’t climbed that mountain yet.
Everyone woke up early in their respective homes since everyone had at least a two hour train ride to Tsukuba station. We met up at around 11am, and we eventually found a bus to take us to the mountain. I had brought three doughnuts for us to eat for breakfast so we’d be keeping tradition. The bus took about 30 minutes to take us to the Tsukuba-shrine trail head. We found an information center that had trailmaps in English, and then, we began our hike!
This Torii gate marked the beginning of our hike.
We took the blue path up.
Mt. Tsukuba has two peaks. Mt. Nantai and Mt. Nyotai. We climbed up the path to the Mt. Nantai peak first, since it was slightly shorter, and closer to where the bus dropped us off. According to our maps, the hike up this path was only supposed to take 90 minutes. We started our hike at around 12:15 and didn’t reach the top until 2:55, but we were taking a lot of breaks, and just talking and catching up with each other, so it was a rather enjoyable hike. I also had a tendency to sometimes streak ahead of Emma and Bethany. I didn’t do it on purpose, but I guess it’s the result of having more mountain climbing experience here in Japan.
View from Nantai peak.
We were relieved when we finally reached the top. We had a lunch at a restaurant. We each ordered a Tsukuba donburi. Donburi refers to any dish with meat, eggs, and vegetables cooked and poured over rice. I think the Tsukuba part mean that the vegetables used in the dish are from the local Tsukuba area. It was not the traditional Tinker day fried chicken, but there was chicken in it, so close enough.
Tsukuba donburi; Japanese Tinker day lunch.
After eating lunch and taking more pictures of the view, we took the short 15 minute walk to the other peak, called Mt. Nyotai. There was another shrine there, and another amazing view, but the standing area was much smaller, and we had to be careful not to fall down the sheer drops that surrounded us.
Mt. Nyotai shrine
Mt. Nyotai view. Note the edge of the rock, it’s a long fall from there, and no fence!
After taking pictures from the second peak, we realized that it was getting close to sunset, and we didn’t want to hike back down in the dark, so we decided to take the cable car back down. It was only 600 yen for one way. We rushed to find the cable car station though, because it was already 4:40, and the last cable down was at five.
This photo doesn’t do it justice, but we saw a really cool sunset on the way down.
When we reached the bottom station of the cable car, we decided to head on over to take the bus back, only to find out that the last bus to leave the cable car station, and go back to the train station, was also at 5 o’clock. Luckily, our English maps listed phone numbers for some of the local taxis.
Since I was the Senpai, Bethany and Emma charged me with calling the taxi. Actually, this was the first time I had ever called on the phone for a taxi. It was kind of nerve-wracking. I repeated that we were at Tsutsujigaoka station over and over again. It’s a hard name to pronounce, so I said it slowly over the phone. Finally the man on the other end of the line was able to repeat what I had said, then asked if I was standing next to a denwa boksu or phone booth, which we were. That’s when I knew he understood. I said “yes” and the man on the other end of the line informed me that a taxi would be coming in 13 minutes. Right on time, a taxi showed up in the parking lot, and took us back to Tsukuba station! It ended up being an expensive taxi back to the station though. It was roughly around 8,000 yen, which is like paying an $80 taxi, but we split the fare three ways, so it wasn’t too bad. There weren’t really any other options though, since the bus had stopped. We would have caught the bus if we had headed down earlier, but I think 5 o’clock is quite an early time for buses to stop running in the first place. Oh well, that’s why you bring emergency cash when you travel!
It was around 6:30 pm by the time we reached Tsukuba train station and we were all tired from our day. We said our good-byes, and wished each other a safe return home, and to keep safe during the coming typhoon. Good thing we had picked Saturday to go hiking!
Also, for anyone who was wondering, Typhoon Vongfong ended up blowing through the Kanto area mostly through Monday evening, and was gone by Tuesday morning, so it didn’t end up messing with the school schedule later that week. It was nice just being able to sleep through the storm. Anyway, I’m glad that luck brought all three of us this close together in Japan, so that we could enjoy a Japanese Tinker day!
From left to right: Me, Bethany, Emma
Jet Set Victoria 