My daily commute to work ends with a 15-minute walk up the side of Takeda-yama, with the road dead ending at a cemetery next to my school. From there, a narrow trail snakes its way to the top of the mountain, but I'd never realized just how much higher up the peak actually is. I was surprised to find my school is perhaps only 20 percent of the way to the top.
All in all the climb probably took Joe and I two hours at a leisurely pace. It was a little steep in spots but nothing too horrible. Of course at the end we were rewarded with beautiful views of the city from the sea all the way up north. It was a very clear day and we're not sure, but we think we might have been able to see all the way to Shikoku.
View toward the sea
View inland
So now I can say I've scaled my school's mountain, all 411 meters (1,348 feet) of it. Yippee! If memory serves correct, Takeda-yama is the sixth mountain I've climbed in Japan.
