Hiking Higashiyama

Cam came to visit this week on his way back from Australia. Being British, he forced me to drink beer and tea for three days straight. He also uses the toilet more than any human being I have ever met. Fortunately he likes hiking so we did the Nanzenji to Ginkakuji via Daimonji Yama trek. It is a very nice hike and I have done it, or variations of it, about four times. It was a very cold day, approaching freezing when we set out. On the steep ascent out of Nanzenji, the chill abated. Cam, a Scotsman, dropped down to a t-shirt. At the summit, looking over Kyoto down to Osaka and over to Yamashina, Cam remembered that he had done a version of this hike with Kumar eight years ago. It was sunny and beautiful but we could say bad clouds dropping in over the mountains from Biwako so we started down. Losing part of the trail in the woods following an old lady with an umbrella who was moving among the trees at a spooky pace, it began to snow. Finding the trail again, the snow turned into a flurry. Cam gloried in the fact that he was only wearing a t-shirt. It was beautiful. The snow that is, not Cam in a t-shirt. Descending back into town there was no sign that snow had taken place. It was cold and sunny.