Because its there.

 Monday past was Sports day in Japan.  It is a national holiday and comes at the end of the Sports day season.  With the whole day off and nothing in particular to do we decided to climb a mountain.  This is the top of Moromasa Dahke. 

 The hike up took about 15 minutes when I did it on my own.  However, with Kaz wanting to walk where ever it was flat it took us about 40 minutes on the way up.  The trail starts by going through a farmers yard and passing his piles of cow manure.  It then proceeds as a cement road running through a bamboo grove.  After the cement ends it becomes a dirt road and the forest changes to cedar.  This first part is not very steep.  After the road makes a big left turn it becomes more of a dirt track and becomes quite steep.  There is no scrambling but if it had been rainy the muddiness and fallen leaves might have made it quite treacherous.  There is a small lookout about 2 minutes from the top but the trees have grown so much you cannot see anything but sky.  The top is covered in long grass but there is one larger rocky outcrop to sit on and enjoy the view.  We forgot our mosquito spray and the youngest is looking rather splotchy as a result.  While at the top another group of climbers came up but they carried on down the back side.  I hadn't tried this on my own so we didn't follow.  We ate our onigiri and mikan and then headed back down.  The return trip, carrying the baby the whole way, took about 20 minutes.  In total we were on the mountain for about an hour and a half.  A perfect start to our Japanese mountain climbing.

I am kind of hoping that this can become a habit for us.  If we do end up making a habit of it I think I might do an English language blog about going hiking with kids in Kagoshima. It might actually be of use to someone.

In other news the daughter got a drastic hair cut last night.  I had to intervene after the first few snips were made as there was  a bit of hysteria in the bathroom.  However, by the time Mom was done slicing Kiyomi was pretty darn happy about the effect and was really excited to go to school today and have everyone be surprised.  I had to break the news that some people would not notice her hair cut.  I mean 8 year old boys.  Its a long shot.

 Common sentiment is that she looks a bit like Amuro Namie.

I think she just looks great.