Autumn Hike Part 1

Minna-san! Konnichi wa! So last night as a flat we went to Karaoke and did that until 3am. It was very fun but possibly not the best idea as today the plan was to get up early and go hiking. It is a day off for some reason, and the woman in charge of the dorm- Kumi-san organises a regular hiking trip to different places. Yesterday it was raining horribly and I was really hoping that it would be cancelled but the email never came to cancel it, so I went which turned out to be a good thing. I dragged myself out of bed and met Kumi-san at the main building with my flatmate and 1 other person. The other 13 people who had registered for the trip had all decided not to come due to the dodgy weather. This was a case of less is more because we could all talk more. We went on the train for about an hour and a half to somewhere really rural and met some previous residents of the dorm who joined us- they were all very nice. It might be best if I let the pictures do most of the talking. I have taken about a million so here are just a few. I have had to split the post into 2 parts because it said there was an error when I added too many photos.

The place we went to was called Akano and the mountain had a shrine called Gongen.
Slippery slope. Be careful ne!
We had actually gone up the wrong way to get to this point and had to go back down again but it was pretty none the less.
Group photo "HAI!- CHEEZU!"
This is Kumi-san. She is a lovely woman who is so friendly and laid back. She is also very interested to listen to things I have to say (including the story of the boy who told me his name was poo.) I think I will go on future trips because it was a really nice atmosphere.
This was near the top, where the red leaves started showing.
This is my favourite photo of the lot. I haven't had time to edit any of them yet though so I would crop out the little bit of yellow tree on the left hand side.
Peckish? This man was. It was right on the top. We all stopped and had our picknick a bit before (it might not have even been 12 o clock.) I made riceballs with seaweed and sesame seeds mixed in. Yummy.

Also at the top was a huge bell which you ring and can hear it reverberating for minutes and minutes afterwards.
Scroll down for part 2!