{"id":11824,"date":"2010-12-23T23:14:49","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T15:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2010\/12\/24\/kobemt-maya-and-nunobiki-falls\/"},"modified":"2018-04-03T15:55:50","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T07:55:50","slug":"kobemt-maya-and-nunobiki-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2010\/12\/23\/kobemt-maya-and-nunobiki-falls\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 2: Kobe \u2013 Mt. Maya and Nunobiki Falls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our second day in Japan, and still in the city of Kobe! Kobe as a city sits at the foot of a hilly and mountains region, and Ling\u2019s itinerary for the day involved us going up two of those mountains: Mt. Maya \u2013 which had four cascading waterfalls – and the more well-known Mt. Rokko which offered stunning views of the city from up top.<\/p>\n

The central city of Kobe itself is a pretty compact, so getting to the foots of the mountains only involved us taking a train back to Sannomiya Station then switching platforms to get to Shinkobe station, with the pair of mountains right behind the latter station. It was a cool morning of about 10\u00b0C by the time we got there at 0815 hrs where we started our trek up the first mountain \u2013 Mt. Maya.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4585-kobe-mt.maya\"
Getting a good look at the map of Mt. Maya.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Late autumn bloomers to the party. It was nevertheless still wonderful to see a welcomed change of red and orange colors in a sea of mostly green.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4601-kobe-mt.maya\"
Ling looking for a maple leaf to bring back to Singapore to use as a bookmark.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4618-kobe-mt.maya\"
Stairs that go up forever!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the time we began our ascent there weren\u2019t many people about, but as the morning gradually started, more persons also started on the trip up. Lots of elderly people too all armed with walking aids, several of whom greeted us with Gohaiyo mornings, and several other groups of younger persons carrying full backpacks practically speed walking up the mountain.<\/p>\n

The walk up was fairly well-paved and marked out, so it\u2019s a safe trip \u2013 if tiring \u2013 walk up the mountain paths. The pay off was a series of four waterfalls, called the Nunobiki Falls. The first two are pretty modest, but the last two pictured below are pretty impressive:<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4663-kobe-mt.maya-nunobiki-waterfall\"
Two of the last four waterfalls.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4666-kobe-mt.maya-nunobiki-waterfall\"
2-3 second exposures using the E-PL1..<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All the waterfall pictures here were taken on slow exposures of about 1.5 to 3 seconds using not the D300 but the E-PL1 mounted on the GorillaPod Focus.:)<\/p>\n

Continuing up the track up, Ling spotted a small side trail that eventually led us to a secluded spot where we got a pretty good view of the city:<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4674-kobe-mt.maya\"
Kobe city as seen from Mt. Maya.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next milestone is the reservoir that sits about a third-way up. Took us about 2 hours to finally get to the pretty scenic spot.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4679-kobe-mt.maya\"
Couple picture at the reservoir.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By this time we were getting pretty beat. Then it occurred to Ling why we didn\u2019t just take the cable car from the mountain base to the top, then walk down and enjoy the sights without having our feet complain too much LOL. That\u2019s about when Ling suggested we go back to her original plan to make for the cable car station to either ride the car to the summit, or down Mt. Maya to try the next mountain.<\/p>\n

So, we continued along the path that ran around the side of the reservoir (with more backpackers passing us), before we realized that we weren\u2019t quite on the right route to the cable car station. We got help from a pair of old aunties who could only manage a few words of English (\u2018left\u2019 and \u2018temple\u2019), but enough for us to understand how to go from here.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4684-kobe-mt.maya\"
People actually walk up this mountain for fun! :)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We backtracked a little \u2013 feet already killing us – then climbed\/crawled\/walked this spectacularly steeped series of winding stairs.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4686-kobe-mt.maya\"
On the terrifically steep side trail to get to the cable car station.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And guess what; after another 30 minutes of climbing, we got up to the cable car station, only to find it looked liked this. Do you know what\u2019s missing from this picture\u2026.?<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4692-kobe-mt.maya\"
Cable car station... without cable cars!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

YEAH that\u2019s right\u2026 the !@#!@#! cable car station is still in construction!! No cable cars!! Heck; the fellows below are still building the car towers even:<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4693-kobe-mt.maya\"
You couldn't pay me enough to work up that towers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I could have just about strangled the wife, who was looking real sheepish at this point. I glared half-jokingly at Ling and said \u201cdear, how come your itinerary involves us climbing up a mountain for 1 hour to visit a construction site?!\u201d She wailed that \u2018but the map said that the cable car is working!! Not my fault!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-OLYP4689-kobe-mt.maya\"<\/a>
Ling getting another good look at the map and repeating, "but the map has pictures of a cable car on it!!"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

Oh well. What to do. We made our trek down on foot but on a small mostly deserted service road for vehicles. Somewhat easier walk down, and romantic even. By the time we got back to Shinkobe Station, it was about noon, and we gave up trying to go up Mt. Rokko. One mountain on this trip is enough for us!<\/p>\n

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The sheepish wife.:)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our afternoon segment involved us visiting the port area of Kobe. More in the next post.:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our second day in Japan, and still in the city of Kobe! Kobe as a city sits at the foot of a hilly and mountains region, and Ling\u2019s itinerary for the day involved us going up two of those mountains:<\/p>\n

Read More Day 2: Kobe \u2013 Mt. Maya and Nunobiki Falls<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[463,482,609],"class_list":["post-11824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-traveling","tag-japan-2010","tag-kobe","tag-m4-3","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}