Day three
With the travel days behind me, it was time to find a mountain to climb.
The plan is to do a thorough hike across two mountains from one train station to another.
It's one of the more difficult hikes in the area, according to Alltrails, and the hike starts with a kilometer of climbing over rocks before the trail starts to look like an actual trail.
The weather is amazing, a nice 24 degrees Celcius and most of the trail is shaded by trees.
The first peak is about an hour into the hike, but at only 400 meters, you don't get nice views, so it's time to descend a bit to get to the next peak.
The second peak is around 931 meters. Including the first one, there is still a nice kilometer of height difference.
The views are much better at the second peak, and it's time for a convenience store lunch with rice, vegetables, and pork.
From here, it's all the way down to an Onsen town called Arima.
I forgot my swimming gear, so I just had a wander around and took the train back to the hotel. This meant traveling around the mountain, which took two transfers and an hour of travel.
Thankfully its Japan, so all transfers were cross-platform and timed, meaning no wait!
To congratulate myself on this first hike, I got Okonomiyaki at a super small place, it had only six seats, and the owners were a fun couple. We wachted baseball and talked about travel and baseball. They were astounded I had seen “their” Hanshin Tigers play, and even have a T-shirt.