Mountain hiking

Today I was told we were going to the Iiyama temple for a little sightseeing, which was great to hear b/c I was at loss of any ideas of what we should do today. There's a lot I want to see, but much of it, I can't do with my homestay parents, and there is this frustrating refusal to allow me to venture out on my own. It's not safe, they say (although I learned recently, the reason to Otou-san's saying that. He claims Atsugi is home to some mafia families. Yakuzas. Tokyo's been removing Yakuzas from the city, so many have moved to the local towns, like Atsugi. So I guess if you saw the place, you wouldn't believe it (and you wouldn't know who was a Yakusa anyways. They dress like businessmen), but that's what he says). Places like Harajuku, Shinjuku, Asakusa, and Shibuya are supposedly "young people" districts and my homestay parents don't know much about them.

So I was glad to hear we were going to a temple.

So Iiyama is a mountain. And a tourist region. It's essentially a park and with the Sakura Festival coming up soon, decorations are going up to celebrate. Sakura Festival is 7 days long, so I promise I won't miss out.

Walking up Iiyama, there were a lot of sakuras blossoming. Next week should be the festival, so they should all be in bloom then too. This place was a very beautiful touristy park. I wish I could remember the entire name.

White sakura blossoms and paper lanterns. These were everywhere, lining the path all the way up to the temple.

The Iiyama temple. The process was interesting. Halfway up, you stopped at this fountain to wash your hands. Then you approached that big urn there in the center to buy a small stick of incense, light it, and stick it in the ash. Where you then began to waft the incense smoke in your direction to cleanse your spirit. Then you approached the shrine, throw money in, and I guess, pray for something you want.

To the left of the temple was this. You bought a little piece of paper for 100 yen, read your fortune, then tied it to these ropes or the trees next to it (if it's like in Taiwan, I think you're supposed to tie it to the tree, but being there's a large number of visitors, they probably put this up to save the trees).
My fortune said I'd fail in relationships, but be successful in studies, in case you were curious.

The pathway up Shiroyama, the mountain next to Iiyama and probably the tallest in the region.
At first, the pathway was fenced along the edges like this.

But then, the higher you went up, the more the more, I guess, wild, the pathway got. Here, the steps were entirely made out of tree roots and the wearing down of the ground from many walkers.
Also, if you're afraid of heights, I would not recommend going. There were definitely times I was walking on 1-1 1/2 ft wide dirt with a cliff drop to my side.

We also found kikurage... which is a type of mushroom I guess. Anyways, that was dinner. That and tofu in miso soup.

And finally, the view from the top. You can see the whole of Atsugi, and in the distance to the left is Tokyo. And to the right is Kamakura and Yokohama... although my camera can't pick up detail like my old one could.