It started to rain on our hike to the top of Mt. Kanetsukido. The trail was lined with hundreds of stone Buddhas of various sizes, poses, and expressions. Many of them were sinking into the soft ground, glowing green with lichen, or shrouded with leaves and shrubbery.
Ten minutes later, we reached a large shelter, and that’s when it really started to pour, so we stayed put and waited for it to pass.
There were a dozen elderly Japanese men already there. We hadn’t seen anyone at the tiny one-horse train station, no one as we’d walked through town, and no one on the trail, but here these guys were at the top of the mountain.
Not one phone or piece of hiking gear was among them, just house clothes and an old transistor radio going, like it was the ‘70s.
They chatted, played board games, and ignored us, completely.
