I found a shrine on the top of a mountain.  It took me a while to find it and I had to ride my super cub 50cc Honda up really rough dirt tracks in first gear.  I used a lot of petrol, but it does a lot of miles to the gallon so it’s not so bad.  I got bitten by a deer tick which was probably from a wild boar because I saw a big mud pool and lots of tracks around it.  Wild boar like to frolick in mud.  I hear you shouldn’t touch trees because you are more likely to pick up ticks.  I climbed up a tree to take this picture from the top of the mountain:

The mountain looks like it has a face.  Do you see?  There were lots of really old hinoki trees all around the shrine.

I prayed for the first time; well, I payed my respects to the Gods at least (below, at this shrine near the first empty house).

I thought perhaps I’ve been riding my luck exploring these forests on my own.  I believe in fate, however I still worry about things so I can’t call myself a fatalist.  I have a good imagination and this makes me fearful.  I’ve been trying to control my fear by walking in the forests.  I feel comfortable but jittery in the forests.  I sense a primitive energy when I walk alone through the trees and it makes me feel alive.  It makes me feel alive because I’m more conscious of my own corporeality.  Hey want to see what I wrote before this?  It’s really bad:

‘ I’ve been using my 50cc motorbike to get around.  It’s discrete and allows me to explore roads and tracks that perhaps I wouldn’t if i’d been walking or driving the car.  All the postmen around here use little motorbikes to get around and deliver mail, so when people hear the sound of a small engine coming up the road they assume it’s the postman.  I don’t even get that many stares when they see me (even without the uniform!), it’s incredible.
It’s early morning and chilly; I’m studying the map, with coffee.  I notice a lonely shrine on top of a mountain.  It’s not clear how one might get there so I cross reference two maps and although it makes things a little clearer, I still can’t see a path that leads directly to the shrine.  This is good.  It makes things more interesting.  I figure out a way to make it a circular route crossing right over the mountain.  I spend a little longer figuring out logistics and then I pack some mikan, a map, a lighter, a machete, gloves, a camera.
I have to drive the Super Cub in first gear all the way up the mountain.  Most of the time I have both feet on the ground like an enduro racer.  There is a lot of serious forestry equipment here. I pass a group of men are sitting next to a fire eating their lunchtime bento.  They seem shocked to see a gaijin riding a 50cc motorbike up the mountain.  I nod my head in a friendly way and try to act as normal as possible.  I can feel them staring at the back of my shiny helmet as I disappear around a corner.

Around about 1 hour deep into the forest I see a beautiful house.

It’s a bit shocking to see this up here but it makes me feel relaxed.  Someone lived here.  I sense a settlement.  Exploring, I craft myself a bamboo spear and swagger around eating a mikan.  It’s so peaceful and ‘

Does a tree falling in the middle of the forest make a sound when there is no-one around to hear it?  I’m not sure if they even fall down.  I think they just exsist as horizontal logs, unless that is someone cuts them down with a saw.

Someone had a car.  I don’t know how you’d drive this out of here now.  The trees are too close together…

The map I have is 1:25,000 and it quickly became useless up on the mountain.  You trust your instincts.  Alone in the forest is the only time I can really trust my guts to tell me what I should do and how to do it.  Everything is so transparent to me at this point and when I control my fear everything falls into place.  Up ahead of me is the shrine..

Kamiyama is a spiritual place; I feel that now actually, for the first time.

MAP