6 November 2025
Hiking on a non hiking day
Mount Bizan and Tokushima castle
Today on my rest day, I did a small hike to the top of the small mountain in the middle of the city, Mount Bizan. It was wet, steep, mossy and probably the most dangerous hike I have done so far on this trip. I was expecting a staircase. There is a cable car, if you do not take the cable car, then you will ascend via one of multiple paths that are primarily moss covered jagged rocks, in the fog. It was great. I probably should have started my watch and recorded the stats.
At the top of Mount Bizan is a Buddhist something (I have given up trying to guess), a smoking area, and a series of communications towers. There is also a giant car park as you can drive up too. The good news is there are a lot of vending machines, so I was able to have an ice coffee to build up enough courage to go down a different rocky mossy path. I did not slip over at any point, a great achievement.
After my surprise rest day hike, I continued hiking on my non hiking day by heading to the Tokushima castle... ruins. The grounds are nice. There is no castle, and they strangely have hidden the view.
It appears to have rained all night. Lots of puddles but no rain now. There is mighty Mount Bizan, with some fog hanging around. I headed straight to it hoping to experience fog.
Looking back towards the station, and there are palm trees. It does not seem very tropical at the moment.
Japan is so peaceful and quiet, except it is not. There are thousands of idiots driving around in a van equipped with huge loud speakers. Normally they are preaching the greatness of Donald Trump and the desire to return to being a country closed to foreigners, this one however is advertising an animated film called Dragon Heart.
Bottom shrine is a red shrine. Stay tuned, there are a lot of shrines.
At first there was a staircase. It was a bit crumbled and possibly about to slide off the mountain. I expected this to last to the top.
The staircase ends at this bizarre makeshift seating area with coke crates and bamboo. What was strange is that there are numerous real seats very nearby, including some undercover.
After the strange rest area, the mossy ascent commences.
The cable car was not running yet for customers. It briefly did a test run just as I went under it.
Tokushima below. There will be better views soon.
Fog time! I love fog.
There was also fog yesterday but I messed around trying to find a good spot to take a photo of it, and it disappeared while I was not taking a photo. I did not make that mistake today.
Nice view. Nice clouds.
Once at the top, and here is the promised smoking area, Buddhist facility of some kind, and communication tower covered in blue shade cloth.
Tokushima is large, but not very dense.
It extends a long way around the coast.
Time to start my descent. More fog!
Below the fog line, surprise ferns.
There were a huge number of similar structures all over this small mountain.
Next shrine. Not red.
The bottom shrine is behind me. I had to focus on not falling down these stairs.
And then as soon as I was down from the mountain, glorious sunshine.
Next up, the castle. Nice moat and bridge. The sign talks about this being a historic wooden bridge and various battles. It is now however, concrete.
A rose garden. Not as extensive as the one I visited in Tokyo a few days ago, but not bad.
All of the grounds around the big hill the 'castle' is on were nice.
Here it is. The castle. There is nothing left, not even foundations. It is hard to believe there was ever one here.
And finally, they have also seemingly tried to ensure there is no view. This is the best I could do. There is Mount Bizan from earlier too.
That was a lot of photos for a rest day.