During my university years I used to live in Hikone, pretty much walking distance (exaggerating here) from Mt Ibuki, one of the 100 famous mountains of Japan. It is (was?) a major ski destination that hosted some winter Olympics too.

The only problem was that I was once again blessed with the approach of a typhoon. It didn’t hit in the end, but I still had a the pleasure to enjoy a raging storm around me from about halfway up the mountain.

Not to mention that I miscalculated something and when I got off the train, I was there in the middle of literally nothing. No bus (or bus stop) in sight and the mountain still miles away. Fun to start the day with a long walk in the rain.

It was actually so bad that I considered calling a taxi to take me down via the toll road that climbs almost all the way to the peak – except said road was pretty much destroyed by a typhoon earlier this year.

So I descended with pouring rain turning the path into a river and wind trying hard to blow me off my feet. Luckily without any issue, other than my waterproof boots getting soaked by being completely submerged.

It was worth it, because once I was somewhat out of the clouds (quite literally), I could catch some really nice sights of the sun setting behind lake Biwa.

The storm just stopped around the same height down where it got bad on the way up, so by the time I climbed on the bus for the train station I was pretty much dry on the outside.