Beautiful photos of the isekai-looking mountain that’s one of the Tokyo area’s best day-trips

https://ift.tt/3g32v3a Casey Baseel

You’ll be glad you saw this amazing place.

Like a lot of people these days, Japanese Twitter user @Kazuaki612 and his wife have been feeling like they could use a little more exercise, plus a reason to get out of the house. So they’ve started taking long walks around places within day-trip distance of Tokyo, but one of their recent destinations looks like a trip to another world.

These starkly beautiful photos were taken at Mt. Nokogiri in Chiba Prefecture, Tokyo’s neighbor to the east. Nokogiri is the Japanese word for “saw,” and the mountain originally got its name because of its jagged, sawtooth-like ridgeline. The name is doubly appropriate, too, because generations of craftsmen cut into the mountain, as Mt. Nokogiri was a major rock quarry during the samurai period, supplying building materials for the capital city of Edo (as Tokyo was called in those days).

Of course, many of the structures and pathways the stonemasons of yore used were also made out of stone, with their weathered appearance making them look like a set of ruins from a fantasy or isekai story.

「都内から日帰りで散策できる場所で、日頃の運動不足を解消しよう！」と妻から誘ってもらったところが、とんでもない千葉県だった。
日本かどうかもあやしい。 pic.twitter.com/h1QWs6rbLM

— 松井 一哲／Kazuaki MATSUI (@Kazuaki612) March 26, 2021

▼ Moss-covered remnants of the stonemasons work

やせいのきりいしが あらわれた！ pic.twitter.com/JeBdS7LTfL

— 松井 一哲／Kazuaki MATSUI (@Kazuaki612) March 26, 2021

▼ Even the benches are cool.

石切り場ならではのベンチ、めちゃカッコ良い。。
自邸の中庭に置きたい。中庭ないけど。 pic.twitter.com/XRzpltyLRk

— 松井 一哲／Kazuaki MATSUI (@Kazuaki612) March 26, 2021

Quarry work continued into the modern era, but none of them are active today. Instead, Mt. Nokogiri is now one of Chiba’s most popular hiking spots, with its 329-meter (1,079-foot) height making it an enjoyable but manageable challenge even for those who aren’t dedicated mountaineers, and another example of how there’s more to see in Chiba than just Tokyo Disneyland and Narita Airport.

Related: Mt. Nokogiri official website
Source: @Kazuaki612 via Jin
Images: @Kazuaki612
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!