Mount Takao

At the start of September, Yuki, Clara, and I went with a few friends to Mount Takao. Mount Takao is right on Tokyo's doorstep and relatively easy to get to. I guess the primary reason for going to Mount Takao was to sit outside in the popular beer garden and enjoy a summer's night before the start of autumn.

As with many other places in and around Tokyo, the only drawback was the crowd. People flock to Mount Takao in summer time to visit the beer garden and to enjoy the countryside on the doorstep of Tokyo. It was therefore no great surprise to find the mountain mobbed which led to a wait 90 minute for our opportunity to enter the beer garden.

We each paid ¥3,000 yen which entitled us to eat unlimited food from the buffet and consume as much beer as we wished. It is actually not great value for money as after you queue, eat, talk, visit the toilet etc, the 90 minute time limit expires very quickly. It was nice to do something different although I do not like to be hurried along by time limits as it does not fully allow you to relax. I have also never been one for speed drinking and prefer to sup my pints over an extended period. Therefore, the 90 minute time limit is not really for me...

I have two recommendations for Mount Takao beer garden:

1. Extend the season - allowing people to only visit in the summer months creates unnecessary crowds which could be better accommodated over a longer season. Opening all year or during spring, summer, and autumn is entirely possible due to the mild Tokyo climate.

2. Get some speciality beers - As it is advertised as a beer garden, I was expecting some beers that were slightly off the beaten track. However, there was only the standard blandness of Asahi and Kirin on offer.

Anyway, visiting Mount Takao was an enjoyable departure from the standard weekend activities, but I cannot escape the nagging feeling that it should have been better.