Hike that mountain!

Get ready... this could take an entire year to describe to you. Do not fret, my writing skills and my attention cannot hold you on for too long, so I've decided to make a catch factor.
Walking through bamboo forests after the rain with a close friend soaking up nature. Have I enticed you yet?
Go figure in an island country, full of mountain ranges and volcanoes that hiking would be popular among a hand-full of the population. Not only are the mountains gorgeous, but they are challenging, tall in comparrisson to what I've previously seen, and not to mention very photogenic. It's also made very easy because Japanese have a tradition of hiking and wandering across the country, paving paths to be explored, or suggesting previously paved paths (love the alliteration) to the thrill-seekers. Every mountain has been climbed, at least twice and so marked paths, with maps and posts are easily spotted. If you wanna strike up a conversation with a Japanese about anything... my suggestion would be hiking. They could tell you the closest mountain and the best 100 within a circumference of 100km, by name (of course in Kanji), it's altitude and an approximate time it will take you to reach the summit.
Living in Fukui, I am at the edge of the Japanese North Alps. (Some dude climbed some mountains in Europe, came over to the Japan and decided he call them the Alps). Though there is no Mt. Blanc, there are definitely some challenges, including Mt. Fuji, which I climbed as my initiation to mountain-climbing.
Prior to arriving to Japan, I had never previously struck the idea of mountain-climbing, let alone hiking. Hiking was something Boy Scouts did for two weeks in the summer at their base camps in Haliburton or Grafton. But we all know Ontario is on the bottom rung of places with mountains, unless you're from Saskatchewan. And would anyone actually consider climbing something like Mt. St. Louis?
What has fascinated me about climbing is its relative ease, expense and health factors. Great on the wallet, it's FREE, great source of Vitamin D (thanks sun) and I can get to the closest course within a 15 minute drive. Some of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen are from atop mountains and hiking trails, allowing for scenic beauty and of course some food for thought. I'm going to continue this fascination with hiking, which has spawned the decision to live near mountains in the future. Sorry Mississauga. Maybe next time.