Takayama and the Japanese Alps

Last weekend, I visited H's hometown of Takayama, a small town located near the Japanese Alps. This trip had been "planned" since the first week I arrived, however, due to unforseen circumstances, our "plan" was very much in limbo up to the night before we left. The trip started off as being a 7 hour drive according to "the driver" but we were convinced it would take much longer than that, as the train took 5 hours and as you've heard, the train here is VERY fast. Indeed, the trip was a little over 10 hours. Not entirely due to the distance--we were stuck in traffic for about 2 hours all because of rubbernecking! I hate rubberneckers. Why can't you just ignore the traffic accident on the other side of the highway? I mean, I too am curious as to what happened, but I don't slow down to 10 mph to look at it. To keep ourselves distracted, H made us try to read license plates. I know very little Japanese, though I have learned pretty much all of the alphabet of katakana and hiragana (which are almost useless unless you know the Chinese character--kanji--as well). We tried our best, and as before, M (who recognizes a few kanji) and I combined, were able to guess a few. We also made "friends" on the rode--cars that we had seen on and off during our trip--and would say "hey, there's our friend" to keep ourselves distracted. Below is a picture of one of our friends--a truck with the image of Momotaro (AKA Peach Boy, a boy born out of a peach who one day takes off to fight a three-eyed monster and on the way befriends a dog, a monkey and a bird--yeah, its weird).

Anyway, so we made it to Takayama around 11pm on Friday night. Since we had only decided to go the night before, we had booked one of the few available rooms, which H described as a double room, so M and I had no problem sharing. Except apparently H had said "semi-double", though I don't recall ever hearing the word "semi". The bed was slightly larger than a twin bed, so M and I were PRETTY cozy for two nights.

The following morning, we got up early and hit downtown. Downtown, which you can walk across in 20 minutes. It was very nice. Typical small town in the mountains, I guess. It had 2 morning markets where people can buy mountain vegetables in the spring (one of the things Takayama is known for). We went to the "old town" where they have traditional Japanese houses still standing. They are now all small shops on one very long street that sell all sorts of souvenirs. I can't imagine what this place is like in the winter with lots of snow as all of the rodes are very small and all of the places are shops--how do people survive without tourists? Oh wait, its the Japanese Alps--they must have tourists year-round.

The rest of the morning, we walked around the markets some more and H's parents invited us for lunch. We dined in a very nice Japanese-style restaurant in a private tatami mat room and had mountain vegetables for lunch. Since H's parents don't speak English and have never personally met foreigners before, we had been warned of much picture taking. Which there was, but they were very nice, so it was ok. And they brought along their friend, Mr. M, the middle school principal who used to teach English. I've met one other English teacher in Japan and that person's English was not the greatest, so I was afraid this guy wouldn't be able to communicate much. I was wrong. Although he said he only knew 100 english words, we got along just fine. He was also nice enough to be our tour guide for the rest of the afternoon.

One other thing Takayama is known for is its fall and spring festivals. The festivals are among the more famous ones in Japan. There was a museum that showcases some of the floats used in the festival and they were very beautiful and very big--three stories tall! The original floats would require 80 people to carry it down the street--all of the same height, as it needs to be level to be carried properly. The floats used now are carried by a few people and have wheels (80 volunteers of the same height became too hard to come across). In the same location, there is a display of a miniaturized version of Nikko--a town outside of Tokyo that has many shrines. The display was very cute and both M and I regretted not having enough time to visit the real Nikko.

After the museum, we went to Hida no Seto Village--a small village on a hill that has old village houses, some that have been relocated to this hill showing what it was like back in the day. The houses were pretty cool, with slanted roofs that were made of straw and mud and who knows what else, but were about 2 feet thick. It was a cute little village.

That evening, H and his parents invited us to have Hida beef. Its at the same level as Kobe beef, but its newer so not as popular. Apparently, the cows are treated very special and massaged every day to get even distribution of fat into the meat. The beef was damned tasty. We grilled it ourselves at the center of our table and despite the fat inside the meat, it was delicious. In fact, I hate eating the fatty part of beef, but you couldn't really taste it--or I didn't get the fatty texture because its blended in so much. Anyway, if you get a chance to have Hida beef--go for it.

After dinner, we went to the fancy Green Hotel because of its souvenir shop. Since Takayama is a small town, all the shops close at 8pm, which means the town is practically shut down by that time. We went to the shop because H's parents wanted to get us the other more famous thing Takayama is known for. And that would be Sarubobo or Monkey Baby. This is a doll that has no face and looks like a kid. Its supposed to bring you good luck and there's more to the story, but I don't know it exactly--something about taking away your pain. They come in several different colors representing different things you wish for: red for good everything (mostly good home, good match and easy birth, though now it just represents everything), pink for love, blue for success in work and school, green for health, yellow for money. After purchasing large red sarubobos, we dipped our feet in the hot springs outside the hotel. Hot springs is another thing Takayama is known for, though we didn't have time to take a bath in one.

Moving on, we went back to H's house to meet his brother, sister-in-law, and 2 yr old niece. We were curious about children using firecrackers near the hotel, so H's bro was asked to bring a few over. Ok, a few turned out to be 5 large bags of all sorts of firecrackers. From sparklers to things that shoot out sparks to things that shoot out fireworks. M had never played with fireworks before, so she was very excited, although because of this, she also didn't really know what to do and at one point fireworks were dropped, in an almost accident, then recovered and all was good.

The next day, H took us to Takayama Jinya, an old goverment building during the Tokugawa period in which they display tatami mat rooms where the people would beg for forgiveness and where they would torture people. They also showed other rooms, like where the wife of Tokugawa resided and where her maids lived. It was interesting, though not very photogenic. We then had lunch at a ramen place (btw, ramen noodle shops are the coolest thing ever--ramen are considered full meals here and after one bowl, you'd understand why--H, M and I really want to open up a ramen noodle shop in Boston). Takayama is also known for special soba noodles and ramen. Lunch was really tasty in this small joint where you can see the guy making it up.

After lunch, M and I headed back to Hiroshima via train (only 5 hours). The ride to and from Takayama us supposedly one of the most beautiful as you pass through the Japanese Alps. I took the window seat for what was supposed to be the first part of the trip, as I said I was likely to fall asleep since I was exhausted, but M was determined to stay up and watch the scenery. Well, about 20 minutes into our ride, M was completely out. The train was hot (something must've been wrong with the air conditioner) and M was fast asleep with her hand pulling up part of her shirt--wish I had taken a picture. Anyway, the scenery was very beautiful and at some points, when we passed over a river, you could see fishermen fishing. We finally arrived in Hiroshima close to 7pm, just in time for the lighting of the Peace Memorial lanterns around the A-bomb dome. More to come on Hiroshima later on...

How Sumo saved the Japanese race...

Legend has it that the Japanese race was depended on a sumo wrestling match. A long long time ago, the god Take-mikazuchi challenged an rival tribe on the islands of Japan to a sumo wrestling match. The god had to win the match to save the Japanese race, or the tribe would retain control of the islands. The god won and the Japanese race survived. This was the information provided by the nice brochure at the sumo tournament that I attended in Nagoya, which explains all the rules of the ceremony and the actual match.

At first, I was reluctant to go to a sumo tournament. I had no interest in staring at very large men wrestle practically naked, but the idea of attending sumo tournament became much more appealing when I realized there are only six per year and only one in the summer--when else would I ever get a chance to go to a sumo tournament?! The tournament I went to took place in Nagoya. There is only one Grand Sumo tournament in Nagoya, three in Tokyo, one in Kyushu and one in Osaka. So I went and its been one of the coolest things I've done in Japan.

The Nagoya gymnasium is located next to the Nagoya castle so we spent the early afternoon at the castle. The special feature of this castle are the giant golden fish at the top corners of the roof (not to be confused with giant goldfish, as one Japanese person warned). Inside the castle there is a museum and one of their collections was of bugs--all sorts of bugs and some of them were gigantic bugs. Mo put her hand on the glass to show the relative size of the bugs in case no one believe that they were actually big. We arrived at the gymnasium for Sumo in mid-afternoon--in time to see the Juryo division. It seems in this division there are sumo wrestlers that are more fat than muscle. But let me tell you, the makuuchi division are very large men, but its rumored that they have less fat mass than the average person. And after seeing a bunch of them, they are so solid, they're very frightening. Before the makuuchi division starts there's this whole ceremony that takes place where all of the rikishi (sumo wrestlers) go on the ring in display their decorative aprons. After they're all presented the each Yokozuna, the highest title you can receive (there is currently only one who is my age) has their own ceremony. Its really cool--there's a lot of dance-like features (imagine a sumo wrestler doing ballet-like moves) and lots of stomping to drive away evil spirits. After he's done his dance, there's a break and some people have their dinner. No hot dogs or crackerjacks here, though. People order bento boxed lunches ahead of time and have real meals in the gym. Then the wresting begins. Surprisingly, the matches are frequently less than a minute and often less than 30 seconds. Some of the matches were vicious and you could tell who were the crowd favorites as the crowd went nuts and the rikishi did as well. The yokozuna's match was the last one and through the day we saw him (14th day) he was undefeated. He won the match and people tossed their purple cushions. After that, another rikishi comes out and swings a stick and that's that. That evening we went back to Osaka and celebrated A's 25th birthday. We were so exhausted from the day so the night didn't go all that long. Once again, finding our way back to the hotel was a challenge. First, trying to get a cab takes forever. For some reason, the cabbies don't want to pick up foreigners in their mid-20s. I was tempted to flash 10000yen bills to see if they would stop. Once we got a cab, find the hotel was the next challenge. We mentioned the subway stop but were taken to the wrong one and FINALLY Spa World to the rescue. We stayed near a place that has a water park on the rooftop (Spa World) and I'm kinda sad we didn't get to check it out. Anyway, this guy knew where it was so he took us one block away from our hotel.

The next morning, since I didn't have definite plans, I decided to walk around the neighborhood. Bad idea. I think I saw maybe 4 women in the span of 20 minutes and about 100 men, a lot of them looking hung over. I was definitely in a part of town that foreigners don't step foot in as I was stared down by every other person. I decided not to venture out more in this territory and turned back to take the subway to go to Kyoto.

I had been to Kyoto the previous week, but there is so much to see in Kyoto, one day wasn't sufficient. Unfortunately, the weather gods hate me and every time I've visited Kyoto it has rained. This time, I decided to take it easy and just try to hit up 2 places. I went to Daitoku-ji, a complex of Rinzai Zen Buddhist temples. I was unimpressed, as I had already spent some time in Koyasan at a temple. Instead, it was raining and I got lost in a maze of a temple. Literally a maze. There was a stone sidewalk that you follow that kept turning and would often lead to dead ends and I'd have to turn back. The rock garden was pretty but very small for the price (400yen). I then went to Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Temple. What can I say. The thing was gold. Bright gold. It was very beautiful and I took my time strolling through the grounds (even in the rain). At the end of the route I found a bunch of the German guys that are in the summer program. Funny how in all of Japan, I only recognize about 100 faces from my program, who are dispersed throughout the country, and I seem to run into them ALL of the time. Its actually a nice feeling running into someone you recongnize in such a foreign place.

Pictures here

Tourists on speed

This past weekend, I visited Kyoto, Nara and Koyasan. Its started with a morning wake up call at 6:30am. The goal was to reach Kyoto as early as possible. We missed our bus at 7am by less than one minute, so had to cab it to the train station. The cab driver was very nice and informed us that his son was a translator (we think) and that his older sister lived in Boston. We attempted to tell him we also lived in Boston, but we doubt he understood.

Once at the train station, we grabbed a quick breakfast--just stopped by at a bakery/bread shop. They have a lot of these all over Japan and the bread smells so delicious, its hard to resist not buying something every time you walk by. The only problem is that they sell stuff cold. For instance, they had hash browns, which looked very good, but were cold and let me tell you, it was tasty but I can only imagine what it would taste like warm. I also sampled a bread/corn/squash thing and that was actually pretty good too--except they put mayonaisse on everything it seems (reminds me of a story a friend told me about the UK being obsessed with Mayo). Despite that, it was also tasty, though again, must've been delicious when it was warm.

We made it to Kyoto in under 3 hours and were off to sightsee. Our first stop was Chion-in, the temple with the largest gate in Kyoto (perhaps all of Japan). It was huge and had MANY stairs leading up to the temple.

Inside, we were able to observe a Buddhist ceremony of some sort, or choir recital--can't tell which--but it was all women and they all had instruments--and then there were the Buddhist priests which were all men. Chion-in also has the largest bell and its said that it takes the power of at least 17 monks to be able to ring it.

From Chion-in we walked through Maruyama-koen (park) over to the most well known temple of Kyoto--Kiyomizu-dera. On our way, we stopped for some ice cream as with the heat index, it felt about 100 degrees. We enjoyed green tea and roasted black sesame seed flavored ice cream. The fact that it wasn't too sweet was just perfect.

While walking through Maruyama-koen we got stuck in a downpour. We took cover under a partially covered driveway and a few minutes later, a woman on a bike stopped there. We thought she was also taking cover but she lived there. A couple minutes after she went inside, she came back out with an umbrella for M and I to use so we could continue our trip. She was very kind, but I'm not sure if she just wanted to get rid of foreigners standing in her driveway, or get rid of the umbrella (it was designed for a very tall individual and she was rather short) or what. Anyway, it was very kind and we moved along in the rain.

Kiyomizu-dera was amazing. It was huge and colorful and the surrounding streets sold many traditional Japanese items and crafts. As expected, it was very crowded, but nonetheless, enjoyable. We walked around for a while and stopped to drink the "healing holy water". We waited in line, with everyone else, to sample the magical powers of this spring water. At the top, you can get a ladle that is UV sterilized (I was actually a bit worried about the "healing waters" actually getting you sick due to sharing cups and was tempted to buy my own cup for $7).

We only had a couple hours in Kyoto so we moved on to Nara, our next stop on our temple filled weekend.

Nara is known for its deer. They were considered sacred at one point and still are free to roam through Nara-koen without trouble. There are signs warning parents to be careful with their children and show pictures of angry deer mothers staring at children playing with baby deer. Kinda frightening actually. So the deer here pretty much own the place. Several times I came across some deer that seemed to be giving me such attitude--like "yeah, that's right, I'm sacred" just chillin' in the park. I wanted to take a picture of one particular deer that had such a "fresh" look on his face, but just as I was going to do that he/she turned around to lick their behind. I did manage to get a picture of one more gently looking deer just hanging out on a bridge.

We made our way to the Todai-ji temple complex and first stop was the Daibutsu-den Hall--the largest wooden structure in the world that house the largest Buddha in Japan. The Buddha was enormous and the hall itself was beautiful.

We then walked up further to Nigatsu hall to watch the sun set behind the city view. We then went to find some food and found a nice place in one of the arcades. Amazingly, when we were done with dinner around 8pm, everything was closing down. In a matter of minutes the small crowds of people vanished. We wondered how they disappeared so quickly...

M and I then decided to head "downtown" to check out what was going one. Little did we know that "town center" is where our hotel was located--we thought it was in a distant part of the city. Oh well. We called it a night and watched a teenage Japanese soap opera. We tried to figure out what was going on based on the action, but we definitely missed some jokes as everyone onscreen was laughing and M and I were completely lost.

The next morning, we got up and went back to Nara-koen. It was rather peaceful at this time, since none of the tourist crowds had yet arrived. We walked through the park down a path surrounded by many lanterns. The whole morning was very relaxing, exactly what I wanted after a day of going from one temple to the next. M stopped at one of the shops near the temple to buy a prayer board (dont know what its actually called) where you write a prayer or wish down and hang it up outside the temple. They had three different kinds, as the old woman informed us: One for upper body wishes, one for lower body wishes, and one for boy/girl romance. I took a shot of what they look like and got yelled at--apparently no photos were permitted. Anyway, the "upper body wish" board was hysterical as it depicts a womans breasts:

We had lunch in Nara and then headed on our long journey to Koyasan. We were meeting up with Mo, Mi and FJ up on the mountain. Luckily, we only had to transfer trains once. But the ride was sooo long. The last train takes a very winding path that at some instances feels like the train is going to fall off the edge of the cliff--pretty scary. At the end of the train ride, there's a cable car that takes you to the top of the mountain.

We were staying in a Buddhist temple for the night so we arrived, dropped off our stuff and headed for the sights. The most well-know of the sights is this huge cemetary where it is said any true Buddhist (followers of the Shingon school of Esoteric Buddhism founded by Kobo Daishi) leaves a piece of dead relatives in the cemetary near Kobo Daishi's grave so that they're taken care of or something when Kobo Daishi reawakens for the arrival of the future Buddha. The cemetary was awesome. It was in the middle of a forest of cypress trees--the trees were incredible--gigantic and ancient--very impressive. The tombs were also pretty impressive and there were sooo many. M said it gave her the willies to be walking around a cemetary but for me, it was one of the coolest parts of my weekend.

After the cemetary, we went back to the temple for shoshin ryori (mountain vegetable meal) since the Buddhists are vegetarian. The dinner was actually very filling and most of it was very good. The most interesting tasting part was the rehydrated tofu--it was like biting into a sponge--very strange.

Like Nara, Koyasan closes down at 8pm. Luckily, we managed to make it to one of the souvenir shops a few minutes before closing and bought some souvenirs. We went back to the temple and had baths. The rest of the girls were brave enough to handle the public baths, but I am not so comfortable with public nudity and luckily the private shower stall was free.

After bathing, there wasn't much to do, which turned out great because we had to be up early for the 6am ceremony. There were learned that water can listen to and read words and distinguish which are good and which are bad. I really liked the message the head priest was trying to send--saying bad things to people not only hurts them, but it hurts you too because of the bad spirit it comes from. The part that bothered me was his attempt to use "scientific evidence" to prove this. I am all for sending this kind of message, but to fool people into thinking that there are physical/chemical/biological reasons for this is not cool. This particularly bothered me because every time he said it was scientific, not only was it not scientific, but a number of people around me were astonished and I sensed that they were taking this as scientific evidence. It really bothered me that these people did not know enough to realize that really, the images he was showing were just pictures and didn't prove anything. In the end, I left with a slightly sour taste, but let it go and was satisfied with the fact that I approved of the overall message he was trying to send.

After the ceremony, we ate more shoshin ryori and headed to the next destination. At this point M and I went different directions--she headed for Osaka and I went back to Kyoto.

In Kyoto, we went to Nijo-jo castle. The castle itself wasn't very impressive but the paintings on the walls of the tatami mat rooms were amazing. It reminded me a lot of things that I've seen in Europe. I wonder (and I'm sure some art history person knows this) when people stopped painting pictures on their walls. They're such beautiful paintings--I wonder if its one of those things that became tacky or if its one of those things that only wealthy people could afford and went out style. Hmm....I'm tempted to hire an artist and have them paint my room.

After the Nijo-jo castle, we headed over to Gion. This past weekend was the Gion Matsuri festival--one of the biggest in Japan. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain all day long and I think the usual crowds did not show up. I got to see a couple of floats but nothing spectacular. I think I missed the main event because I needed to catch my train, but from the pictures friends sent, didn't seem to miss all that much. The highlight of that afternoon was getting to see Geisha and Maiko. I was too slow with the camera and they move very quickly with guards around them, but Mo was able to run in front and have of the them pose for her.

Overall, I had a great weekend and got to see a lot of old Japan. Kyoto reminded me a lot of Rome, as you're walking through downtown and come across some really ancient stuff. I really think I was meant to live in a place with a rich history, yet I don't think I would give up living in the US.

More photos here

Craziest Weekend Ever?

Perhaps.
This past weekend, I went to Tokyo. The plan was to go out Friday night in Tokyo, sleep, get up the next morning and see more of Tokyo, then go to Mt. Fuji that afternoon and climb it, come back to Tokyo Sunday then go home.

Here is what actually happened:

Tokyo

I met up with a bunch of people from my summer program, some who live there and some who were visiting, like me. I activated my wonderful JR Pass which gives me "unlimited" access to the Japan Rail tracks and made it from Hiroshima to Tokyo in 5 hours. I got to Tokyo during rush hour on a Friday. It was FULL of people and carrying around a large backpack not only makes you stand out, but also hated by people who are just trying to get on their train.

My first stop was Shibuya. It is said that this is the busiest subway station in the world! After spending 5 minutes outside the station, you can definitely believe it as you see hundreds of people walk across to the station every 5 minutes or so. This is the part of Tokyo that is generally represented in the movies, with the bright neon lights EVERYWHERE! I've heard from Tokyoites that sitting at the Starbucks in the building across from the station and just watching people cross the street is a fun activity.

Anyway, we were all meeting up at the Hachiko statue in Shibuya. The Hachiko statue is a statue of an Akita dog. The story is that of a dog who would meet his master every day after work. After his owner died, the dog still faithfully showed up at the station at 3pm waiting for his master to show up. He continued to do this until his own death 11 years later. Hachiko became famous and a symbol of loyalty to all Japanese, so after the dog died they built a statue to honor him. Now it is a very common meeting place and some people even hold up signs to find each other. Luckily, I was able to quickly find my group.

We went to an Izikaya, which I talked about in a previous post--like a Tapas place. Overall, a fun time was had. Japanese cuisine is very methodical in a sense. Certain foods must be eaten certains ways. During our meal, we had to cook one of the courses ourselves. After the pan was empty, we received bowls of noodles. Since that is all we got, we figured we'd toss in the noodles into the pan. Well, the waiter was coming back with the sauce for the noodles just as we were dumping them into the pan. The guy's face was priceless--I wish I had a camera. He screamed something in Japanese while holding his hand to his forehead with the most astonished look I've ever seem. Then he ran away saying something in Japanese we couldn't understand. The only thing we understood is that we had done something terribly wrong with the noodles. He later returned with more noodles and sauce to dip the noodles in and apologized. Poor guy, though his thought was probably "stupid Americans".

After the izikaya, we went searching for dessert. There was a Haagen Daz nearby but we lost a couple of people who went the wrong direction at the main crosswalk. Now this doesn't seem like a big problem, but here, when there are hundreds of people crossing at once, it can easily become a problem. The problem wasn't so much losing the people, as it was not making it to Haagen Daz in time. We arrived 5 minutes after closing =( There was a place next door with desserts, but they were $8 and it was a couple of scoops of ice cream on a half loaf of bread (literally half of a loaf). We decided to go to "Mac Donaldo's" instead. The rumor was they had melon milkshakes. This deserves an entry to itself, but the Japanese have VERY tasty desserts. My favorite so far are anything that has melon in it.

After McD's, we went back to Hachiko to meet up with more people. The plan was to go to "Harlem", a hip hop club in Shibuya in the Dogenzaka area or "Love Hotel Hill". This area is apparently the world capital of love hotels--places where you can shack up with someone you love (or don't love) and make love (or have sex). Apparently there are also themed love hotels--Gothic castles, Middle Eastern temples--though I did not go to one, this is just coming from the guidebook. Anyway, Harlem was strict with ID's and since some people didn't bring them, we ended up going to Club Atom instead. Atom was a lot of fun for the first 3.5 hours. The last 1.5 was the harsh one. We went straight to the hip hop floor as the others were techno and trance. Amazingly, the male dancer in the trance room was wearing slightly LESS clothing than the female dancer!

At the club, we basically took over the dance floor seeing as how it was small and there were a bunch of us. The funny part was that there was a female DJ who was pretty good, but she had groupies! There were like 5 guys standing in front of the DJ stage just going nuts! Also, there was a video screen next to the DJ stage and people sitting were watching the videos. So EVERYONE was facing one direction--it was very odd to be dancing all facing one way. The crowd was decent, maybe because it was mostly our group dancing. The people we were hanging with were a lot of fun. There's this one guy in particular that really surprised me. I will call him J1 as there are many J's in our group. So J1 I met literally off the plane when we got to Japan. He's a very nice guy, but also very quiet--typical preppy white guy engineer. Well, once we got on the dance floor, this guy was busting out lyrics to all the songs--it was incredible. At one point he and FJ (female J) had a little competition as to who could recite the lyrics the best. He won hands down. That kept me entertain for much of the night actually. As did the Japanese people dancing hip hop and THEM trying to recite lyrics.

Anyway, the plan was to go clubbing and crash for the night nearby to be prepared for Mt. Fuji the next day. Well, one person, Mi, had her wallet stolen so leaving the club at 3:30am lead to staying at the club looking for a wallet until 4am at which point we decided it was best to wait for the trains to start running at 5am and not pay $50 for a taxi. So much for getting some sleep.

The scene of Shibuya at 5am was incredible. There were sooo many people out just walking around or sleeping. Yes, sleeping. I wish I had a picture of this, but there was one guy in a suit who had taken off his shoes, placed them and his jacket folded on his briefcase next to it, and was resting his feet on a ledge with his back on the ground. The crime rate is miniscule here so there is no fear of having anything stolen. This image exemplifies the way of life in Japan.

So, 5am in Shibuya...the one restaurant that is open is too crowded and guess what...McD's is open 24 hours! So we headed there for some breakfast. Then B, Mo, and I headed off to J1's place to crash for the night. He forgot to mention that his place is INCREDIBLY tiny. Well, a place to crash is better than sleeping on the streets (although maybe in Japan its not so bad).

We had tickets to see Kabuki theater Saturday morning at 11am, so by the time we had showered, we got about 1 hour of rest before having to take off again. We went to Kokuritsu Gekijo, the National Theater of Japan, to watch an entirely Japanese Kabuki theather show. Kabuki means "unorthodox" or "eccentric" and was originally a dance troupe of women back in 1603 during the Edo period, but soon changed to become Ka(song) Bu(dance) Ki(techinique/skill) shows and also was performed by men only. Our show was entertaining, despite my short naps (yes, they were short), I was able to kinda understand what was going on. A man gets killed by some guy, leaving behind a little boy which another man comes to protect and avenge his father's death. In the meantime, there is some woman (who is actually a man--very reminiscent of Shakespearean plays) who he falls in love with and is an awesome fighter and kills like 5 samurai (or the same guy who kept coming back to life) that attacked the main guy and in the end they kill the guy who killed the father and they're one happy family. Now, since this was all in Japanese, this is the most I gather from my awake time in the theather and the acting.

After Kabuki theater, we were on the fence about climbing Mt. Fuji. We had been checking the weather and it said rain, so we decided we'd ask the person at the counter what they'd recommend. The woman at the counter was very nice and informed us that the best time to climb was August but it was ridiculously crowded then and on Sunday they'd be getting a typhoon so probably Saturday night was the best night to go. So we went.

Mt. Fuji

Yes, we realized that we had slept only one hour, but maybe we could sleep more on the bus to the 5th station. And yes, we realized that all we had had for food (besides Chinese for lunch) had been Mc Donaldo's, and yes, we knew that there would be a typhoon coming in the next day. But for some reason, this did not stop us. Maybe because we wanted to be adventurous or more likely because we were being stubborn and didn't want to change our plans.

The drive to Mt. Fuji was not memorable. Maybe because I slept most of the way, but it was on the highway, so didn't miss much. The only thing I really remember about it was thinking this was a stupid idea.

We got to the Kawaguchi-ko 5th Station, which lies at 2305m, and had more fried food and bought a nice souvenir walking stick. At 8pm about half the group departed. Traditionally, people climb Fuji-san to get to the top in time to see the sunrise. Two ways of doing this: 1)climb during the day, sleep at one of the huts at the 8th station and climb the rest of the way at 3am; 2)climb all night until you reach the top hopefully by sunrise--not too early or you'll freeze--not too late or you'll miss the sunrise. Well, we decided to do the second one leaving early enough to give us time to reach the top and take a break in between. The first group took off at 8pm and was me and three girls, Mi, Mo, FJ, and J2(male J). The second group waited for more people meeting up with us an took off an hour later. At around 9pm, I felt like I was going to pass out. I was carrying my large backpack and although it was practically empty, it felt like I was carrying a ton of bricks. At the 6th station (2390m) J2 offered to swap bags since his was smaller, but I was stubborn and said I was fine (though I doubt I actually looked fine).

We climbed some more and at one point I thought I was having an asthma attack as I started wheezing. A few minutes later, after I thought I was going to die on the mountain from lack of oxygen, I swapped packs with J2 and man, that was a life saver.

We continued on our route up the mountain and hit the 7th station (2700m). At that point, I was seriously reconsidering, but fear of going back down alone kept me going foward. The climb thus far had been very gravelly but not very rough. As soon as we left the 7th station that all changed. The rest of the way up was mostly rock climbing. At one point, I thought this is probably what Mars is like, since the ground is kinda red--it is a volcano afterall. Also, being mad at the moutain and myself, I was very pessimistic at the idea of life on Mars EVER. Seriously though, if Mars is like Mt. Fuji, it will be uninhabitable. Ok, well maybe some shrubs, but that's all.

Anyway, in retrospect, the rock climbing was the fun part of the climb up. I'm by no means saying it was easy, in fact, it was the most challenging. The other climbing involved stairs and was all so steep and uphill, it was not fun--mostly because it gave you a chance of thinking what else you could be doing on a Saturday night than climbing up a mountain that is kicking your ass and thinking how it is possible that the book says grandparents and kids climb this thing all the time. At least with the rocks you have to think of which route to take and determine which rocks are stable etc. keeping your mind busy. And its even more challenging carrying a walking stick in one hand and a flashlight in the other!

We went slowly (ok I went slowly and J2 was nice enough to stay behind with me and the girls were up ahead by a couple of meters) hitting all of the huts. The more defined trail (stairs) were near the huts so you knew you were close by but somehow that was always the most difficult part for me--I knew I was soo close but was in SO much pain, I felt my legs were going to fall off every time I got close to the last steps and that I wouldn't make it to the hut.

Somewhere past the first 8th station (3360m) we lost Mi, Mo and FJ. I was incredibly tired (nothing like climbing Mt. Fuji to show you how out of shape you are) and J2 was getting altitude sickness so we stopped at one of the huts. I really wanted to keep climbing (to end the misery) but J2 was turning blue (literally) and requested that we stop for an hour. Since he was afterall carrying my bag, I decided I'd stay at the hut at the cost of a $30 sleeping bag on the bottom of a bunk holding about 20 people than continue in the dark, by myself, carrying a ton of bricks. We were only an hour from the top and since it was 2am, I figured a one hour break was bearable. I slept about 15 min. At 2:30am, people started getting up and getting ready for their climb up to the top and the hut opened up their kitchen with the women screaming "Irrashaimassen" (welcome) at the top of her lungs offering miso soup.

Three AM rolled along and I woke up J2 who had now returned to a normal skin tone. He did not want to get up so I gave a motivational speech (can you imagine ME, the person who was about to pass out every 5 seconds doing this) about having climbed all this way and being on a mission to reach the top by sunrise and how we can do it and aren't going to feel sick or weak. Ok, so it didn't quite work as well as I'd hoped as he plopped back down. At which point I said I was shivering from the cold and needed to get up and move, and I'm leaving and you can stay if you want, and got up and left. Well this worked like a charm. Two seconds later, J2 was on his feet and we were off to finish our climb.

As soon as I stepped out of the hut, the view was amazing. All of a sudden there were hundreds of people outside climbing the mountain--all of the smart people that were sleeping in the huts while we were climbing during the night. The were all wearing flashlights (most people are smart and wear headlamps) and all you could see was the glow of hundreds of flashlight all along the trail up the mountain. That is perhaps the most memorable moment of the entire event. Unfortunately, due to the darkness, I couldn't get a picture, so you'll have just imagine it (I did take a picture, but all you see is blurs--those are people's flashlights).

Outside the bathroom of the hut, I met 2 other guys (T and P) who we climbed up with for a while. Due to the congestion of people, climbing to the top by sunrise was not possible. But we got pretty damned close. On our way up we found group 2 climbers and we took a break for the sunrise a couple of meters from the top. Once we reached the top (3776m), I found Mi, Mo and FJ and headed right back down. I did take a picture at the top, but with all the crowds, it was hard to do anything else up there (there is a Pub at the top and several people were drinking champagne) and too cold to stay outside. Plus it was cloudy and the crater wouldn't been visible.

The descending route was much easier than the ascending route, though I did manage to fall 4 times on the way down. This is because the path is sand. All sand. I had read on the map and in the book that it was called the sand slide down and that people actually slide down, but did not take it literally. Actually there are many things about climbing Fuji-san that I should've taken literally--like people saying that its a miserable climb. Anyway, the sand slide. Yeah. Sand is difficult to walk down as you do end up sliding. Now if you were wearing hiking boots, maybe not so bad. But after having twisted one ankle on the way up and wearing sneakers, walking down on sand isn't the most stable thing, resulting in multiple falls. My body absolutely hates me by this time.

Again, after hitting one of the huts bathrooms, I lost Mi, Mo and FJ. Granted, I told them I'd be going down very slowly and they should go ahead. But we got to a fork and they were far ahead in the wrong direction. I attempted to get their attention by screaming, but they were too far away to hear me. I though that maybe they'd ask someone if they were going the right way or notice that there were several groups of people climbing back up the hill and turning in a different direction as they too had gone the wrong way (as this is the hint that made me go the right way). I was mistaken. I waited about 45 min for them to turn back, but then decided that I needed to start going down or else I'd miss my bus back. I climbed down by myself for a while and actually it was very peaceful, with the occasional fall that would interrupt that, but hey, its just sand. At that moment, but only for that moment, I was glad I had climbed Mt. Fuji. Then I fell again and cursed the damn thing. I walked alone some more and found T and P who I had just met at the bathroom hut a couple hours earlier. We had a nice chat down the mountian cursing the thing and sharing miserable stories about climbing rocks. He too had been out clubbing the night before in Rappongi (red light district) and hadn't gotten much sleep. We decided near the bottom that it wasn't worth the pain, climbing up the mountain, and wanted to warn the people on their way up, but didn't say anything (they were Japanese afterall and probablywouldn't understand anyway).

Once I got to the bottom, I found the rest of the group (with the exception of Mi, Mo and FJ who ended up at a different 5th station) and we headed back to Tokyo. I was supposed to take the last train home with M so everyone had the luxury of going home to shower and sleep, but I had time to kill so I decided to do more sightseeing. I went to Harajuku and saw the Meiji Shrine and also the crazy girls of Harajuku, Cos-play-zoku (Costume Play Gang). These are girls that dress up in goth clothes and babydolls and other clothing and sit by the station taking pictures with tourists. Supposedly they are the rejects at school and this is their weekly escape--its like the gang that hangs out at the Harvard Sq. station, except mostly girls.

After that I headed to Tokyo station for my train home to Hiroshima.

Lessons learned: Do not climb a mountain: after staying out all night clubbing; after having McD's for 3 meals in 24 hours; if a typhoon is excepted any time soon as the wind is killer, if you are carrying a large pack or not wearing proper hiking shoes, if you don't have a headlamp. Fuji-san is no joke and you will be miserable. Finally, yes, I can say I had a adventuresome weekend and very crazy indeed and I'm sure in a couple of weeks, when I no longer feel the pain in every single muscle of my body and do not remember the misery of climbing the mountain, I will say it was a great experience. For now, while it still hurts to move, all I can say is "DON'T DO IT!"

Pictures of Tokyo here and Mt. Fuji here.

My Living Quarters

A friend asked me for pictures of my studio so she can picture me in Japan, as now her image is of me sitting on pillows in a tatami mat room. Luckily, I am living in a very Westernized studio apartment. I have a small kichenette in which I've already managed to make a three course meal for two! Although, having one burner does make for a very long dinner with each course lasting as long as it takes me to make the next one (poor M must've been starving by the time I was done!). I also have a nice little balcony with a washing machine. People here don't use dryers so I have a clothing line set up so there's not really much room except for me to stand in a corner and get some fresh air while looking out at the city.

My neighborhood is interesting to say the least. I've already discussed the vending machines but there is so much more...

Every morning I can hear loud salutes. This is because about 3 blocks away resides the Hiroshima Police Academy. Thanks to my brand new camera with 12X zoom I was able to take a pic of them in training. Another bizarre thing here is the PA system. They seem to test that sucker all the time. Either that or they're saying something important in Japanese that I don't understand, but seeing as how I'm still alive and haven't heard of any bombing, I think they're just sending out flood warnings or testing the thing. And let me tell you--that thing is LOUD!

Then there's the other thing...Who knew I'd have to get all the way to Japan to reach Hollywood. I have never lived closer to Hollywood in my life! Parlor Hollywood that is.

This place is FILLED with gambling spots. The favored game is Pachinko. I'm not exactly sure what Pachinko is, I think it was one of the games place on The Price is Right but I may be wrong. Anyway, not only do I live down the street from "Pachinko" and "Parlor Hollywood", even closer--just one block away--is "Bull Dog" a "Casino Cafe".

Thank goodness there is a one block buffer from the bright shiny lights and my window. Actually, this works out for the best. As I still don't know the exact address of my apt building, I can just tell the cabbie--take me to Parlor Hollywood and I'm home. Never have I been so happy to see these neon colored lights as I was on Sunday night when we went downtown and decided to take the bus home (not knowing at which stop to get off). M and I are constantly wondering which one is more popular. I have decided that as experimental scientist, it is our duty to figure this out the right way--we go to all three and decide for ourselves. She's a bit reluctant, but I think I can convince her. Apparently, its illegal to actually make any money off the gambling, so at the end of the day, you exchange your chips for a sticky hand or doll or something (like those arcades you went to back in middle school). Except, you then walk to the building two doors down and "sell" your prize for cash! Well see how we do with the "prizes"--I'll keep you updated.

So another thing about Hiroshima, it is what M has called the Cleveland of Japan. While I disagree--I have not been able to find a more appropriate comparison thus far. It has a smallish downtown with sights (A-bomb related, of course). However, VERY few people speak English. While Japanese students are taught English as a regular course, like math or history, for 10 year, nearly everyone (who hasn't taken English outside of schooling) can speak a word. They can read and write, though.

Last Friday, I went out with a bunch of people from the Institute. It was a mix of ages and areas (physics, geology, sales). I sat with 5 rather shy Japanese men--all friends with H. I made the faux-pas of calling him H instead of K-sensei (since he's actually like faculty--so much more strict with the titles these people!). Anyway, after a few drinks, they all had questions. It was actually a lot of fun. While it took probably 10 times as long to get across what I was saying, it was great trying to make them understand and for me, it was great trying to communicate with the sukoshi nihongo (little Japanese) that I know. The women were a bit more shy and didn't come around until after about 4 beers. In the mean time, perhaps mostly lost in translation--I signed up to participate in an English class, attend a Japanese pottery class and Karate class and go out to Cuzco Cafe and El Barco nightclub! It was great, although I have a feeling that most of these offers were out of politeness and I took them up on it. Oops.

The place was actually really cool. It wasn't a restaurant, but it wasn't a bar either. Its this place where the primary reason you're there is to drink, but there's also food that's served. It was 10 different dishes (all incredibly yummy) and they were all small dishes to be shared--pretty much like Tapas, except they're served in a special order. Apparently, there are now tons of these places as they've become very popular and they all have different cuisine themes. This one was Japanese and we ate on the floor of a large tatami mat room. While everything was delicious, after beer, a grapefruit cocktail and sake, I was glad to see Parlor Hollywood.

Locked out...thank goodness for vending machines!

As I mentioned before, I am now living in Hiroshima. I am slowly settling into a nice small studio on the 11th floor of Prosper Shinonome Mansions in a residential area near the University hospital. I by no means live in a mansion--that is simply the term they use to refer to condos and apartments. The apartment building in which I am staying has primarily student residents, though I have yet to meet anyone. My labmate is also in Japan and staying one floor below me on the opposite side of the building with the exact same set-up. I do not think there is a single room that is not exactly the same in this entire building. Anyway, the way the lock system works is there is a key to get into the building and then the apartments have a magnetic key system. They give you this metal plate--the size of a credit card--which you slide into a slot, push down and hear a click, and rotate the holder to lock/unlock the door. I don't know why they don't just use keys--they seem like simple solutions and pretty secure. Maybe they're just really into advanced technology.

Well, let me tell you--advanced technology is not always the best way to go. Yesterday, since I couldn't be "officially" introduced to the lab until today, M and I went for a walk around Hiroshima downtown. There will be another entry discussing Hiroshima city after this weekend when I explore more of the city. For now, I will just tell you that when we left, I put my "keys" in the front pocket of my purse, which contained a magnetic closure. All day, my bracelet kept latching on to my bag and it wasn't until halfway through the day that I realized it was attaching to the magnet on my bag. Didn't realize it was such a strong magnet. If you can see where I'm going with this, you may be able to guess what happened when I got home. I tried to use my nifty magnetic key to open my door and guess what? It wouldn't open. I tried rotating the holder a number of times--the way you would reset a padlock--turning it every which way. I tried putting the key in the opposite direction. I tried shaking and hitting--pretty much everything, until I decided after 5 minutes of trying that I would go downstairs and ask M for help. Well, she asked if I had tried rotating the holder, inserting the thing upside down, etc. Guess she didn't believe me, so she tried it herself. After another 5 minutes of trying to get into my door (and even trying her key), we gave up and called our friend H who we're working with this summer. He said there was no emergency number and I'd have to wait until morning to get in. I decided that the stupid magnetic key (why in the world would you make a magnetic key!) had gotten screwed up by my bag's magnetic clasp (which, by the way, have probably been around WAY longer than these silly magnetic keys).

So, my second night in Hiroshima was spent on the nice hardwood floor of M's studio apartment. She currently has Strep throat, so the combination of everything made this second night not the healthiest of conditions. But thank goodness for the vending machines to make things a bit funnier and brighter. If you haven't heard, the Japanese are notorious for vending machines. I think I read this in a guidebook or something, but a ridiculously large percentage (about one third) of the world's manufactured vending machines reside in Japan. During my orienation, we stayed in a relatively isolated resort town in which I saw about 10 vending machines in the middle of nowhere--literally--it was several meters of fields and two sets of vending machines!

Another thing which you may not know is that alcohol is sold in vending machines. I was unaware that the Japanese were so fond of drinking. All of the Japanese culture information that I have read thus far says that while the Japanese are very kind (a lot of which is not truly "kindness" but more on that later) and reserved--all of this gets thrown out the window when they drink. Drinking is their way of letting loose and saying what's really on their minds (although I don't think they entirely behave this way around foreigners from what I hear). Anyway, drinking is a very accepted and common pastime. There's even a bar here called "Alcoholiday". When we were downtown, we entered the "Drinking District" and in fact, it was more than I anticipated. The entrance to the area of town has a huge sign saying "Kirin Beer".
Once we started walking down the street there are innumberable signs for bars. There seem to be 2 bars per floor and at least 4 floors per building. The Lonely Planet Travel Guide says it has over 4000 bars and the "district" is only about 4x4 city-blocks! Unfortunately, I don't think I'll visit more than one bar and in the daytime, as its rumored that Yakuza (the mob) frequents these bars at night and the only women that go there are in a certain kind of "business" that does not appeal to me.

So thank goodness for the vending machines! You can get all sorts of beer there. And not only beer, but they also sell mixed stuff--similar to Smirnoff Ice or something like that. So, since I was stuck sleeping on the hardwood floor with only a pillow (we have just moved here afterall--no one is ready for a guest), I decided that I'd numb the pain a bit (while preventing any bugs from inhabiting my throat) and headed to the vending machine. In the end, I was able to get more sleep than M, despite the hard floor and no covers.

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Moving on from the drama and disturbing news

I am now in Hiroshima. The last few days of orientation were relatively uneventful. "Drama" ensued when a bunch of guys went out to Tokyo for the night and returned at 8am since the last train was missed. Luckily, I was too tired to go out (as well as the majority of the people) which resulted in everyone being "lame" and the guys being too cool for everyone. Needless to say, we are in high school. The male ego still surprises me to this day. I do not understand it at all. Apparently, we were all "lame" because we did not pay enough attention to this group of individuals. Oh well. I don't think I missed much.

Moving on...there were a couple of things that I found a bit disturbing during my orientation. We had four "special lectures" for two mornings--three of them being "the history of Japan" in evolution, medicine and aerospace. While most of these were interesting, the scope was lost a bit in the "history of medicine" lecture, as the professor started the lecture with the rising of Japan from the Earth's core. Unfortunately, time did not permit for us to reach modern medicine, as after an hour and a half, we were still in 1860.

Of the three lectures, the one on evolution was perhaps the most interesting. As a biologist (and hopefully future educator) I was shocked and disturbed by the way biology is taught in Japan. The professor who gave the talk was a female prof and was very outspoken--something that I found very surprising considering the stereotypes of sexism in this country. She described to us the way biology is taught and there is one standard textbook that almost all school utilize. The reason there is one is because all classes are geared towards a general exam that determines your fate (literally). So this biology "textbook" is about 250 pages in paperback, smaller than 8.5x11 type (in comparison, a typical HS biology text is over 600pgs and much larger dimensions). There are SO many restrictions as to what can be put into the textbook and need to be checked with about 15 people.

So, as I mentioned, this lecture was on the history of evolution. As you may know, the basis of biology is the principle of evolution. While the "idea" of evolution has recently become a "hot topic" in the US, it has only recently been accepted in Japan. For a long time, the Darwinian theory of evolution was not accepted. In fact, a discredited theory (Lysenkoism) was followed for a long time. The Darwinian theory was only accept in early 1990! This theory has been around for AGES and only 15 years ago did the Japanese decide to accept it. The bothersome part is that it wasn't accepted, not for the actual biology behind it, but because it was a "Western" idea. Any Western ideas about biology were pretty much ignored (an actually Western ideas in any field). In fact, there was a man from Japan who came up with his own theory of evolution called Imanishi-ism and this was accepted as THE evolutionary theory to follow, although it was based on several Darwinian principles with some differences in the idea of selection. The only reason it was taught (and only amongst graduate students, but I'll get to that later) is that it was a "Japanese" idea and therefore more important than Darwin's. It was shocking to me to hear this, perhaps because I thought the whole ethnocentrism thing related mostly to culture not to scientific principles. Moreso, I think the troubling thing was that this was not based in any sort of "faith" as the Japanese generally do not have any religion. The controversy with the teaching of evolution in the US is at least based in Faith. While I do not approve of the non-teaching of evolution and reject the idea of intelligent design aka creationism, myself, I can at least somewhat understand the arguments for intelligent design and its basis of faith. Whereas here, the rejection was simply because these were "Western" ideas.

Fortunately, things seem to be changing and this particular prof seems to be a frontrunner in this change in education. Despite her efforts, the word "evolution" cannot be included in any "official" HS biology textbook and neither can any ideas referring to evolution such as the word "selection". What is surprising is that the idea of inheritance is mentioned and DNA can be mentioned, however the terminology is as so: "a chemical A, a chemical T, a chemical G and a chemical C combine to generate information for the cell". The DNA bases cannot be called their official chemical names (adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine). It boggles people go on to study biolog when it is taught this way. Also the words "variant" or "selection" cannot be used in any combination with anything referencing DNA because this may infer the idea of evolution.

With this said, we were informed that there are biology textbooks that are more like American or "Western" biology texts, however these are not approved by the government and therefore most instructors do not use them. While I understand the need to simply biology so that even students who do not want to pursue it past HS aren't bored, I find that it is critical to at least inform students of the different areas in biology that can be pursued, even if it is not taught as a lesson in class. After listening to this lecture, it made me appreciate my US education so much more and also angry that goverment can be so powerful as to block such essential information from its citizens. Ok, maybe that was a bit dramatic--not everyone is a biology geek like me.

More to come on the special lectures, but I'll make that a separate entry as this one is making me mad again and is already very long.