Japan Adventure 5
my sister left for yokosuka that afternoon cause she has to work the next day. i decide to just wander around tokyo all night playing "follow the crowds."
japanese are actually famous for some of their hip-hop, but these guys needed help.
there are hardly any visible police in tokyo. but in front of the fancy stores is plenty of security.
some girl perfoming on the street.
some hip and trendy people hanging out in the street. i really didn't fit in with my big camera dangling from neck tourist look.
the shibuya crossing at night... usually i'd take the subway to get here, but after 3 hours of walking on the streets, it's amazing how everything in the city eventually comes together.
some white guys had a camera set up in the busy allies of shibuya telling people to "NOT LOOK AT THE CAMERA". guess what happens when you tell people not to do something, they do it.
over here, we have the retro-nintendo design for the gameboy advance... in japan, they never had a "nintendo", it was called a famicom. hence, the famicom mini for their retro gaming delight.
there are a lot of street food stands. i know it's japan... supposedly clean, but i still found these places a little sketchy.
next day...
symbiotic relationship, man feed pigeons bread, pigeons keep man company.
me
so one of my lifetime goals i can list under "stupid stuff charles does" is try to visit every hardrock cafe and collect a glass.
yup, pretty depressing eating alone.
my food
that night i took the train home back to yokosuka and came upon a very civil protest in the street. they were demonstrating against the war in iraq as well as the presence of the american naval base. is it treason if i joined them?
finally cops in the street. i can't overstate how civil this was. supposedly they have to have a written notice to the police and town of the date, location, and reason for the protest.
and unlike here were protests are usually a mob scene, they actaully march as little groups so that the traffic can pass through intermittently. and when they reach a certain dead end street, the group disperses and return to their normal lives.
DDR... i'm glad i'm over that phase.
MT FUJI - August 12-13 2004...

that's friday the 13th.. .dum dum dum
so here's the grand finale for my stay in japan, a hike to the top of mt fuji. i was supposed to do this with my sister but that didn't work out. then i missed the bus seat i reserved... but fate has it's ways of doing good, and liked the people i met and the weather was awesome... and somehow i couldn't have imagined doing it differently.

so the deal with fuji is that my sister already climbed it twice... and her being the physically fit person she is, made it seem like no big deal. there's actually, a proverb that says "If you never climb Mt Fuji you are a fool, and if you climb it more than once you are a greater fool". so i was like... okay, sis says it's easy, so i just nonchalantly hop the bus with just a bottle of water, a few sandwiches, hardly enough clothes, only enough money for the bus ride back, and a "bring it on" attitude. sometimes i forget the mountain is bigger than the man.
girl that i sat next to on the bus, i introduced myself then held her hand out for a handshake and said "mirim-hi". then i say, "mirim-hi, what an interesting name". then she goes, "no, my name is mirim, hi." ohh
some dudes on the bus doing what i should've been doing, sleeping. i was up since 9AM, bus left at around 8PM, would arrive on the mountain at 10PM, so i had a good 2 hours. hmm... pulling an all nighter doing the most physically demanding thing i've ever done... very smart charles.
the bus dropped us off at 5th station. and from here, we climb from 2300 meters o the summit which is 3700 meters. one thing i took into consideration, but not enough was the climate change due to altitude. i brought at a light windbreaker and... nothing else but the close i had on me. the guide book said it would be around 40*F at the top... but i failed to realize that meant during the daytime... oops. where we were, it was about 55* already, it only got colder from there... oops.

i met this guy tyrone on the bus. cool canadian guy who's been everywhere and done anything, speaking every language we encountered, living in japan at the time. i'm damn jealous. we decide to keep each other company on during the climb. good thing too... cause the climb is grand and all, but it would have been so lonely alone.
6th station, 2700 meters. me with my fuji climbing stick, my most precious souvenire from japan. climbers buy it at 5th station and get it branded at each station... the last one being 9th. unfortunately, i think i missed some of the branding stations along the way cause some people had more marks than i did. i didn't realize it when i bought it, but the stick was sooooo useful for the climb up when the legs start to not want to do anything at about 3200 meters.
there are several torii gates the climber passes during the ascent. religious people for whom the climb is a pilgrimage of some religious significance can say prayers or something at each gate.
i loved getting to a resting station. they were warm, even though you had to pay to actaully rest inside, i'd linger around the doorway for the warm draft of air. it's hard to describe how the body feels when it's sleep deprived, hungry, thirsty, altitude sick, cramping, freezing, and sweaty while climbing up a mountain at 2 in the morning. i literally had to tell my legs to take the next step sometimes. tyrone was a godsend cause we pushed each other along. honestly, i might have just hung out at a rest station and said screw the sunrise.
awww... all huddled up. what i would've given for a hat and a pair of gloves.
i think this is the 8th station... the last place to rest... the next 2 hours are purely climbing on rocks.
when i finally got to the next station, tyrone was like... we made it man! all excited, at this point, my cognitive processes weren't really sharp and i could'nt comprehend what he meant until i saw the large crowd gathered to watch the sunrise.
i get the final and most important mark on my fuji climbing stick, the one that says i've been to the top, branded on by priests.
2nd row view of the sunrise. actually, i spent a lot of my time crouched down to keep myself warn and to dodge the blistering winds.
this was the funniest thing... after all the anticipation... 5 AM, the sun makes its appearance... and what could and should be a peace, introspective, and contemplative moment, is destroyed by cheesy music that they played on top of the mountain as the sun rose. imagine some 70's tv show theme song... like the love boat.
i love it.... who needs a bulky camera if you have a cellphone with a 3 megapixel camera.
what seems really out of place here?
tyrone and i enjoy the sunrise on the world. soon after, we parted ways cause he was climbing down the other side of the mountain for a train toward his town.
i'm summoning the sun with my staff
unfortunately our climb up was in pitch black so we couldn't really see how high we were getting... but once the sun revealed the mountain to us... good lord, it was a long way down.
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH........... (chorus of angels singing)
waaaaaay too underdressed.
poor guy is out cold.
my victory bottle of wine i bought at the hotel. i also had a victory heineken, but consider how i felt like passing out from the altitude and exhaustion, i decided not to take that risk.
mt fuji is really a volcano.. here's the crater.
me... wierd thing, at this altitude without all that atmosphere to buffer the effects of the sun, the parts where the light touched the skin, it was blazing hot, and in the shadow it was freezing cold. add to the fact that i ran out of water at the top and didn't have the 5 dollars to buy a bottle, i was mad dehydrated the entire way down.
i reconnected with mirim whom i met on the bus and her BF thomas... nice german kids, and we accompanied each other on the hike down. the climb down was a bit easier cause the air was getting thicker, but it was a KILLER on the knees. add the fact that i had no water, and volcano ash was filling my lungs... fun.
it was incredible, hiking down took about 3 hours we didn't hit the clouds until we were 2 hours into the hike. we were waaaaay up there.
poor souls didn't make it up in time for the sunrise.
it was funny... our enthusiasm for reaching the bottom. on the way down, we were telling people who were starting the climb, "DON'T GO UP THERE! YOU'LL REGRET IT!!". and we were betting each other how much we'd do the whole climb again for... we're all smiles here, but at that point, we wouldn't have done it again for a $1000.
last day, my sister and i hop several trains to hakone, some mountainous region near mt fuji to enjoy the hot springs. these are natural hot baths created by the volcanic activity under the earth... that's reassuring.
my sister enjoying a rose water bath. they "flavor" each bath (you don't drink it) but each aroma is supposed to have certain properties for healing or some other bullshit. but there was the rose one (as seen above), green tea, sake, coffee, salt, and others i can't think of.
my skinny ass self getting a massage as the water drops on my shoulders.
fun for all ages.
my hand and foot all pruned up from the water. i was already dehydrated and this only made it worse.
japanese can't distinguish L's from R's, and they always pronounce L's as R's... the one time they're supposed to have an R, they write an L. don't forget your wlist band.
bus at the base that'll bring me back to airport.
the day i was flying out, there was a howling typhoon.
one last ramen meal at narita airport.
i left at 3 PM sunday for my flight home. i reached the states 3PM sunday... twilight-zone-ish
it was a long adventure, but i was glad to be going home.
old glory says i'm home. THE END.