Auld Lang Syne

For a country which highly values New Years, I just went out to my favorite local bar and got drunk. So yea, not all that different than America for me. I spent the night talking to the company's head of sales and picked his brain some - good guy. There was a countdown, celebration, and drinking. While like America, it felt very off. In Japan, it’s mostly a family holiday where everyone gets together. The people I spent the evening with were probably other lone dogs like myself. Perhaps the strangest part of it all was that the next day when I was nursing my hangover with water, my friends and family back home were just getting ready for the ball to drop.

Verdict, living in the future is hard.

So my New Year's activities were actually not the point of this post, I just figured the topic was right appropriate. So, after work today I went grocery shopping with one of my coworkers, Auld Lang Syne (you know, the New Year’s Song) came on and just out of curiosity I asked her if this song is big on New Years? She said no, but it’s very commonly played when stores are closing as a sort of “time to scram” deal. Coincidentally, the supermarket was closing. I thought that was an interesting different cultural point. That’s all.

Continue with whatever you were doing.

Fujisan

So about five months ago (August 18th to be exact), I just happened to climb the 35th tallest mountain on ALL OF EARTH. Well, when you put it that way it doesn’t sound all that impressive but for a rotund, mostly out of shape, American - it’s quite a feet. Personal achievement. Mount Fuji sits 3,776 m (12,388 ft) in the Japanese sky and can be seen from many a places around Japan. While it may be the 35th tallest mountain in ALL OF EARTH, it IS the highest point in Japan. So yea, Japan conquered.

I woke up early, walked to the train station, got driven by my fellow hikers, and then took a bus to the 5th station of Mt Fuji. There are a total of four paths to hike Fuji, we of course chose the easiest of the three as most do. On the Yoshida course, there are a total of nine stations. These are places where hikers can sit, rest, rent a place to sleep, use the restroom, and eat/drink at ridiculously high prices. The majesty that is Fuji is not immune to the invisible hand.

My crew was assembled from fellow teachers, students, and past students. So yea, everyone on this hike was somehow connected to my job. Due to our crew of eight, our pacing wasn’t too fast. During the early phase we had a strict no man left behind policy but as the hike continued that changed. Our resident Fuji-Master told us that pacing is key to getting to the top. Thus our once unified group of eight splintered into smaller factions.

While Mt Fuji is undeniably a beautiful mountain to look at from a distance, especially when snow capped. On the mountain, it is ugly as sin. No life exists. No grass. Just soil and rock. I imagine the hike being just that, a hike. There was more actual climbing than I anticipated. I’m not talking rope and crampons here, I’m just saying some slight hand work and carefully placed footing. At no point was there danger. I’m just saying it was more than I expected. At the 5th station one strap of my backpack broke and I had to Macgyver it together. A few hours later, my belt broke. I used my Mt Fuji pin to hold it together. Somehow that worked. Off to a great start!

We pre booked a 5 hours of rest at one of the stations, I believe the 8th. Excuse this analogy but it’s really the most accurate I can think of - the resting quarters were like that of a slave ship. Packed tight like sardines in an impossible to stand crawl space. A tight walkway in the middle divided the room. Each side having two oppressive floors. So yes, there was a place to rest. However, no rest happened. Sure my body was beaten, but there was no comfort to be had. It was cold, it smelled, and the snores - god damn the snores.

This gig also scored us a meal. Which was welcoming. It was full on Japanese style at a long table, sitting on the ground, and served on a tray as a set. The thing about a 5 hour rest is that the sun went down. This added a few more problems to the hike. The two most obvious ones are the darkness and the cold. Did I bring pants? Yes. Did I change? No. Why? I have no idea. I went up and down Fuji in shorts. What made the cold bitter was the wind. The wind was like I was near the top of a mountain with nothing to block the gusts. In all honestly though, when I was moving, I was actually hot. I kept removing my hat due to comfort. Darkness was whatever, I bought a head lamp as instructed. I was basically a miner.

At this point, me and a student took the lead. Others were starting to back down and the ultimate goal of hiking Fuji is to be be at the summit at sunrise. We were NOT going to miss this. Thus, we went ahead. Despite all my boasting and energy, This was the hardest leg of the mountain. Not because of the dark or cold, but because of the altitude. Part of the reason some rest like we did high up is to adjust to the height. Apparently my body didn’t get this memo. I suffered hard. It was a headache I never experienced before - practically stunning me. I needed to take frequent breaks just to get my head under control. Luckily the guy I was hiking with was awesome and didn’t mind. If not for him, I’m not sure what would have happened. I'm not sure if the little bottle of oxygen I bought or was just a placebo. It did nothing.

To make matters worse this part of the hike is very different. Remember how I mentioned that there are four paths? Well, they all sort of converge at this point so the path is filled with people. You literally take about three steps and then wait for about ten seconds before moving again. This part if extremely easy but extremely slow. I thought my head was going to explode.

Then, just like that, we somehow reached the top. The good part about this was that we had 45 minutes until sunrise. The bad part was that we had 45 minutes until sunrise. There were looooots of people at the top. There are restaurants, vending machines (yes, everything you read about vending machines in Japan is true), and scattered benches. I sat on one of these benches and woke up 40 minutes later. THIS was my single greatest mistake I made on this mountain. I woke up absolutely frozen. I had gloves on but my hands were so damn cold.

When the sun broke over the horizon, I honestly debated if I should take pictures or not. Why? I was scared to take off my gloves. They were really that cold. I did of course, I took the shotgun approach to photography since my hands were shaking so much. I figured if I took enough photos some wouldn’t have blur lines on them. All my bitching aside, the sunrise was so worth it. It was truly astounding. Unreal even. It’s just one of those “oh shit, this is real life” sort of moments that I’ll never forget. Worth.

We met with the few other which made it to the top and sat down to some top of Fuji ramen. I held the bottom of the bowl for heat on my hands. It felt divine. After checking out the very tippy top, you know like the volcano hole, it was time to head down. As the sun rose high I warmed up pretty quickly. I had been using a summer blanket as a sort of makeshift scarf until then. I both looked and felt like I had destroyed the One Ring. Good riddance.

At this point we had climbed a mountain and now we were heading down it. My body was a bit achy, very confused at the several temperature changes, still hungry, and brutally tired. While the hike down sounds easy in theory, it was all but. Imagine a never ending zigzag, that was the way down. Nothing surprising. Nothing particularly hard. Just never ending. The way down may have been my most hated part of the hike - despite my head feeling like it was going to explode earlier. As we headed down, my head felt much better. Oh, and the other strap to my backpack broke.

The morning was beautiful though. The sky was so blue. We were ABOVE the clouds. Surreal moment number two was when I could hear thunder below me. I was above the thunderclouds and was standing on solid ground. Surreal man, surreal. Very very cool. I took a sort of explorative path with someone which ended up not working and we had to double back some. Whoops. We ended up being the last two back. We ate at a restaurant at the 5th station. The ride home I did my best to stay awake in the car but just couldn't. Half our members went to an onsen (hot spring) after, I just wanted sleep.

I slept for 12 hours straight - something I don’t think I’ve ever done even sick. When I first came to Japan climbing Fuji was one of two things I really wanted to do, check! It was amazing, beautiful, a challenge, and 100% worth it. I would recommend it to anyone. Would I ever want to do it again? Nope!

EDIT:
Fun fact, the entire time I was hiking Mt Fuji I had Modest Mouse’s “Baby Blue Sedan” stuck in my head for zero reasons.

Reason #002 to Learn Japanese: Governmental Broadcasting Corporations

Well, for the first time since I’ve lived here, something has got my blood boiling. This tale begins with our hero, me, returning home after a long day of work. Like on most days, I arrived home at approximately 9:30 PM. However, this time, a man stopped in the stairwell. He seemed confused or lost so I attempted to help him (yes, even I realize how backwards that statement is). After some poor communication on both our parts, he wanted to know if I lived in the building. Like a fool, I said yes. At this point, he reveals that he is an NHK employee.

For those unfamiliar, NHK is a governmental broadcasting television network. It’s funded by people living in Japan who they are able to catch. It’s a television network which if you own a TV, you have to pay for it regardless of everything - if, one of their agents talk to you. Are you following still?

So like, I have a TV because everyone in my building has the same TV. Ask me how many seconds of Japanese TV I’ve watched in my apartment? Answer, zero. However, by OWNING a TV I am forced to pay this service charge. Dafuq? I know what you’re thinking and no, this isn’t a scam, this is actually how this is run. Why isn’t their a bill or just a tax for this then? Why do you only have to pay if you are caught by an agent? Unknown.

I’m getting ahead of myself. So, in the stairwell, I tell the man I don’t speak Japanese (which is true) and he didn’t speak English so it was a sort of “good day sir” sort of situation. Or so I thought. He takes out his smartphone and starts translating the most broken of broken phrases I’ve ever heard. His opening statements were things along the line of “It’s Japanese law. You have to pay. Could go to court.” Keep in mind I’m changing these phrases to make sense.

I sigh, he demands to go to my apartment. At this point he’s trying to get payment from me, asking for my bank card. That was a huge red flag with a 0% chance of happening. He was totally trying to strong arm, threaten, and pull if this crazy fear tactic that quite honestly was having the reverse effect. I wasn’t afraid, I was super annoyed.

Thus, I pulled out my own smartphone and argued back. I said things such as. “But I don’t watch TV.” He replied with, “It doesn’t matter.” What. I asked him, “What if I remove my TV?” He said, “Then you don’t have to pay but you have to pay this month.”

This went on for a good 30 minutes. I have to imagine this was about as fun for him as it was for me. I felt super uncomfortable paying for something when I didn’t understand the situation or what I was paying for (at the time). I called someone to translate for me, which they did. Even after that phone call we still had some back and forth. All peaceful mind you, but quite annoying.

In the end I lost and paid the damn fee. It was about $20 and ONLY for this month. I refused to pay with card and paid with cash, which he wasn’t happy with (small victories). There was no way I was giving them my card info though. Moral of the story, unhook my TV and answer the door for no one. If I see someone in my building, grab a late dinner.

What a dumb system.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/dont-own-a-tv-nhk-doesnt-care-but-still-wants-your-money

Loco in Yoko

At the beginning of this month I had a three day weekend. This means traveling! For about a month I’ve been telling people that I’d go to Yokohama. I finally went to Yokohama. This port city is just south of Tokyo and is fabled to be the place ramen started in Japan. How could I not come with sort of resume?

After a later start than I wanted, I took a LOCAL train to Yokohama instead of the Shinkansen. I traveled half the way with a friend/coworker so the increased length really wasn’t that bad. She was headed to Tokyo so we rode the train together until she had to change lines.

I had been asking around for a powerful ramen place to try there. Someone had promised to go to a specific place with me sometime in the future so I decided to put off the ramen outing until she is available. I wouldn't want to ruin my first Yokohama ramen experience afterall. This is key.

A note about my trip to Yokohama. I walked. I walked a lot. My phone keeps records of steps I take and on both Sunday and Monday I broke records. The following days I was sore from the ridiculous amounts of walking I did - that much walking. Could I have taken more local trains? Of course. Why didn’t I? Well, I’d never been to Yokohama and walking the streets allows me get a better feel of the place. At least that is what I tell myself.

I stayed in the smallest and worst hostel yet. I wouldn't recommend this place nor would I stay there ever again. It wasn’t in the best part of town - which explains the price. I had an interesting, umm, experience. As I left my “room,” this older gentleman who appeared to be on something spotted me from down the hall and walked up to me, getting very close, and said “konichiwa.” I responded but then he just stared at me. I returned to locking my room, double checking it now, but he just stood there. Eventually he just walked away. F’n weird man.

My first destination was the port. On may way though I passed by Yokohama Stadium - home of the Baystars. No baseball games were being played but I still scoped the place out as much as I could. Someday.

The walk from the stadium to the port wasn’t too bad. There was some really weird/entertaining street “show(?)” going on. I’ll let you watch the video below. I can’t say I understood entirely what was going on but I did watch it for a bit. I went from never expecting to hear “Dancing Queen in Yokohama” to “100% listening to Dancing Queen in Yokohama” in a matter of seconds. Japan is one hell of a place.

Everyone told me to check out this Red Brick place if I visit Yokohama. So, that’s what I did. This whole area had a sort of Boston vibe to it. The architecture was, well perhaps you guessed, red brick. It was filled with all sorts of shops from chotskies to high class bars. It was a neat little place. From there I walked to Cosmo World. I don’t know about you, but when I think of Yokohama I think of that damn big Ferris Wheel. Well, this wheel is near the port. It’s called the Cosmic Clock which is admittedly pretty awesome. It’s huge, lights up, is rideable, and tells you the time in a digital format - a near perfect Ferris Wheel. I walked past the Cup of Noodle Museum but unfortunately it was closed.

My last stop for the night was Chinatown. Yes, Chinatown IN Japan. Why not? What did I do in Chinatown? I ate of course. The food was a bit pricy but it was pretty damn good. I spent far too much time trying to decide on a place to go. In the end, I’d say it paid off.

The next day had a serious rain problem. I didn’t let this get me down nor stop me. I went to the closest convenient store and bought myself a 500 yen umbrella for the day. My destination was Sankeien Garden. For this walk, I relied on Google Maps to get there. The route was, um, interesting? It took me through several neighborhoods, up and down small mountains, and through more side roads than I could count. I just blindly put my faith into Google. I found a Dennys along the way. I HAD to try out a Japanese Dennys. It was not the Dennys I knew. I’m talking small breakfast menu and breakfast only at breakfast time. I had omurice. It was good, just verrrrrry different.

For being such a big garden, this place was damn hard to figure out how to get in. There were two entrances and I just totally failed in finding them at first. At this point the rain cleared and the day was improving. Sankeien Garden was a random, last minute find but man - it ranks as one of my favorite places in Japan thus far. It was beautiful. Being early November, the foliage was beginning to start. That was awesome. I don’t know why this place stuck such a powerful note with me, it just did. Hell, it was beautiful and peaceful. I took 324756295 pictures of it.

At this point I decided I was done with Yokohama but I still wasn’t ready to journey home. What does this mean? A half day dertour to good ole Tokyo. It was only about an hour away by local train. Since I was running on a weird garden high, I continued my trek Meiji Shrine and Yoyogi Park. The foliage gave another powerful assist to making both of these locations awesome. Meiji shrine just bled history and tradition. Yoyogi Park (beside sounding like someone hard talking to a famous picnic basket stealing bear) has a delightful juxtaposition of being a hidden away fantastical garden while being surrounded by the skyscrapers of Shibuya. Pretty awesome.

While contemplating heading back that same coworker that I left with a day ago contacted me about meeting her and her friend (who lives in Tokyo) in Roppongi. It was closeish, drinking sounded awesome, and I’d get to learn how to take the buses from Tokyo to Numazu. Win win. Though I claimed it would take me a half hour to get there, I got super lost. Super lost. To be fair, I had never been to Roppongi before and the bar was on the 5th floor of a skyscraper. I was at the skyscraper within a half hour, figuring out it was on a different floor and then the three different elevators I (had to?) take to get there was another thirty minutes. It sort of reminded me of delivering pizza to the Boca Hotel Beach Resort but with no one speaking English. I accept the fact that few people will understand that reference, but just know I mean it as a sort of time restrictive personal hell.

I found it though! Then drinks were had. I was drinking some foreign beer that I had never heard of nor remember the name of. It tasted decent and came is fun gigantic sizes that impressed/worried the bartenders that served them to me. It was that or Hennigan on tap, now you understand my decision. I got to witness higher class Japanese game spit and equally got to watch higher class Japanese game get rejected. Despite my lack of Japanese language skills, some things are universally clear as day. The drinking was incredibly fun and was completely worth the frustration of being momentarily hopefully lost. Fun times for all! I want to have a big night drinking in Tokyo in the near future.

As promised, I got to take the bus back. The bus is sort of awesome. Don’t get me wrong, trains for days. BUT, taking the local train to Tokyo involves transfers and doesn’t guarantee a seat. The bus has no transfers, takes about the same amount of time, cost cheaper (on weekdays), and guarantees a seat. The downside to the bus is traffic, which luckily, was find when I took it. Once back in Numazu we said our farewells, and thus ended the long weekend voyage to Yokohama... and Tokyo.

My next goal is to figure out how to get this giant moth out of my room.

I Stopped Believing

I just sang Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" in a karaoke room with 10 non-sober people and not one person joined in. Everything I know is wrong. Where am I? I question everything.

Everyone's Kyoto

Sure people have heard of Japan’s infamous week off called Golden Week, but have you heard of Silver Week? Bronze Week not yet confirmed. Silver Week however, is a very very real and very very awesome thing that happens in September. In 2015, it happened from September 20th-23rd. If you're a mathematician like myself, you’ll notice right away that four days isn’t quite the length we’d attach the title ‘week’ too. To that, all I have to say is that, it was two extra days I didn’t have to work so does it really matter? The answer is a clear no. Where a four days exist, so does a mini vacation. When I knew I was coming to Japan I wanted to do two things - climb Mt Fuji and go to Kyoto. Check and check. (Yes, yes, Fuji post is still coming)

Kyoto! Known for it’s tradition, culture, and overall awesomeness. I needed to see this amazing hotspot of, er, Japaneseness(?). This mini vacation sounded like such a great idea to me, the timing was perfect! It turned out that half of Japan agreed with this sentiment because Kyoto was damn well packed. Not just a flood of Japanese tourists but also foreigners from ever neck of the woods imaginable. I was no better. Sunday and Monday were crazy town but Tuesday and Wednesday calmed down much more. Kyoto station was out of its mind.

The plan was to meet up with those lovely folk I trained with back in early May. Since they are all in the Nagoya region I’d take the Shinkansen over to Nagoya, we’d all board the same train, and bullet ourselves over to Kyoto land. I was quite surprised when this plan worked out perfectly. I love it when a plan comes together. I found this ridiculously awesome house to rent via AirBnB for stupid cheap for five guests. EVERY hotel in Kyoto was booked and super expensive. This was a HOUSE, with two floors, two bedrooms, a full bathroom, a kitchen, and lobby only one 5-minute train stop from Kyoto.

I of course was suspicious of ye ole ‘too good to be true’ situation, but, I have to say, it was actually just perfect. For the five of us, for three nights, it was $100 per person. Unheard of. This was my first time using AirBnB but I can guarantee I’ll keep it in mind for the future. The person we rented the place from even met us at the train station, have the cab driver directions, and showed us the place. He spoke good English, was friendly, gave us a map in English, and offered suggestions and recommendations to us. What a guy.

Stop one on this great adventure was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Kyoto, Fushimi Inari-taisha. If you’ve ever seen pictures of the Japanese shrine with what seems like infinite reddish torii gates, that is this place (as seen above). Beautiful, truly f’n beautiful. It completely lived up to the hype. It was a slight hike up a mountain, but well worth it. From the top, you could see all of Kyoto and even a the tops of some of Osaka’s highest skyscrapers in the distance. Breathtaking is cliche but the truth. Never have I seen so many torii gates or fox statues in my life - 10/10, highly recommend, would go again. The rest of the night was spent walking around Kyoto proper and eating at a delicious izakaya.

The next day we were off to the west side to the aen power spot known as Arashiyama. This is where the fabled Bamboo Forest exists, dozens of zen gardens, and over all peaceful gardens. The illusion was a bit shattered by the moving walls of people, but my imagination is strong. Our next stop was Kinkaku-ji aka the ‘Golden Temple.’ I have mixed feelings about this place. Was it cool, yes. Hell, it was a golden temple. However, that really was all that was there. It’s a bit small and you can’t enter it. Was I satisfied, yes. Did I expect more, yes. That’s all.

We then met up with someone I met back in the states at my recruitment for my current job. She ended up taking a different teaching job but still came to Japan. We met several of her coworkers, drank beer from yard long science beakers, got hammered, then returned to our house for more beers. She stayed with us and joined us on Tuesday’s adventures.

While sure, I’ve used the phrase “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” before, but this was different. Our main goal with this day was to get full on kimoned up. The girls booked a reservation to get dressed up by professionals. From start to finish, it took about two hours before we were on the road all decked out. For women, there are looooots of choices on what to wear for each part of the outfit, as you may expect, it took some time. While for a man it is far simpler, it still took a bit and a level of knowledge that is beyond anything I’ll ever understand. How I wore that, how she put it on me, how it stayed on… unknown.

There we walked over to Kiyomizu-dera (awesome) in this Japanese traditional garb. Now, here’s the thing. We were basically looked upon like we were all members of a circus. As a foreigner in Japan you stick out. As a foreigner in Japan dressed in kimono you REALLY stick out. Everyone looked at us. Granted, we looked damn good, but was there more? I didn’t know if it was frowned upon or seen as us embracing the culture? I’m sure it’s different case by case but it was something alright. While we certainly weren't the first foreigners to ever wear kimono, some people certainly treated us that way.

Then came the photos. Soooooo many groups of similarly dressed Japanese people all wanted to take pictures with our group. We’d be walking and from behind us “kawaii” in a high pitched woman’s voice. So many pictures. No lie, at one point we had to tell this one group to wait to take pictures with them so we could take pictures with another group. Sure we may have been a circus act, but we also had our fans. It was a surreal experience. Kiyomizu-dera is also beautiful, my second favorite place we visited in Kyoto, and was the perfect place to take tons of pictures.

Then things started to go, well, not so good. Remember when I said I had no idea how to put the kimono on? Well, when it started to come undone that became a major problem. My fellow travel buddies tried to um, fix it, but honestly made it waaaay worse. We did this shamefully in a local shrine while a group of Korean women also in kimonos literally pointed and laughed at us. It wasn’t embarrassing at all! So I had to like hold it on. We left our clothes back at the shop. While I tried to tough it out, I finally broke and said I had to go back. I told the others I was very cool with getting changed and meeting them after but they sucked it up and went back with me and we all changed out. Good folk. After all that embarrassment we went to a delicious okonomiyaki restaurant and stuffed our faces. My friend left us that night, back to Osaka.

After ‘checking out,’ we gave Kyoto one final spin before returning to our respected towns. We stuffed our luggage in a train locker and went to the Kyoto International Manga Museum. This place was interesting; not in the way I hoped but in a different way completely. It was an old manga school now turned into an archive. People go there, pay 800 yen, and just spend the day reading manga. You can take any book from any shelf and read. There are outside areas, children areas, indoor - it’s amazing. So many people just reading manga. The museum part was underwhelming in size but interesting in material.

After the museum it was a short walk to the Kyoto Imperial Palace. A beautiful area but we couldn't get inside the palace walls. It was in a nice park though. Not getting in was a bit of a let down but still worth a look see. We grabbed some local ramen, grabbed our luggage bought out Shinkansen tickets, said our goodbyes, and returned to our respected towns. Kyoto trip - successful!

Reason #001 to Learn Japanese: Emergency Warnings

Imagine this scenario if you will. After a brutally hot summer, the last few nights have finally cooled down. So, you sleep with your windows open. The key word here is 'sleep.'

However

At 3 am you are awoken by what can easily fall into the category of top five most unholy sounds you've ever heard. Luckily, I've never heard an air raid siren in practical use before, but, an air raid siren is the closest match I can think of still. It was, well, loud. Needless to say, I woke up.

Being my first city-wide siren alarm clock, I woke up confused and honestly a bit panicked. What do I do? The siren only went off for only a few minutes. Then, silence.

Until, a voice started to echo through the streets. The voice was loud, firm, and had an air of no nonsense to it. Unfortunately, I still don't understand Japanese. I can only assume this voice was explaining the noise, explaining the situation, and maybe even giving instructions on what to do. Helpful to the right ears, waisted on me. This went on for minutes.

So it's about 3:15 am, there was a siren, there was a city-wide announcement, and I still have no idea what is happening or what I should do. No longer in that rocked out of bed sort of mindset, I'm thinking more logically but still a bit shaken. My phones got emergency messages in Japanese - sigh.

I look to the streets to gauge the level of panic. None. None at all. Is everything okay? I look up what an emergency alarm could mean. Heavy rain, volcano eruption, or tsunami. One isn't like the others. There has been heavy rain and thunder, or what I hoped was thunder and not eruptions.

So I did what I had to do. I went back to sleep - eventually. Oh, it was a tsunami warning by the way. It was backlash from the earthquake in Chili. It only ended up being 60 inches, but better safe than sorry.

For the first time in my life, I honestly didn’t know if the sound of thunder was actually the sound of a volcano eruption. That’s some shit.

I need to learn Japanese.