Akihabara is the part of town where one ventures when one is in the market for new electronic eqipment and blown eardrums.
Akihabara is known for its electronic shops, which are literally every other address in the area. The streets are even paved in worship of all things electronic. The most notable thing about there area is the young salespeople who scream (often with the help of bullhorns) the daily deals. Nothing is sacred. Not even ipods.
From blenders....
to plugs (?)....
to welcoming robots....?
what he's saying: "Konnichiwa // Akihabara eh yokoso" or "Good day // and welcome to Akihabara!'
Also, lightbulbs....
and phonographs....
and fans... seem to be important enough to garnish a spot on the Akhabara "walk of fame electric appliances."
Another thing that seems to be important enough to mention: AKB48. A "troupe" of young girls whose only talent seems to be dressing up in "lolita" outfits and "performing" (music - get your minds out of the gutter!) daily in Akihabara (they do seem to have albums that are released nationally from time to time). They are located on the top floor of the Don Quijote store, which seems to detract from their legitimacy.
Akihabara, we love your low prices, we dislike your cheapness!
After our day in Hiroshima, we headed south to where the Shinkansen tracks literally end in Hakata city, and hopped aboard a local train to take us all the way to the south end of Kyushu (Honshu is the main island, where Tokyo is, Kyushu is the most southern "big" island on a map).
Jeff's mother Roz had spent a year in this area as a Rotary Exchange Student in the city of Kumamoto in 1970-1971, and this was her first time back there since leaving almost 40 years ago - needless to say, a lot had changed! We were lucky to accompany her on this trip down memory lane, and we got to see some of the places she enjoyed most during her time there.
Here are Roz and Dick in front of Roz's high school. When she attended, it was an all-girls Lutheran school - Kyushu Luther Gakuin (Academy) - but now it is secular and has male students. But the girls' uniforms are exactly the same!
Here's Roz posing with some of the cheer squad that was practicing at the school that day (on the weekend - the campus was quite full!). They were excited, if not a bit confused, to learn that she had attended the school.
In the driveway to the school, which I am pretty sure she mentioned had been unpaved when she was here last, there were handmade koi nobori - literally: climbing (upstream) koi - which are hung in honor of boy's day (children's day as it is now known) during the first week of May.
We also visited the tiny hospital which was run by her favorite host family. It seems that it is still in operation as a clinic and run by one of the sons of the doctor who had been her host father. As it was a weekend, everything was shut down, but we were able to get a picture of the very cool post "box" out front.
Now how am I going to get one of these to Upstate New York....?
One of the only things that Roz says is largely unchanged from her time in Kumamoto 40 years ago is the Kumamoto Castle.
This thing, as you can see, is huge. And this is only part of the whole castle complex that remains.
This was part of a samurai room that has been meticulously restored using traditional tools and methods. These are gilded sliding doors with traditional samurai life images.
And look at this ceiling!
One last very cool thing about the castle: Since it was designed for protection as well as prestige, it is fortified in several interesting ways to prevent enemies from being able to get in easily. As you can see from the picture below, the walls are slanted in an arc upward. It may be hard to tell, but at the top, the walls are actually designed to be angled past vertical, making them near impossible to scale. It does appear that they would be quite fun to try, though there were signs everywhere requesting that my husband kindly refrain from doing so.
Thanks, Roz for bringing us along on your adventure into the past!
Back to recounting Jeff's parents' visit.... ummm.... two months ago.
We had the opportunity to spend a day in Hiroshima on our way further south and this was one place we wanted to be sure to see. It looks just like any other Japanese city, actually, and appears quite modern and cosmopolitan. There is a great community center/hotel (Aster Plaza International Youth Hostel, if you're interested) that we stayed in which has "peace study" rates for foreigners, encouraging outsiders to come and learn about the city's past.
We spent much of the day visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum dedicated to the story of the atomic bombing, and realized that almost all of our time in Hiroshima was spent in the part of the city that was completely leveled by the bomb. The museum itself was a comprehensive exploration (in several languages) of the events leading up to, immediately following, and in the time since the atomic bomb was dropped, and serves as a powerful reminder of devastation caused by a weapon which in reality, detonated only a tiny amount of it's potential nuclear capacity. At just 50 yen (about 50 cents) it should not be skipped.
The craziest thing I learned in the museum: Many middle and high school children had been outside working on various tasks as part of the war mobilization effort in the city, and that demographic was probably the most affected by the initial explosion (many were killed immediately, and bodies were never recovered by their families) and by the short and long term after effects of exposure to the radiation and radiation poisoning (victims of the bombing died months and even years later from illnesses directly related to radiation exposure).
There is a small shrine dedicated to the victims of the bombing near the museum and very close to the "ground zero" of the explosion.
I am not sure why it is shaped like a covered wagon.
The coffin looking stone box in the center of the memorial contains a register of all the victims of the bomb. New names are added each year on the anniversary of the explosion.
Behind the memorial shrine and to the left in the picture you can see the so-called A-Bomb Dome. It is the remnants of what used to be the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, which was just a few hundred meters from ground zero of the explosion. I am not sure why the lights look green.
Because it was a modern building, designed to withstand earthquakes, it was able to remain for the most part standing, while almost every other building in a one mile radius was leveled.
Here is a picture of the site in the daytime, to give you another sense of the extent of the damage.
It is my understanding that the building has been preserved in the state that it was just after the explosion (so it will not further deteriorate due to weather or other factors) to illustrate what the city looked like after the war.
And as you can see, the memorial and A-Bomb Dome are situated in such a way that those coming to pay their respects can look right through the memorial, over an eternal flame (that will burn until all atomic bombs in the world have been destroyed) and and to the A-Bomb Dome.
Of course, we weren't able to take pictures in the museum, but that's ok, because everyone should really try and see it for themselves. Fair warning: it is a big downer, obviously, and you should be sure to give yourself ample time to see everything in the museum without feeling like you had to rush through it, and then time to walk around the grounds and to the A-Bomb Dome to decompress.
(For interesting pictures of the extent of the destruction, please check out this article from the Boston Globe online. Some of the images are a bit graphic, but nothing too gross/scary.)
As it turns out, when we were in Hiroshima there was a big flower festival going on, and there were a bunch of high school students out asking people to make origami cranes, a symbol of peace.
Let's just say my perfectionist and competitive streaks came together to create some of the best, and most quickly constructed, paper cranes ever made in Hiroshima by a nice Jewish girl from America, if I do say so myself.
This was utterly ridiculous. Please note (though you can't see it) that in addition to the middle-aged "conductor," the riders of this train were exclusively adults.
We were able to enjoy a (generous) taste of some local sake, ladled right out of this here barrel. The nice gentleman behind the barrel dished it out, and is demonstrating a popular Japanese way of dealing with the heat and humidity. Rather than removing some of the layers one is wearing, or putting on shorts (heaven forbid!) or light, loose fitting clothing, we've observed many Japanese people just taking a small towel, sometimes damp, sometimes not, and tucking it into their shirt collar around their necks. A good sweat catcher I presume, but I think it would just make me even hotter!
Thanks Roz and Dick for a great time in Hiroshima! Next it's off to Kumamoto, where Roz hasn't been for forty years!
We couldn't live for a whole year in Japan and not climb Mt. Fuji, right?
So we did.
And it was spectacular.
Let me start from the beginning.
We had always intended on climbing Fuji-san, but couldn't really make any plans to do so until the official season opened in July and Jeff's paper was done and delivered. Jeff delivered his paper Friday, July 2, and we immediately started scouting the weather report. Originally, we planned to head for the mountain on Tuesday, but when the forecast started projecting hard rain, we pushed it up a day to Monday, set to be a clear night.
Yes, night. As the view from the mountain tends to be clearest in the early morning, and watching the sunrise from the top is an experience not to be missed, we decided to follow the Japanese tradition of timing our climb to arrive at the summit just before sunrise.
So we hopped in our rented Mazda Demio (known as the Mazda2 in America, and absolutely the smallest car we've driven) in Tokyo, and drove the three or so hours to the base of the mountain. We loaded up on a bento dinner and started the ascent up the seasonal road to the trail head.
Now, has anyone ever driven up the Whiteface Mountain road? Steep, right? Have you tried it in a Demio? There were several moments when we really were not sure our poor little rental car was going to make it. That little guy would not survive Upstate New York. Or any area where one might encounter hills.
We hung out in the car conserving our energy until 10 p.m. when we laced up our old running shoes (we're working with what we've got here, folks!) hoisted our loaded packs on our backs, and started up the mountain. After taking a few "we're climbing Mt. Fuji!" photos, of course.
That's me behind the headlamp! My legs (in black underarmor leggings) seem to have disappeared!
Jeff appears to be showing us how wide his steps are going to be going up the mountain.
We started our ascent from the so-called fifth station of the Subashiri Trail, originating at just below 2000 meters. It should be noted that almost everyone starts from the fifth station of one of the several paths to the top, so really, they all should be called the first stations, not the fifth stations, but that is for another time.
The books, blogs, and tourist information all told us it would take six or six and a half hours for the ascent, so we gave ourselves plenty of time to make it to the top by about 4:30. Jeff was concerned about the altitude sickness that we'd read some people get from climbing too quickly, and we are never ones to miss our snacks, so we planned to stop at the stations along the way to acclimate and have a bite to eat.
Here I am the the torii marking the sixth station - the first one we came to. I look quite pleased with myself, don't I?
That's because we were still feeling warm and well rested and mistakenly thought getting to the sixth station meant we were somehow closer to our goal. We had a lot to learn.
There was a nice young man on his way home to San Diego from Korea with a day and a half layover in Tokyo who we met on the trail. I know, it's ridiculous, but let's move on. The important part of telling you about him was because he took our picture. It's all about us, remember.
We walked with him for a while, chatted about how crazy he was, and stopped again for some much needed peanut butter nourishment. As we were moving upward, it was getting noticeably colder, so it was time to add some layers. I would regret this choice about two minutes after we started moving again, due to the quick pace we were keeping (remember Jeff's aforementioned huge steps?).
I think our fast feet were a little too much for our new friend, as he politely declined to join us after the second stop. We really didn't feel like we were moving all that quickly, though!
After the seventh station, we could feel the air getting thinner and much colder, which slowed us down a bit. We were also getting a little tired, which makes perfect sense since it was about 1 am and we'd been walking for three hours already. Oh, and there was this too:
See that stuff I'm walking on? Looks like dirt, right? Don't let that fool you! It is actually something much closer to sand, and gave us quite the workout up the mountain! And it may be difficult to tell, but to my right in the picture, just off the path, is snow! Hard to believe we left sweltering Tokyo just a few hours before.
And here is my husband. This picture doesn't illustrate anything important about the climb, and in fact, I don't even remember taking it. But it is silly, and that's Jeff. He was wearing a towel wrapped around his head. This might seem totally weird in America, but in Japan, every other laborer and ramen shop dude has a towel wrapped on his head, so Jeff fit right in. Except for the red beard of course.
Ok, just one more for good measure. And cause he's cute. Those lights up there were more people climbing. Except for our crazy friend from San Diego, we only saw two other people before arriving at the big eighth station (where two trails converge, and people can sleep over on the mountain). We were sure happy we chose one of the less popular routes when we saw the lines of people snaking up the mountain. A quick stop at the less than comfortable "pay" toilet (there was a box where one was expected to place a ¥100 coin, about a dollar, for use of the facilities, though I doubt everyone - and by everyone I mean American tourists - is as honest as me) and we headed out to beat the crowd to the top.
Jeff tried to get a good picture of the line of headlamps and brightly colored NorthFace/Patagonia/MontBell/Columnia-clad climbers, but this was the best we could do:
Each light is one person's headlamp as seen by us looking down the mountain. I think it does give a sense of just how many people were charging up the mountain behind us. No, charging is not the word for it. How does one describe something that moves slowly? Crawling, maybe, is a better word. We left the station at the same time as this group. In fact several members of this pack were in front of us and we passed them without any effort whatsoever. I know not everyone is in a good shape as us Jeff, and you're supposed to climb slowly in order to avoid altitude sickness, but it was taking more effort to walk with these people than to just pass them!
Of course, Jeff couldn't just pass them and then ease back into the leisurely pace we had been enjoying before, he wanted to put some good distance in between us and the pack. Hence, our picture of the pack from 200 meters away. He insisted we get to the top and find a good spot to watch the sunrise. Which turned out to be a very good decision.
Mind you, our hike was projected to take six and a half hours (six hours and twenty-five minutes, I believe, if we are to be precise) and at this point we'd only been walking for under four and a half hours. We were on pace to make it to the top in less time than it takes to roast a turkey.
We made it to the top well before the large crowds, though there were already a dozen or so people up there, huddling wherever they could find some relief from the wind which was oppressive. I am not a small person, and for a minute there, I was concerned I was going to be blown off the side of a rock wall.
At this point, we were getting colder and decided it was about time to get really bundled up. We layered jeans over our running tights, added several layers of shirts and sweatshirts (actually, Jeff took off the two dry-fit running shirts he had been wearing and put on two new ones since he'd gotten sweaty climbing the mountain - at one point he was standing shirtless on the top of the mountain in sub-zero temperatures with the wind gusting around him), and snuggled together in a small corner huddled underneath our lifesaving ¥100 tarp.
We had come fully prepared with several warm and wind-breaking layers, but not having winter jackets and insulating pants, there was little we could do to actually get warm. So we shivered together, using a free hand warmer Jeff got as swag from the marathon and a heated therapeutic back wrap meant for our long flight to try and warm ourselves (I was so cold I didn't think the back warmer was even working until we started our descent and I started warming up!).
We had arrived at the summit just before 3 a.m., less than 5 hours after we started our climb, so we snuggled under our tarp for quite some time as others filled in around us. We had been fortunate to find a great place to wait out the sun. Jeff had developed quite a headache and was feeling nauseous and generally crappy which he attributed to to altitude sickness, but I was feeling no nausea or headache which he attributed to my being able to endure other vomit-inducing activities like roller coasters and bungee jumping. I was only feeling the cold - or not feeling as the situation progressed and my feet and hands started to numb.
But then about 4:15...
And 4:30...
At this point it was getting lighter and it seemed at least to be getting a bit warmer (seemed being the operative word) so we decided to venture from the windbreak and explore the top of the mountain a bit. It was quite windy still, and the fog from around the mountain and in the crater was bringing the sun in and out of sight every minute or so, but we still managed to snag some good views. Here is the sunrise through the torri on the top of the mountain. I think those are coins stuck in the wood, but I am not sure why. Jeff?
I am also not sure why there is a hook hanging down from the top.
With the fog blowing from the volcano crater and over our heads, the sunrise was constantly becoming obscured, only to be unveiled a moment later when the fog would get pushed to the side. This video, taken with our Flip (thanks Michael!) shows the nature of our experience of the fleeting sunrise at Fuji.
Here are some pretty typical Japanese climbers: Twenty-something, fancy (warm) hiking attire (though less colorful than most), nice hiking packs, telescoping hiking poles, taking pictures with cell phone camera.
There were in fact many, many very nice cameras, tripods, and lenses on the top of the mountain - much nicer than the one I was holding (the Japanese take their photography seriously - it is no accident that Canon, Olympus, Nikon, Pentax, and Sony are all Japanese companies). There were also many, many people using their cell phones (rather than a point-and-shoot) to take pictures of the sunrise. This was less crazy than the two American men we saw in shorts, so I can't be too hard on them.
This next picture illustrates several important things:
First, the fog. This was a moment when it was fairly light. The way the winds were up there, one moment it would be almost perfectly clear, another visibility would be about 30 feet.
Second, the colorful outfits of the climbers. There are more North Face colors and patterns sold in Japan that America has ever dreamed of. I guess it would be an advantage in a search-and-rescue operation, though?
Third, and most treacherous, the terrain. There's some snow to the left, and you can see the rocks and sand vary in color between a deep red and black. Also, the rocks are very light. Instead of a deep clanking noise that rocks in the Adirondacks might make when kicked around, these rocks make a light clinking noise.
We walked for about an hour down to the eighth station (where many people turned off to the more popular trail, and we took the road less traveled) just like this. waiting for the person in front of you to move so that you could. In fact in some places it was even more crowded than this. And there were at times people who had missed the sunrise still on their way up, making things more difficult.
Here's another picture to get a sense of what kind of crowds we're talking about. And this is before the peak season.
And here's Melissa looking like a turtle.
Once we had passed the eighth station going down (the place where the paths diverge, and where most hikers would be heading to a different base station), we were free wheelin', with only a handful of other hikers to contend with rather than hundreds. From this point on, the descent took a separate but mostly parallel path from the ascent. The part of the trail is called Suna-bashiri, literally sand-run, and with each step, your foot slides and depresses several inches to make for a soft landing. Here is Jeff testing out the terrain.
The path is actually used by large tractors to haul provisions to the lodges scattered on the mountain, which allows their owners to jack up the rates of the meals exponentially with the elevation. Cup noodles, for example, fetched the equivalent of about $7. Being clever and un-dupe-able, we brought enough snacks to last the entire trip. Here we are again, punishing our legs on the sandy descent.
Still in good spirits there, but that would soon fade as the terrain continued on like that for nearly the entire way down. Despite the "soft landing" of the sandy trail, it forces your legs to overcompensate in an effort to stabilize your body, meaning that it takes quite a toll. On top of this, our low-top sneakers, not known for being sand-repellent, needed to be removed every ten minutes or so in order to dump out the part of the trail that was obviously trying to escape from the mountain with us.
We did take a fair share of breaks, careful not to repeat the altitude sickness of the ascent by going down too quickly. Also, we would have been remiss to make the entire descent without a celebration of a beloved pub in Penn Yan, New York with the vista, which only seemed to get better with time.
Nearing the end, we both had that feeling of hitting the wall. The last mile or so, though perhaps the most moderate part of the trail, seemed to take an eternity to finish, and we hoped to see the parking lot as we turned each bend.
We pulled in to the trail head just after 8 am, exactly ten hours after embarking, and with zero sleep. A woman greeted us with a salt-loaded tea to replenish what we had sweated out. Although it was welcome, they were clearly trying to lure us into the souvenir shop, which obviously worked, because we left with a few postcards.
Back to the parking lot, we managed to squeak out a smile using the hill we had just conquered as a backdrop.
We hopped in the car, headed to Hakone with hopes that we'd hit an onsen for a long soak. We had also planned to capture an image of Fuji from a distance, but the overcast sky turned the mountain into a foggy gaze. Before we could even find an onsen, fatigue took over, and we decided it would be best to head home, which we did. We returned the car by one, took quick showers, grabbed lunch at our favorite daytime eatery, New Koenji India, and slept hard from 3pm until 8pm, then midnight until 10am the next day. That's about what you can expect when you forgo sleep to climb a nation's highest peak.
I think we're still recovering, and even writing this post was a challenge with so much to cover - it took both Jeff and Melissa to complete (Melissa wrote most of the beginning, Jeff most of the end).
Now, for one last adventure out of Tokyo, leaving bright and early tomorrow morning.
Mata ne,
Melissa (and Jeff!)
Special thanks go out to our parents for making this trip possible!!
a newlywed spending her first year of marriage in tokyo, japan. my husband is doing research for his phd dissertation and i'm trying to see how much i can get in his way.
