Tomakomai

Hello everyone!

Today I have found myself in Tomakomai. I'm sure this raises some questions for all of you... namely where in the world is Tomakomai? The intent was to spend the next few days in Sapporo, but I was unable to find a hotel that could accomodate all three of us in Sapporo (busy season for travel up here) and so I ended up in Tomakomai, a smaller city about 45min train ride from Sapporo. We figured that precise location wasn't really an issue, since we were just going to use Sapporo as a base of operations from which to explore Hokkaido. The plan currently is to do another car rental, as the trains up here are not quite as frequent or far-reaching as they are further to the south. With any luck we'll be able to get that taken care of quickly tomorrow and can make our way to Daisetsuzan National Park. Depending on how long/difficult that turns out to be, we may attempt Shiretoko Park the next day. I really want to see Shiretoko, but it's the eastern-most point of the island, and likely to be QUITE the drive. I'll let you all know how that goes.

Well, it was a bit of a 'travel day' today, so I don't really have much to report at this point. Fortunately I've got a couple of decent computers right in the lobby of the hotel, so I should be able to make regular updates for the next few days. I'll keep you all posted.

Sayonara.

The Great White North

Hey guys!

I'm writing from Aomori, in the very north of Honshu. We arrived yesterday and spent today in the area. Tomorrow we will be leaving for Hokkaido. What a terrific change of climate this has been! Tokyo has been hovering around 90-100% humidity, and you could REALLY feel it every time you left an air conditioned building. The Japanese aren't real big on AC in public areas either, so it tended to be a sweat-fest any time we weren't in our hotel rooms. We get to Aomori and it's a fantastic 20 degrees and sunny. It's been very nice.

Just to back-track a bit, I haven't checked-in in a few days so I should probably fill you all in on what's been happening. As I mentioned, Gray and Jay weren't too upset about the lack of Fuji climbing, so I did it on my own. I left Friday night on a bus that got me to the Mt. Fuji 5th Station (about half way up the mountain, still around 1200 meters below the summit) around 10:00 PM. From what I'd been reading I was expecting about a 5 hour climb up, and 3-4 down. It was already evening for me, but I was counting on a long night of climbing, a few hours of sleep at the top, and then the sunrise. Didn't quite work out that way. Anyone who has read about Fuji has undoubtedly come across references to the 'human traffic jams' that can occur in the tough areas. Yeah... by the tough areas they must mean THE WHOLE STINKING MOUNTAIN!!! My estimate of 5 hours wasn't bad... I really could have done it in that time. Instead, I was stuck on a narrow path matching the pace of the slowest person ahead of me. In the end it took me 8 hours to climb up, and I was still about 50-100 meters below the summit when the sun rose. I sort of forgot that it rises and sets early here - sunset tends to occur around 7:30 PM, and sunrise (as I was there to witness) starts at about 4am. Still, I was pretty high up, and it was a gorgeous view, but it still felt like I wasn't really climbing a mountain as much as I was standing in line to see the top. SO MANY PEOPLE!!! It was a complete zoo at the top. I'm sorry to anyone who was hoping for a postcard sent from the Mt. Fuji Summit Post Office, but I wasn't staying up there one minute more than I had to. By this point I was running on nearly 24 hours without sleep, it had taken me a solid 3 hours longer to climb than I though, and I was becoming worried that 6 hours wouldn't be enough to get back down (my bus home was at noon.) As it turns out, the estimates that I had read regarding the decent were also wildly inaccurate. I strolled leisurely down the mountain in a mere 2 hours. So I really could have spent more time enjoying the summit. Oh well, live and learn. Anyway, my advice to people attempting a Fuji climb - July and August are the official climbing season... climb September 1st. Apparently they'll still let you on the mountain, but there are a LOT less people on there. It's hard to enjoy the beauty of nature when surrounded by a quarter-million fat, sweaty Americans.

Well, upon returning to Tokyo Saturday afternoon, I promptly PASSED OUT! However, after a bit of sleep we did some casual city-wandering, and called it a night. The next day we made our way up to beautiful Aomori, and here we are.

Had a GREAT day today! We decided to rent a car, and that worked out beautifully. I drove us up to Mt. Osore, a beautiful mountain that just happens to have a barren patch of rock which hisses and steams with bubbling sulfer. Complete with hoards of croaking ravens, the whole scene is oddly grim when compared to the surrounding beauty of mountains and lakes. The Japanese traditionally believe that this place is the entrance to hell, and they come to stack rocks in great cairnes, to help the dead with their penance. Pretty cool place. It was great getting to drive there... it's nice not having to operate around a train/bus schedule. Driving on the left was neat too!!! :)

Anyway, the computer in the hotel here is a pay-per-10-minutes thing, and I'm out of coins, and almost out of time. Not sure what the facilities will be like in Hokkaido, but I'll try to get in touch again soon and let you know how wonderfully cool and comfortable we all are here. :) Hope you are all well, and I'll talk to you soon.

Back In Tokyo

Hey guys!

A big thanks to all of you who have been taking the time to read about my adventures and share your comments.

I missed posting yesterday just because I was dead tired. We started the day off with a trip to Fushimi-Inari, a mountain covered in shrines dedicated to a successful harvest. The slopes of the mountain are lined with hundreds of orange Torii gates, and it makes for quite the scene. Those of you who have seen the film 'Memoirs of a Geisha' have actually seen Fushimi-Inari in a scene in which a little girl runs through the orange Torii. A fantastic walk, but a reasonably tiring one. :)

We left Kyoto today and made our way to Tokyo. It was a relatively short trip, just 3 hours on the speedy Shinkansen and we were there. No changing trains. It was a nice change. :)

I had a bit of a disappointment on my arrival though. It turns out that the buses that I was counting on for my trip to Mt. Fuji are not as frequent as I had been led to believe. They don't start running until 8am, and the last one leaves Fuji-san at 4:00 in the afternoon. That makes a day-trip climb completely impossible. I was willing to spend a night on the mountain, but the guys didn't want to spend more than one of our (extremely precious) days on the mountain. I went alone to the bus stop to get tickets, and came back to the hotel feeling pretty down about the whole situation. However, on finding that Gray and Jay both seemed pretty up-beat about not having to climb a mountain, I made the decision to do it alone. We're changing hotels Saturday morning (couldn't find ANY hotel that would book us for 3 nights) but I won' t be there, and the guys will carry my luggage. I'll be leaving tomorrow night for Fuji, I'll climb in the evening, spend the night on the summit, and awake to the sunrise. I'll then climb down and re-join the guys Saturday afternoon (oh btw, it's about 10:30pm local time.)

Well, that's it for now. I'd post pics, but I'm a bit tired. We just had a fantastic (and HUGE) meal at a local Yakitori bar. For those not familiar Yakitori is skewered meats and vegetables cooked over charcoal. It's usually considered a snack to accompany beer, but we've done it as a meal a few times just because it's delicious and the atmosphere in Yakitori places tends to be great. I'm afraid you'll just have to wait for pics. I might not be online tomorrow as I'll be preping for my climb. I'll try to get Fuji pics up afterwards though.

Sayonara for now!

Kyoto - Day 2

Godzilla says: 'Greetings From Japan!!!!'


Hahaha, yeah, I snapped that in Tokyo, that's just the first time I've been able to upload a picture. One of the computers in the hotel here in Kyoto has Internet Explorer setup in English, so I can actually read Blogspot. Unfortunately getting the pictures off the camera and resized was a bit of a pain, since whoever setup this computer removed all the staple programs, including MS Paint, so I couldn't shrink down my photos very easily. I swear, next time I travel, I'm bringing a laptop with me.

Well, we saw some cool stuff today. We went to the outskirts of Kyoto and wandered around in a bamboo forest.

Just by chance we stumbled upon the Tenryu temple, head temple of Rinzai Zen Buddism. Very cool accident there! Awesome gardens that still hold the same forms as when they were designed in the 14th century.

From there we walked to Iwatayama Monkey Park! On the peak of a decent sized mountain is a reserve for monkeys (baby shown below.) The monkeys are free to wander around, but are cared for and fed regularily to encourage them to stay on the mountain. That way the can be studied, and kept out of trouble. The little buggers can be a real pest when they start getting near civilization. Even up the mountain there are serious precautions to follow, which include not having food on you, and never staring a monkey in the eyes. Don't really know what that last one is about.

Feeding peanuts to the monkeys was a blast, but I think it's about time that I found some food for myself. I hope that everyone is well, and I'll talk to you all later.

GET UR SWAG HERE

Hey hey blogonauts. This is Graydyn speaking. Im just popping on to mention that we are doing a mailing while in Kyoto, so anybody who has requested japanese goodies and wants it soon send your mailing address to graydyn@hotmail.com
Im not sure when the mailing is happening so send the email quickly! Otherwise we will just be mailing everything to Petrolia and picking it up a week or two after we get back to Canada.

Religious Experience

Well, last night was interesting to say the least. We travelled to Koya-san, a town high in the mountains of the same name. The area is considered sacred, and the town is essentially a collection of Shingon Esoteric Buddist temples. We were essentially there just to see Okuno-in, a MASSIVE Buddist graveyard featuring everything from small family graves, to ancient mausoleums. The whole effect at night was fantastic. The thing to do while in Koya-san though, is to spend the night at one of the many temples where you eat traditional vegeterian meals, sleep on futons in tatami rooms, and join in the prayer/meditation services. It would have been fairly interesting except that the whole experience came off feeling less sacred, and more tourist trap. Every building in town that wasn't a temple was a stored selling the usual junk you find in stores catering to tourists, and everything in town was insanely expensive. I would have been okay with all of that if not for the fact that our futons were thin, and did nothing to disguise the fact that we were sleeping on a very hard floor. Needless to say, I slept poorly, and awoke feeling out of sorts. This is, of course, reflecting itself in my review of the town in general. Oh well, had to do it. Of the whole experience I think the part that enjoyed the most was the slow train ride through the mountains to get into town. Stunning views, and a great reminder that there is incredible beauty to be found in rural Japan. There's definitly more to this country than huge crowds and neon lights.

Anyway, we've settled into our hotel in Kyoto and are trying to figure out our plans for the next couple days. We intended to hit Mt Fuji the day after tomorrow, but it's looking like a Tokyo departure might be the only way to do it without spending a couple days. We'll see...

Well, that's all for now. The computer I'm on is at the hotel, and free to use for guests, with no apparent time limit. This should mean an abundance of posts while I'm here. Also, I can switch this machine into 'English-mode' which not only makes typing easier, but it also allows me to read the menus on Blogspot. Maybe I'll be able to figure out how to post pics... :)

A Quick Post From Nara

Hi again!

Just had a WILD day today!!! I had some pics to upload, but it seems to be giving me an error. Of course, thanks to Blogspot's terrific localization settings, the error comes out in Japanese, so who knows what's actually wrong... :P

Anyway, we started our day with a trip to the Todaiji temple, featuring the world's largest wooden building, which houses an enormous bronze Buddah statue. AWESOME! The sheer size of this place is truly awe-inspiring.

Along the path to Todaiji there are many deer. The deer, considered a sacred animal in Nara, are not allowed to be hunted, and have become very tame. There are many street vendors selling crackers for the deer, and this has taught the deer that we humans are a source of food. As such they will become very demanding as you walk by... one even tried to get its mouth into my pocket in search of crackers.

In a stroke of luck my friend Shiho managed to reach me on my cell phone while we were exiting the temple. Having a few hours before we met up with her, we did the natural thing when killing time... we climbed a mountain. Okay, it was a small mountain, but all the same...

Quite tired after a morning of walking and climbing we met up with Shiho. We grabbed a quick lunch, which was a real treat for me because having Shiho there meant that I didn't have to try to decode the menu. After that Shiho took us on the train to Osaka, which she assured us was a much more happenin' place to be than Nara. She wasn't joking either. We met up with her friend Yuma (honestly, if you're reading this and I've spelled your name wrong I'm deeply sorry.) She took us out to a local festival which involved a lot of drumming and dancing. Some merry-makers we're even up on stage wearing blue and white coats and dancing up a storm. Don't ask me how, but Graydyn, Jay, and I managed to find ourselves amongst those people, decked out in blue and white, and dancing like mad. I've got lots of pictures... you just can't see them.

Anyway, it's about 1:30AM and for some reason I'm in an internet cafe when I should be sleeping. I'll be offline for at least a day, since tomorrow we are heading to a temple on Mt Koya where we will be spending the night. From there it will probably be a trip to Kyoto, where I may be able to find a computer and give you further updates. Until then, take it easy.

Gomen Nasai

Hi everyone!
Just wanted to say Gomen Nasai (sorry!) about the lack of posts! A word of advice to anyone planning on visiting Nobeoka; if you plan on having internet access, bring your own computer. I almost wish that I had done that myself. I could have used Skype as my phone, and had internet access with a functioning English keyboard (I just spent the last 15min of my 1hour net rental trying to figure out how to turn off the auto-Kanji.)

Well, there's lots to report here! The Budo Festival is over, and it was a lot of fun. Graydyn and Jay have successfully made it to Japan and met up with me, and we are now in Nara. It was actually a little weird leaving Nobeoka, since I'd stayed there for so long. I do feel like I'm really, truly on vacation now though. There was a lot of training, and early mornings in Nobeoka, made for some tiring days. :)

Some very exciting news regarding the Budo Festival! The first day of the Festival was dedicated to competitions, and I am happy to report that I took a medal in three events. My partner Soren and I got a bronze in Jujitsu, my partner D and I took a bronze in Kobudo performing Kenjitsu, and I won the gold in Iaido! I've competed in my fair share of tournaments, but it's the first time I've ever taken gold, so obviously I'm pretty pumped about that! I'm not the only one who brought home medals either, the whole Canadian team did great, with more than our fair share of gold! I can't remember everything from the whole day, but some really exciting gold medal performances by Oscar-senpai in Karate Kata, and our very own Sensei with Jimmy-senpai in Jujitsu! All-round awesome by team Canada!

Now that Graydyn is here I've got a charger for my camera, and I'm feeling a little more confident about wasting precious battery power on uploading pictures... I'll try to get some up shortly. :)

Well, I've only got half an hour left, and there's still some research I need to do, so it's by for now. I'll try to get in tomorrow and get some pics up!

Just a quick hello

Hey guys, just letting you know that I've arrived in Nobeoka. I just met up with my classmates from the dojo, and went to my first class at the Honbu Dojo here in Nobeoka. I'm pretty sure that Kai-sensei keeps it intentionally hot in there! Yikkes!

Anyway, we're heading out for dinner shortly, so I need to wrap this up. I'll try to make a more detailed post later. Also, I'll do my best to include some pictures on the next one.

Hope everything is groovy in Canada. Talk to ya later.

I ＬＩＶＥ！！！！

Normally we talk about the "triumphant return" of someone, but I am here to announce my triumphant departure!

I am currently writing this post from the Mitsui Garden Hotel in Ginza, Tokyo. I'd also like to add that I'm writing this post on a keyboard that is about to drive me to violence. Thank goodness the letters are all in the normal spots, but all the punctuation is out of whack, and the space bar is tiny to accomodate all the extra keys that are needed. So if my punctuation isn't quite up to my usual standard you'll have to forgive me.

Okay, disclaimers aside... here I am, alive and well. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, but I think that's mostly due to an extrordinary lack of sleep. After all my bragging about my fabled ability to sleep anywhere, under any circumstances... yeah, didn't go so hot on the plane. I got the dreaded middle seat. I'd like to point out that I haven't flown since I was about 15-16 years old, and anyone who's known me for that long can tell you one thing for certain... I was a lot smaller back then. A lot. Wait... no... the seats have just gotten smaller, that's the ticket.

Oh, and this is great... I've hardly left home and already I've got a ridiculous story to tell. Have a good chuckle at this one...

The itinerary provided to me by my travel agent stated that I would be leaving Toronto at 10:20, arriving in Chicago at 11:00, and departing Chicago at 12:30. Groovy. It wasn't till I was on the plane that I started to think about the logistics of leaving Toronto at 10:20 and arriving in Chicago at 11:00, barring transport on a fighter jet. So then panic starts to set it. It's 11:00... we're still in the air. It's 11:30... still flying. Crap. I didn't get off that plane until 12:00, exactly an hour after I was supposed to... now I've got 30min to get to the otherside of O'Hare airport. Fortunately I get there in 15min... and they haven't started boarding yet... in fact, at 12:15 by my watch, I'm informed that we probably won't start bording till around 12:00. It took THAT LONG for it to hit me. Yup, Chicago is an hour behind Toronto time. I really did land at 11:00, just as promised. It's a fascinating sensation when you can simultaneously feel relived and retarded.

Well, it's almost 7:30 PM local time, the sun is starting to set and I think I can get some serious Tokyo night photos. Probably all from the comfort of my room actually... you should see the view I have!!! Anyway, time for me to wander the streets aimlessly. Then, when I get back here I'll do something I've wanted to do since I was a small child... buy a beer from a vending machine.

That's all for now guys. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll try to keep you posted, as long as this keyboard doesn't drive me mad. The apostrophe is Shift+7!!!! AHHHH!!!! ;)

Live from Tokyo, this is Colin Young, signing off.