Adventure Excursions on Honshu
Trip Start
Unknown
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Trip End
Ongoing
Fuji, Chubu, Japan
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Greetings from Japan once again. The weather has started to cool and fall breezes are frequently blowing. The fall in Togane is not quite as crisp as it is in America. Fall here, consists of an abrupt cooling with frequent rain and strong winds. We seldom have nice sunny weather during the season back in Wisconsin. The leaves are just beginning to show signs of color change. Typhoons continue to devastate on other countries in the Far East, but the past month has been relatively tame on Honshu, the main island of Japan.
In this blog update I hope to address a few of my side excursions I've experienced in the past three months. As I stated in my previous blog, I’ve developed more of an inside out approach in adjusting myself to life in Japan. This has been very different from my approach to travel in the past. It isn’t always as thrilling and adventuresome, but it has been more authentic and rewarding for me in a sense. However, I have had a few opportunities to travel outside of Chiba and experience some other areas of Japan. Japan has 15 national holidays and I have a decent amount of vacation on top of that, so I try to maximize much of my free time with some travel.
Mt. Fuji: Toward the end of August I traveled south of Tokyo about 60 miles to Japan’s iconic national identity landmark, Mt. Fuji. I had aspirations of climbing Mt. Fuji two years ago when I traveled to Japan on Semester at Sea, but unfortunately, the recreational climbing season is quite short, so I was unable. Thus it was a priority, and seeing as the climbing season ends on September 1st, I was determined to complete the task so I didn’t have to wait yet another year.
I traveled to Fuji via train and bus with another ALT from Alaska. We left on a Sunday afternoon, after a festival filled weekend underlined by minimal sleep, drinking, and fried food. We weren’t in the best state of minds, or physical condition to pursue a mountain climb, but we figured it would make it more interesting, so we went anyway. Fortunately, Japan is linked with an extensive rail system. It is navigable and efficient. At times it can be confusing due to the fact that cities, train lines, and stops are not always clearly labeled in English, but one way or another (usually later than intended) I always seem to find my way.
After a train to Tokyo, we took a bus to the base of Mt. Fuji. We had to take a cab to the 5th station of the mountain (where the climb begins) because we opted to start the climb at night in order to reach the summit for the sunrise. It was a beautiful evening, with bright stars and an almost full moon illuminating the majority of the climb. The temperature was significantly cooler than what we we’re used to, which was a welcomed change from the sweltering heat and humidity of August temperatures in Japan.
We began the climb shortly before midnight, and made great time for the first half of the climb. Our eyes adjusted, and we opted not to use our headlamps because the moon lit the path sufficiently. After a spell hiking through damp forest the path opened up and we began scrambling up the jagged volcanic rock as we did until we reached the peak. We did our best to time the hike so that we made it to the summit just before sunrise, because it’s notoriously cold, and weren’t exactly properly prepared for freezing temperatures. Due to the activity preceding the hike, our minimal preparations consisted of packing a few pairs of long pants, long sleeved shirts, some ion supply beverages, bottled coffee, calorie packs and then one jacket, one pair of gloves, and one Santa Claus hat to share between the two of us. I can’t really imagine being any more poorly prepared than we actually were.
As we reached the halfway point, the trail became very congested. Fuji is a very popular climb, and seeing as it was the end of the season, the volcano was quite busy (with people…not erupting). There are approximately 10 huts along the way, where people can rent either a sitting or laying space in order to sleep. These huts weren’t pleasant as the mountain side sewage systems just aren’t as well-developed as our nostrils would have desired. Whenever we took breaks on the way up, we deviated from the trail instead of sitting around the huts in order to get out of the mad rush to the summit.
We ended up reaching the crater on the summit shortly nice and early before sunrise around 4:30AM. After all, Japan is the land of the rising sun. We sought out a nice perch and bundled up with the minimal layers we had, as it was very, very cold and windy. The sunrise was illustrious and majestic and fortunately took our minds off of the fact that we were freezing. There was a bumpy layer of cloud which tapered off toward the horizon. Once the first sliver of sunlight prevailed through the cloud cover, the hundreds of people gathered at the summit gave out a delightful cheer of celebration. It is believed that from atop Fuji, the first ray of morning sunlight can be seen in the entire world (taking into account the int’l date line and time zones). I have no idea whether this is legitimate, but either way, it’s fun to think so. When the sun was high enough in the sky and the temperature began to increase, and we walked around the crater. Although the volcano is dormant there was still an ominous and almost threateningly eerie feel as we gazed into the depths.
Following our first legitimate bathroom break, we opted to begin the decent around 7 AM. By this point the adrenaline of the climb up and the excitement of the activity and scenery at the summit began to dwindle, and exhaustion abruptly set in. We had been awake for nearly 40 full hours, with only a slight cat nap to offer minimal rest. Not to mention that we had climbed about 6,000 feet up a volcano. The climb down was not as nice as the climb up. It consisted of steep switchbacks that had inconsistent amounts of volcanic sand and gravel on top of sheet rock. My friend and I agreed that our best approach in our altered state of minds was just to make it down as quickly as possible. It was dusty, gritty, and grimy, but we jogged the entire way down, reaching the 5th station in about 2 ½ hours. By this point we were downright delirious. Fortunately we got a decent mean in us, but then due to poor bus and train connections, it turned into a full day of travel back to our respective cities. I made it back around 5PM and I slept, and slept, and slept.
All in all it was a memorable experience. Our complete lack of preparation and sleep, was an undercurrent throughout, which we were able to depend on for a bit of humorous relief when the going got tough. The climb is highly commercialized so I won’t ever do it again, but I certainly enjoyed the climb up Japan’s tallest mountain.
White Water Rafting and Canyoning in Minakami, Gunma Prefecture:
At the end of September I went on a weekend excursion with 4 other ALT’s and 3 Japanese Friends. We drove approximately 5 hours into the Japanese Alps toward the center of Honshu. The Gunma Prefecture is next to the Nagano Prefecture, where the Winter Olympics were in 1998. It was a beautiful drive on windy mountain roads with small villages nestled throughout the densely forested mountainsides.
Our group had an interesting personality, as many of us didn’t know each other, but we mixed well, and everybody enjoyed the experience. We suited up in full body wetsuits with booties and gloves, as the water was still pretty chilly. However, the white water rafting was pretty mellow, as water levels were dwindling at the end of the dry season and the summer melt had mostly flowed through already. We had a few decent runs through some shoots of rapids, but the experience was definitely more relaxing than thrilling. It was an alluring river set low in the valley of a tall mountain range.
The canyoning experience proved to be much more exhilarating. I had never been canyoning before and I didn’t know much about it. It is essentially white water rafting on a narrow shallow river, down waterfalls, without a raft. In other words, it’s just you, your wetsuit, and helmet as protection. The majority of the rock slides were smooth and slippery and they have water rushing over them year round. There were 3 different techniques we learned; feet first on our back, superman style – face first on our stomachs with our arms out in front of our heads, and backwards superman – face first on our backs. From these various positions we did spins and flips according to the shape and flow of the river. The longest rockslide waterfall we did was a 60 foot drop. Contrary to the WWRafting, this was definitely a rush. There were also a few good outcroppings along the river we jumped from, into the swirling waterfall pools below.
In the end, I had some fun, got the blood flowing, and made some good friends along the way. The tour guide we went through had a great community and I hope to go back and stay with the friends I met during the winter in order to ski Japan’s notorious powder.
San San Camping Festival:
Also in September, a good Japanese friend of mine invited me to a camping festival that he organizes every year. I consider this experience to have been an oasis of self expression amidst the tough social constraints of Japanese Society. I won’t dwell on this thought too much, as I will soon write an entire blog update on societal issues in Japan. Instead I will give some details of the festival and maybe briefly introduce how the gathering was inspired as an opportunity to escape from the strict societal pressures in Japan.
The festival took place in a city named Naruto, which is about 15 miles north of Togane. I opted to bike, which was a bear of a task given all of the gear I loaded onto my feeble cruiser style bike. The festival grounds were around 25 acres of forested and cleared land, creating a few nice little divisions of tents and stages. I would say around 400 people attended to enjoy live music, dancing, arts and craft fares, and simply to enjoy the activity and company of the camping experience. I set up the slack-line which proved to be a hit among the young kids. We also played a bit of soccer, badminton, and spun poi during the nights. For me I enjoyed all the activity, but more than anything else I appreciated the amount of self-expression that is so infrequently shown in this country outside of events such as these.
One thing I’ve recognized is that the Japanese work very hard. It is uncommon for Japanese Professionals to put in anything less than 60 hour weeks. Due to the fact that they work such long days, they have few opportunities to enjoy free time. However, when they do have free time, they certainly maximize it. I’ve also noticed that the Japanese pick their hobbies very carefully. Oftentimes Japanese citizens will fully and completely invest in only one hobby. For many people at the festival, camping was their hobby. The amount of preparation and gear that went into the experience for many was astounding. We made close friends with a group of adults in their 20’s from Yokohama who had a grill rolling the entire weekend. That’s almost 72 hours. All hours of the day they were cooking marinated meats, fresh fish, soups, eggs, pancakes and an array of prepared vegetables for grilling. I have never seen anything quite like it. Of course to have such grand feasts you need the camping gear to supplement it. And it certainly did so. Tents, ground covers, tables, chairs, hammocks, torches, lanterns. For many it was nothing less than a luxury camping experience.
Other than these three experiences, I have kept busy on weekends either hanging out in Togane studying Japanese and kite surfing, or going to Tokyo and exploring the massive city. Taking into account the urban sprawl surrounding the city, Tokyo is considered to be the largest city in the world. I’ve discovered the best way of piecing the city apart is to stay on one line of the intricate metro system. The Yamanote Line essentially does a large loop all the way around the city. Most of the major stations and districts are found along this line. It’s interesting exploring the various districts because they all have their own unique personality. The only unfortunate thing about going to Tokyo is that the last train back in the PM is always earlier than desired. So, it often turns into an entire night out. This may seem ridiculous to some, but it’s so common here that almost as many people are seen on the streets at 4AM as they are at 9PM.
Next up on the agenda is picking up a second hand motorbike to allow me to explore the Chiba Coast in its entirety, pushing my wetsuit to its limits kite surfing as the water cools, attending a Japanese Baseball Game, J-League Soccer Game, Traditional Sumo Match, and by the time I accomplish all these things, it will probably be about time for me to go back to America for the Holiday Season.
Important Things I've Learned: Sarcasm does not transcend the language barrier.
Comments
Canyoning sounds pretty awesome