Hobonichi Techo Life

In 2008 while living in Japan, I was finally able to play MOTHER 3, a recent (at the time) sequel to a cult hit video game that I loved as a teenager. My brothers and I owned a Super Nintendo and a copy of EarthBound, by far the house's "preferred game." Released in 1994, it was a role-playing game set in rural America, starring four "normal" kids (or as normal as spunky psychics, princes and genius teenagers can get, anyway). Years later, the sequel MOTHER 3 got a Japan-only release.

For me, it was perfect timing. Uncertain how to make Japanese-speaking friends, I had been hanging out mostly with fellow JETs and exchange students from the nearby university. I spent a lot of time in my apartment chatting online with people back home and listening to Internet radio. And as it happened, that was where I had the good fortune to meet my first real Japanese friends - not in Japan, but on the Internet.

This could turn into a much longer story (and my social life isn't actually what the post is about!) so to keep it short, I'll just say that I got involved with a certain well-known EarthBound community and encountered a Japanese fan of the game within it, Mana. She was about my age and lived in Gunma-ken, a prefecture north of Tokyo. The two of us arranged a meeting during one of my visits to Tokyo and hit it off, and from then on, whenever I was in the area, I made an effort to see her and her friends that I had gotten to know. All were fans of the MOTHER series, so I went from a fairly small amount of fandom involvement to quite a lot, very quickly. 

Japan was a good place to be at the time for fans of this 20-year-old series - aside from MOTHER 3's relatively recent release, there had actually been brand-new merchandise released in arcades (Game Centers), The King of Games was selling official t-shirts out of a shop in Kyoto's Teramachi, thirty minutes from my apartment, and you could still buy the special MOTHER 3 Game Boy Micro in stores - I still regret not owning one of these! I struggled through reading the blog of MOTHER creator and copywriter Itoi Shigesato, and I went to LOFT on not one but two separate Januarys to buy his well-known Hobonichi Techo, a day planner with customizable covers and thoughtful quotes. I did not make the purchase on either occasion - after all, every year CLAIR sent us a compact, designed-for-JETs planner in the mail that I was quite fond of, and I also received a small calendar book from my school. While I wanted a techo because of the Itoi connection, I couldn't validate the expense when CLAIR's version was smaller, printed in English, and had subway maps and unit conversions on the back pages. None of the covers interested me enough to drop ¥3,500 on one, so I settled for simply looking them over whenever I visited Kyoto. There were other ways to show my MOTHER love, like this fancy colour-changing Ultimate Chimera shirt that cost an absolutely astronomical amount of money at the time.

At one point Mana-chan and friends, myself included, attended a MOTHER event in Tokyo where I even ran into into two other English-speaking members of that community, one of whom was an expat JET like me - though a CIR, not an ALT - from a few prefectures away. We hadn't really known each other at the time, certainly not enough for me to recognize them offhand, but I was completely gobsmacked to spot someone in the subway station wearing a Ness t-shirt, and rushed up to them immediately to say hello.

It's been some years since that event, and though MOTHER influences my life to this day, my active involvement has waned pretty considerably since leaving Japan. Not so of the JET I met at the event in Tokyo, Lindsay - she now translates and localizes for the company belonging to the creator of the MOTHER series, Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun!

I can't tell you how awesome it is to see a fan succeed not only at entering the industry professionally, but to have the incredible good fortune (not to mention the moxie to go after it in the first place!) to work with Itoi himself. So when word got out that Hobonichi was releasing an English version of the techo, translated and localized by Lindsay, I decided it was finally my year, despite having converted over pretty thoroughly to Android's convenient Google Calendar access.

Typically, I have never been great with keeping up planners. Not since high school have I used an agenda on a regular basis. But my techo's design and ease of use (can't bring my phone into company meetings!) and stylishness and POCKETS has driven it home.

(No, I don't always save my TTC transfers!)

I use it for writing fiction ideas, dates and times and details for stories, copying the office calendar down so I can see it at home, collecting movie and concert ticket stubs, noting what foods I liked at restaurants and how much I spent, and more recently tracking Bitcoin gains and losses. I also get to use stickers I brought home from Japan and my immense Muji pen collection, and imagine my surprise when I discovered that two of the other staff in my office also have Hobonichi techos!

It's been a bit tough carrying around a book all the time when I cart around plenty of heavy things in my purse, not to mention switching from digital back to analogue again, but I'm already dreaming about putting my techo on the shelf at the end of the year and having this record of 2014 to flip through again someday...it's much more personal than reading back through Twitter logs!

I guess I can't possibly be shocked that MOTHER continues to exert that subtle influence over my days. I might even have to pull out the big guns and use some of my carefully hoarded Mr. Saturn stickers.

What are you waiting for!? Start your techo life!

Snackoos

My friend and former co-worker recently sent me this box of sweets from Japan. I was absolutely thrilled to open it - it was like Christmas had come early! Blendy Matcha Milk, Meltykisses, karintou, Koala cookies and more - there were even traditional Kyoto wagashi, sweets I took to tea ceremony and properly enjoyed, of course!

I missed Canadian candy severely when I was abroad, but Japanese snacks are just as exciting now that I'm home...!

Christmas in October

One of many.

Yesterday, as I went out to my relatives' place for Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving is the second Monday of October), I found a box from Japan waiting there for me! 

Back when I first left Japan, I tackled that pressing issue that every expat encounters - what to take back to their home country, and how to get it there. My case was more dire than most, as I had replaced my entire wardrobe while living abroad, and I am also a voracious reader. I left Canada with just thirteen books in my suitcase and returned with two hundred. Let's be serious - no true book lover could possibly throw or give away a collection like that. I also knew that since my Board of Education was not taking on a new JET, I wouldn't have a successor to sell or give my household items to. When I handed in my final contract agreement at school, I had already started working out just how I was going to get everything home.

I'm a skilled suitcase packer, but my spacial perception isn't great, so I envisioned - wrongfully so - that I could creatively fit my most important belongings into four, perhaps five, large boxes, and give or throw away the rest. The post office was the best deal at about 14,000 yen for a 30-kilogram box. I would have liked to have used a moving or sea shipping service, as my friends did, but since I was going back to my hometown on the extreme east coast of Canada, that option wasn't available. It was pretty much the post office or nothing. 

I started out trying to be forward-thinking and responsible about my packing. In March, all the books that I wouldn't be reading before I left in July went into a sturdy Kuroneko box that topped out at 29.5 kilos (64 pounds). Then I realized that I wasn't sure how to get this box, which was more than half my weight at the time, to the post office. I strapped it to the back of my mama-chari, and then walked the wobbly five minutes to our local post office. Who told me they did not have the equipment to send via seamail.

I wobbled back to the nearby train station, parked the bike and hailed a cab to take me to the bigger post office in town. Then I decided I would find some other way to move out the rest of my stuff.

Luckily, I discovered a way, and that means that you (yes you, reading this!), if you ever find yourself moving back overseas from Japan, can do it too! The post office will actually allow you to call and schedule an at-home pickup. I went down there and grabbed a bunch of international shipping labels (for Canada, you must be very detailed in your contents description), and set a date and time a few days before my departure for the post office to come. At the time I was still thinking "Yeah, five boxes ought to do it." When the guy showed up, however, and took my five boxes' measurements, my apartment was still cluttered with stuff, and the packed boxes were overweight! I had to pull things out, and only half the apartment seemed gone. I had started with the things that I wasn't going to need during the month of July - so, of course, I had packed some pretty inconsequential stuff that I probably should have left behind, but I took thinking that I had the space. Well. 

One of those five took a long side-trip, but I'll get to that later. 

The process of sorting an entire apartment into boxes and bags.

We scheduled another pickup for two days later, the day I was supposed to moving out of the place. Needless to say, I had quite a lot on my plate already - between myself, Em and my friend Mitsu, who was going to be taking my couch, we barely got another four boxes packed up, as well as my precious kotatsu, the Gundam model kits Drew had left at my apartment en route to Mount Fuji, and the Fuji climbing stick left behind by Alec. 

When the landlord turned up to pick up the keys, along with my go-between from my school, the place was still a disaster. Embarrassing. I said we were going to need a few more hours. He said I could stay the night - I would be heading out to the airport the following afternoon. So I scheduled another post office pickup, one for after I was going to be long gone, to make sure it was all going to be done and ready. I spent the night hastily sorting tons of papers to avoid shipping home stuff I would never need again, hoping that the electricity wouldn't be cut off any minute (we had tossed an extension cord over the balcony to Emily's apartment, just in case!) and then at 4 AM, as the sun was coming up, I lay down on the bare hardwood floor for a nap. My futons and couch were already gone. When I finally stumbled out of my apartment to take my bike over to school and do a final check on my desk, I was running only on adrenaline. What I wouldn't give to have pushed back my departure just a couple of days!

When I got back from school, it was time to go. Later, Em would pack up the last two boxes and return my keys to the landlord, while I got on the plane and headed back to what I still sometimes call "my past life."

In the weeks after returning to Canada, boxes of my possessions trickled in, though it was impossible to fit an apartment's (even an 1K) worth of things into a small bedroom that already had a lifetime crammed into it. I took most of them with me to Toronto, so even now, when I visit my mother's home, it feels like I've stepped right back into my pre-Japan life. It's very odd. Since I took everything from my Osaka apartment and plopped it into my Toronto apartment, I can look around this room, and at least half my possessions and 90% of my clothes are Japanese-made, even now, a couple of years later! 

Of course, a post office move comes with its own complications, not counting the mistakes made by my poor planning. There was a box that came open in transit and lost a few items, two boxes that had the labels swapped and I opened "books and clothes" to find it full of housewares, a box that had been measured at thirty kilos and charged accordingly when it was only thirty pounds, and finally a box that didn't arrive at all. 

Two months after I left Japan, the missing one turned back up at Emily's apartment, returned to sender. It was labeled "household goods," but it contained books and shoes, and the contents of the utility closet. (Maybe this is why it was returned. Oops.) It weighed thirty kilos - too heavy to drag back to the post office on foot, so it sat there in Emily's apartment in the meantime, until she left Japan for good as well. 

She posted me that last box with a few additions - hence why it's Christmas at my apartment now, despite it being only October. As I went through the contents last night, some of those precious things that I thought were gone forever out of the ripped box and others items I had forgotten I ever owned, let alone packed, I just had this wave of homesickness and nostalgia for Japan. I know they're only things, but they were symbolic. Maybe it's the Japanese tendency to treat objects, especially beautiful or meaningful ones, with such respect. I had to pack it all away again, in preparation for our move to a new apartment at the end of this month, but the first time I drink tea out of those teacups, I'm going to take a little bit of time to really appreciate and admire these items like old friends. 

Tea and Tsukimi

Photo from Secret Teatime's Facebook Page

This past weekend, I went to a nabe and tsukimi tea party held by friends from my time abroad. At times, I really do regret spending so much time in Japan alone and wrapped up in my hobbies - as much fun as I had trying my hand at aikido, ikebana and others, travelling all over Honshu by local train, and of course wandering everywhere in Kansai on foot and by bicycle, when it came time for JET events, I was so embarrassingly out of the loop that I imagine anyone not from my year would have a hard time remembering my name. My Japanese friends were largely in Tokyo, and many local friends, JET and otherwise, returned to their lives abroad. By my third year I was living the hermit life, and I have come to regret it a little since returning. Where I was antisocial in Japan, I now go out of my way to be social back home, via cultural groups, JETAA events and now, meeting up with a few familiar faces from JET.

I didn't even realize there were so many former Osaka JETs here in Toronto! I attended a dinner last month with a group of six or so and had a great time, though the tsukimi evening eclipsed (see what I did there?)  that by far. The founders of Secret Teatime are tea fanatics and students of the Omotesenke and Youkenryuu schools of tea, respectively, and Helen did her JET tenure in a city very close to mine. In case any of you readers forgot, I am a fan of tea of all kinds, so when she invited me over for nabe and tea ceremony, I could not say 'yes' fast enough.

Friends in Toronto, you absolutely must check out Helen and Sorlie's endeavors with Secret Teatime! They are setting up a studio in Scarborough, and are offering lessons in Japanese tea ceremony in the Youkenryuu style. Watching the ceremony on Saturday was a real treat, and we enjoyed luscious dark chocolates from Ambiance Chocolat. The chocolates were handmade and amazing, and brought me back to my days making trips out to the fabulous chocolatiers and bakeries in Kyoto. I'm really hoping to make it to more of their events in future and perhaps a few lessons as I've only learned the very basics of chanoyu. My roommate is almost certainly sick of hearing me talk about tea (though she graciously supplies me with it at Christmastime!) and I have a lot to learn about it, myself, so I'm looking forward to lots more!

Mount Fuji III: Only a Fool Climbs Fuji Twice

This is the third in a series of posts about Mount Fuji.

Lies.

We were back in Tokyo and barely 24 hours recovered from the first disaster when I started looking up information about Mount Fuji - I really wanted to know how close we'd gotten to the top. The knowledge that we were barely 400 metres away, though, didn't sit well with either Drew or myself. On the very site that I'd used to get the bus schedules to Kawaguchiko, I discovered that we'd broken just about every rule in the book.

Notes for Climbing Mount Fuji

Mt. Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan. Please climb with enough care.

Do not include a climb as part of a busy travel schedule.  .... D:

• Make sure to check the weather forecast in advance, and bring proper clothing to protect from rain and cold.Snacks are also helpful. We brought snacks and assumed the weather would be gorgeous.
• To prevent altitude sickness, you should stay at the 5th station for a while to acclimatize yourself to the high altitude before you start climbing. Nope.
• The atmospheric pressure of Mt. Fuji is approximately two-thirds of the ground. Ascend as slowly as possible. You may suffer from altitude sickness if you climb quickly. OH MAN SUNRISE IN AN HOUR QUICK CAN WE GET TO THE TOP FROM HERE IN AN HOUR!?
• Climb at your own pace depending on your physical strength and condition.Drew pace.
  (You may get tired if you try to keep up with others or rest too long.) Gwen, at least, followed this advice...and so we left her at the sixth station.
• Use only the official routes. Yay, we did this!
• Take a break if you feel tired. You should also drink water alcohol or have snacks to replace lost salt and sugar. We had a handful of gummy candy.
• If you feel ill, give up your climbing and descend the mountain as soon as possible.  Ash: "I feel sick to my stomach." Drew: "Oh. Can you make it to the next station?"
• When climbing in a group, be sure to agree on the meeting place. Wait for others if you arrive at the place first. "If we make it to the summit we'll wait for you there. Or meet you on the way back. Hey, my cell phone doesn't work so great up here, huh?"
• The temperature drops about 0.6 degrees Celsius (33.08 degrees Fahrenheit) for every 100 m (328 ft) of ascending. The weather is very changeable, too. Bring rain gear, warm clothing, and spare clothes. AHAHAHAHAHAAA. HA.....ha.
• If thunder approaches and you feel dangerous, take refuge in the nearest mountain hut. We lucked out. There was no thunder.
• When climbing in a group, you have a chance of being separated. Try not to lose sight of your companions.  Did we mention that we left our companions behind, halfway up the mountain?
• If you climb at night, you should have a flashlight or a headlight.  WE ARE SO STUPID. OH GOD.
• Mountain huts are not open for 24 hours. This would have been useful to know beforehand. 
• Toilets in the huts and on the summit may be out of service due to overuse or weather conditions. They worked. Whew.
• Never kick stones. It may cause falling rocks. D:
• The signposts on each trail are classified by color. When descending, check the color to take the correct trail. ...is THAT why they were coloured?
• Travelers checks and credit cards are not accepted at mountain huts. Bring enough cash to cover the expenses of food, lodging, toilets, etc. "Drew, can I borrow 2,000 yen to buy this raincoat?"
• You are not allowed to pitch a tent on the mountain. It is extremely dangerous to sleep outside, too. Always use the mountain huts for sleeping. Guess it's a good thing we didn't actually make it to the summit, because this was the grand plan.
  
• If you are hurt, sick, or in trouble, contact Safety Guidance Centers, First-Aid Stations, or any mountain hut.   ...oh God. We only survived through the help of kind strangers. ;o;

FANTASTIC.

Dishevelled and disappointed, sitting in our Ikebukuro hotel room, Drew and I mourned lost opportunity. Even though we'd screwed it up six ways from Sunday, with our umbrellas and our Chu-Hi and the hurricane flashlight, we'd still been so close. Drew lamented that fact that he'd never get the chance to try again - or at least, I'd never agree to try it again.

I still had the website open. "Well, it looks like it'd be a lot easier if we approached it from the Shizuoka side...we're free Tuesday and Wednesday, right?"

And this was how we came to attempt to defy destiny.

They say a wise man climbs Fuji once, but only a fool climbs Fuji twice. Does it count if we only climbed it one-and-a-half times?

Fuji II: Electric Boogaloo took place a week or so later, after we'd all four of us returned to Osaka and set up camp in my tiny apartment. Technically, we were five by that point, as my friend Jenna had come from Canada the day we were setting out for the mountain. This time, we were determined to do it right - the boys had gone shopping for flashlights and ponchos while I was at work, and Gwen decided to sit out Version II and keep Jenna company back at my place. Unfortunately for me, when I asked the boys where my flashlight and poncho were, they had thought I had something at the apartment. (My previous ripped and destroyed Fuji rain pants had been thrown out before we even left the mountain.) I took the kitchen flashlight and a raincoat, and hoped for the best. Except....that was what got us in trouble the first time.

Tokaido shinkansen car

You could not possibly say that there was a lack of planning on the day of our second undertaking. Unfortunately, we had a late start after I picked up Jenna at 6:30 A.M. from Itami Airport, and 5 people in my room wasn't helping anyone get going faster. I had to bike to school and return a key I'd accidentally pocketed the day before. Drew had to be in Tokyo the following day to fly back to Canada, so we had all of his luggage to carry, and thus it was past two by the time we made it to the train station and boarded a shinkansen out of Kyoto.

The Japan Railways employee assured me, "The next Hikari train stops in Shizuoka." Hikari is the second-fastest train on the Tokaido shinkansen (the bullet train line that runs from Osaka to Tokyo). However, we didn't make that very next train, and it turns out that not every Hikari train makes the Shizuoka stop. Imagine my horror when the announcer informed us, after leaving Nagoya, "The next stop will be Odawara." We overshot Shizuoka by about 100 km. Hopping off at Odawara, we took a Kodama (the slowest shinkansen, almost like a local train) back, and even had to sprint to make the train, which only came once every 30 minutes.

Our Kodama sat at Mishima station for five minutes while we impatiently checked our watches. Using my cellphone to Google it, I commented that there was a bus from Mishima if we wanted to just get off here and go. However, we thought Mishima wouldn't have big coin lockers to store Drew's luggage, so we continued on to Shizuoka...to discover that there were only two buses per day from there to the mountain, and we had already missed both. Panicking, I checked Google again and found that we were about to miss the buses from Mishima and Fuji/Shin-Fuji as well. There was a slight hope we might make it, so I had to make a judgement call; Shin-Fuji or Fuji? Fuji was a local station, not a shinkansen (therefore cheaper - bullet train rides cost a pretty penny) and the bus passed by there after leaving Shin-Fuji Station, so that was how it'd be. We got on the train and I immediately dialed Gwen to ask for help.

Emily was upstairs in my apartment with Gwen, and the two of them together consulted the bus timetables...but we were going to miss the last bus. Again. Em suggested an alternate route using limited express trains to Fujinomiya Station and then a bus from there, but that, too, we would miss by five minutes. We kept missing things by five or ten minutes!! Using my phone again, I figured out that it ought to be less than ¥10,000 to get a taxi from Fujinomiya to the fifth station of the mountain. (Deja vu, anyone?) So we decided to get the local Minobu Line train there and then cab it.

It was dark by the time we arrived at Fujinomiya. Still trying not to repeat any more of our mistakes, we went to a 7-11 to buy snacks and walking sticks, then returned to the station and got a cab. The cab driver laughed when we told him where we wanted to go.

We assumed that he was just laughing over foreigners climbing Fuji from the Shizuoka side of the mountain, or perhaps it was rare to see people trying to access the mountain from that particular station. It wasn't until we were in the cab and driving up the mountain and we passed a local city bus coming down, that we realized he had laughed at us for taking a taxi instead of the bus.

Feelin' good.

Fifth Station - 2400 metres. Bottom of the mountain, around nine P.M. - we bought postcards at the shop (things were actually open in the night-time on this side) and had a last snack of rice balls and boiled eggs before starting our climb. The weather was very favourable. We called Gwen, took a commemorative photo and set off up the mountain!

Sixth Station - 2490 metres. This station was closeby and easy. The others were moving a bit fast so I had to stop and rest, air out my boots before continuing. I had cleverly worn boots instead of sneakers this time. We frequently stopped to snack on jerky and look at the flawless sky. There was a full moon. We marvelled at how well things were going. Hahaha.

The day changed over.

(Old) Seventh Station - 3010 metres. We made it past the New Seventh and then the Old Seventh station, and we were starting to wear down a bit, but were still lively. The guys complained that I'd insisted on bringing the umbrellas we had been given by the taxi driver on our first attempt. I had no snaps on my backpack, so Drew and Alec were stuck carrying them.

Well, I was pretty happy to have the umbrellas when, soon after leaving the seventh station, the sky opened up and it began to pour. I guess I didn't learn my lesson about rain gear well enough, as I had that rain jacket, but no rain pants. Drew's poncho dripped water all down his side. Holding the umbrella aloft, I had to practically run to the next station, and, once there, we'd actually lost Alec. 

Eighth Station - 3250 metres. I had to buy another rain suit here, and proceeded to put it on under my clothes this time (between my second set of dry longjohns and my soaked jeans), then ditched the torn coat and suited up in the new one. Alec and I also had to buy dry socks. I got a rice ball to keep my energy up, since we couldn't stop leisurely anymore. This done, we set out again, but with our spirits as damp as our clothes. The rain persisted awhile longer.

So close, we could taste it. 1 km away.

Ninth Station - 3460 metres.  Eventually, it did stop, but that was as we approached the ninth station and the sun began to break through the clouds...and so did the people who had stayed the night in huts, emerging and ready to make their final ascent!

There was actually a LINEUP to climb the path! Drew and I bypassed people, occasionally climbing outside the trail, but Alec wasn't up to it. There were people bottlenecked almost all the way back to the ninth station! Everyone had spent the night at 9 or 9.5 with the intention of heading out just before dawn. The trail was narrow and steep, and no matter how many times we dodged the crowd by walking outside the ropes, we inevitably got caught up behind another group of climbers. Alec was starting to get altitude sickness (Floridians!) and his pace had slowed significantly. Finally, we realized that dawn was about to break and no way would all of us get there to see it at the rate we were going. We insisted that Drew go on ahead alone to see his sunrise, and Alec and I would follow when we could.

Ninth and a Half Station - 3590 metres. I kept encouraging Alec and pushing until we'd gotten past Station 9.5, but the sun was rising just then, so twenty metres from the top as he was still dying at my pace I finally had to say "Take a breather, I'll meet you up there," and hurried ahead to see what sunrise I could.

Summit - 3776 metres.

The money shot.

I found Drew pretty quickly at the top and set up a small camp for our celebration, changed into the winter coat I'd borrowed from Gwen and tucked my freezing legs under a blanket to rest them, but when Drew reported back from finding Alec - who had trailed up some ten minutes after I had - it seemed he was feeling awful and had holed up in the rest area. We joined him there; Drew and I toasted our victory and we started scribbling out postcards to mail from the tiny post office. Alec had altitude sickness for sure. Once we had written and stamped our cards, the boys went ahead, knowing that Alec would need as much time as possible to get back down, and Drew needed to catch the 9:30 bus in order to reach Narita Airport at a respectable time. It was past six in the morning at this point. I stayed at the summit by myself for another 20 minutes or so, taking photos and posting the postcards before hustling down and catching up to the others not far from 9.5.

It's all downhill from here. Literally.

The trek down may have been worse than up. The rain was difficult to climb through, for sure, but the trail was just gruelling with people climbing in both directions on the narrow paths. A short-cut ended up taking us much longer than we anticipated. Not far past the eighth station, we realized that Drew was not going to make his 9:30 bus, or even the 10:30 bus, at the rate we were going.

He didn't want to separate, especially with Alec still nauseous, but we had no choice. Drew wasn't certain about getting back to Shizuoka and then on the right train to Tokyo on his own, so he and I went on ahead at a much faster pace, and Alec agreed to call me from the shinkansen station when he got there.

To this day, this was the last time Drew ever saw Alec.

We hustled, but I couldn't keep up with Drew, and the two of us also split up not too far past the Old Seventh Station. He lost me so thoroughly that even at a flat-out run between Six and Five, I didn't catch up to him at any point. We finally met again at 10:40 at the bottom of the mountain - he had missed the 10:30 bus.

The only choice we had now was the 11:30 bus to Shin-Fuji, putting him on a shinkansen there and abandoning the luggage. For a 5 o'clock flight, there was no hope of getting back to Shizuoka to get his suitcase; he would be lucky to arrive at Shinagawa Station with enough time to make the Narita Express.

Trouping back down. At high speed.

At Shin-Fuji we bought tickets for Drew on the next Hikari train, and I took all the things in his bag that could not be taken on the plane, and sent him off to Tokyo on his own.

Two hours later, in Shizuoka, Alec was sporting an angry sunburn similar to the one I was starting to feel. We hadn't thought at all about the blazing sun on the way down. Getting Drew's bags out of the locker, we were able to walk about ten metres with them...and then Alec said "OK, forget this. We'll never make it home with this stuff. Where's a convenience store?"

We mailed the suitcases back to Osaka from the 7-11.

Now that the suitcases had been handed off to the poor girl in the 7-11 and it was just us and the backpacks that we'd already been carrying for 24 hours straight, we tried to take a local train home to save money, but delay after delay after delay happened. We ended up taking a shinkansen from Nagoya rather than suffer another three hours. Missed the train in Kyoto by fifteen seconds, and then missed the Keihan train, too. At Tambabashi, the rapid trains spontaeneously shut down! So we had to take a local all the way home, starving and sunburnt and tired and angry. We had left the mountaintop fourteen hours prior - it had taken us even longer to climb down and come home than it had taken to get there and ascend in the first place. We couldn't even congratulate ourselves on a job well done. On the way back through the train mess, I called Pizza Hut from one of the stations and ordered a pizza to make up for the hellish day. We were three stations away from my apartment. The pizza still got there before we did.

Fuji - it contaminates everything it touches.

Mount Fuji II: How Not To Climb Fuji, Or Any Mountain, Really

This is the second in a series of posts about Mount Fuji.

Mount Fuji is divided up into stations ranging from the numbers one to nine. Most people consider the proper "climb" to be from the fifth station, as towns and forests occupy the gentle slope that is the bottom of the mountain.

The Kawaguchiko Trail (also known as Fujiyoshida) starts in Yamanashi Prefecture at an altitude of 2,305 metres. The ascent is supposed to take about five hours minimum. If it was only Drew doing this climb, he would have been there in four and a half, easy. However, as he was charged with a bunch of slowpokes, we were looking at a much longer ascent, and not a lot of time to do it in before sunrise.

At the fifth station, once the concerned cab driver had left and we had gotten into our cold-weather gear (by the way, the fifth station is not very far up, and it was July, so this was a bad idea), Alec took an object out of his backpack and told us, "I even brought a hurricane flashlight in case our flashlights run out of batteries!"

We all look at each other.

"Nobody else brought a flashlight!?"

And we were off.

Oh.

Fifth Station - 2,305 metres: The journey between the fifth and sixth stations gave me a false sense of hope and confidence, but poor Gwen was winded and gasping as soon as the trail got hilly. Drew, eager to make good time, loped ahead. I held the flashlight and tried to shine it back behind me to help Gwen and Alec, while Drew and I continued on in the dark. Drew took Gwen's backpack to help her along.

Sixth Station - 2,438 metres: Was a few toilets and nothing more. We started to continue, but a mere fifty metres up, it began to get very steep and we realized that Gwen was not going to be able to make it. She wore brand-new hiking boots and had already developed blisters! We came to the decision that the newlyweds would stay behind at the sixth station until sunrise then go at their own pace while Drew and I continued with the flashlight, and we would meet them at the top or on the way back down. The others set up a little camp in the dark and rain while we pressed on.

Seventh Station - 2,700 metres: In comparison, this station's 262 metre climb seemed to be impossibly far away. It wasn't a difficult ascent, but the rain had soaked through my jeans, long underwear, hoodie and shirt. I was freezing. I ended up buying a rain suit for ¥2,000 at the tiny shop here, but my clothes were already saturated, so once I put them on it became a sauna. Worse, I'd had to take off and stuff my down jacket into Drew's backpack, where it had absorbed enough rainwater to pour into a glass. Sneakers and socks were a total loss as well. The lodge at the seventh station urged us to stay, probably knowing it was only going to get worse. We pressed on, persistent in our belief that we could make it to the sunrise, but light started to appear sometime during the 674-metre distance between Seven and Eight. Drew had aggravated an old foot injury, and so we hunkered down under a rock outcropping to rest, but the moment I stopped moving I began to freeze, so we kept going.

Daunting, isn't it.
Try climbing back down this with the taste of failure in your mouth.

Eighth Station - 3,374 metres: Now the sun was high in the air and we knew we were defeated. I asked at a lodge about staying to rest, but we were turned away. The lodgekeeper said that Station 9.5 had a restaurant we might be able to rest at. I hadn't known there was a half-station on the horizon and imagined that it was probably a few more hours climb. Soon, I was sure I wouldn't get much further. We decided it was time to descend - unbeknownst to us, we were only 402 metres from the summit, less than the distance between Stations 7 and 8. It was a tougher and steeper climb, but we had already passed the longest stretches of the mountain.

My coat was a complete loss - the weather at the eighth station was only just above freezing, and it dripped with rainwater. I continued on in my also-wet but retaining body heat trusty Fangamer Snow Wood hoodie and the flimsy raincoat. Partway down we returned to our rock outcropping to rest; here Drew cracked his skull on the rock after standing up too quickly. To this day, he maintains that Fuji tasted blood.

We drank the only liquid remaining, the grapefruit Chu-Hi that was to be for our mountaintop toast, then moved on before I got hypothermia. We were apparently coming down the super-dangerous Kawaguchiko route (steepest! hooray!) while everyone else was still climbing up it, but since that was where we'd left the others, we couldn't go down one of the easier trails. I had long stopped using the umbrella for its intended purpose and started using it as a cane.

Would have just lain right down here if it'd been flat enough.

At the seventh station we re-encountered Gwen and Alec who had managed to make it another station up. The four of us began to descend, but Drew's ankle was in too poor shape to go at Gwen's speed, so he went on ahead alone. My phone had also died at this point, so we were lucky to find the others when we did. Alec and I helped Gwen down to the sixth station and then the fifth. My legs were numbing from the damp cold.

At the fifth station at last, the shops were finally open and we were able to eat. We grabbed food from a cafeteria and a battery booster for my phone so that I could assure people we were alive. We then got a bus down to Kawaguchiko Station, and from there, a taxi to the ryokan, the Japanese-style inn where we were booked for the night.

None of us had any energy at all, but the ryokan staff prepared green tea and mochi sweets for us, so we ate and drank and were then shown to our room. We hung out all the wet clothes on the balcony, took baths and recharged. Then we went to the special observatory on the roof to look at the accursed mountain; the splendid view of Fuji being one of the key attractions of the inn.

...........

Mount Fuji, the ornery old thing, was completely covered by the clouds.

...Concluded in Part III: Only a Fool Climbs Fuji Twice

Mount Fuji I: It May Want to Kill You

This is the first in a series of posts about Mount Fuji.

Mount Fuji as viewed from Hakone

"Climbing Mount Fuji" was never on my bucket list. I was pretty content to keep to my temples and gardens and electronics when it came to sightseeing in Japan. However, I have a friend named Drew who loves a challenge, and requested on his second visit to Japan that we climb Mount Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan, to watch the sunrise on his birthday.

Congratulations!
Now put on those hiking boots

Now, for a bit of back story, Drew's birthday was on July 29th (therefore we would be climbing on July 28th), and I was standing as maid of honour at a wedding in Los Angeles on July 26th. The honeymooning couple were coming back to Japan with me and staying in my apartment. They were interested in climbing the mountain, too. I was not entirely convinced that this was a great idea. Still, when I told Drew I didn't think the 28th was feasible, he seemed so broken-hearted that I immediately gave in.

That was how I came to be rolling off an airplane in Tokyo at four P.M., fresh from a nine-hour trans-Pacific flight, with the intention of climbing the venerable mountain that very night.

I was so caught up in the wedding that I had neglected to actually plan the mountain part, save for bringing a parka and sneakers in my luggage, and looking up the info on how to get there. I suppose I thought we'd figure it out when we got there. Much much later, I would look up a list of Fuji preparations and cautions one should take. Here they are, courtesy of mountfujiguide.com:

Notes for Climbing Mount Fuji

Mt. Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan. Please climb with enough care.

Do not include a climb as part of a busy travel schedule.

• Make sure to check the weather forecast in advance, and bring proper clothing to protect from rain and cold. Snacks are also helpful.
• To prevent altitude sickness, you should stay at the 5th station for a while to acclimatize yourself to the high altitude before you start climbing.
• The atmospheric pressure of Mt. Fuji is approximately two-thirds of the ground. Ascend as slowly as possible. You may suffer from altitude sickness if you climb quickly.
• Climb at your own pace depending on your physical strength and condition.
  (You may get tired if you try to keep up with others or rest too long.)
• Use only the official routes.
• Take a break if you feel tired. You should also drink water or have snacks to replace lost salt and sugar.
• If you feel ill, give up your climbing and descend the mountain as soon as possible.
• When climbing in a group, be sure to agree on the meeting place. Wait for others if you arrive at the place first.
• The temperature drops about 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit) for every 100 m (328 ft) of ascending. The weather is very changeable, too. Bring rain gear, warm clothing, and spare clothes.
• If thunder approaches and you feel dangerous, take refuge in the nearest mountain hut.
• When climbing in a group, you have a chance of being separated. Try not to lose sight of your companions.
• If you climb at night, you should have a flashlight or a headlight.
• Mountain huts are not open for 24 hours. Please stay quiet when passing by the huts as some people may be resting for the following day's climbing.
• Toilets in the huts and on the summit may be out of service due to overuse or weather conditions.
• Never kick stones. It may cause falling rocks.
• The signposts on each trail are classified by color. When descending, check the color to take the correct trail.
• Travelers checks and credit cards are not accepted at mountain huts. Bring enough cash to cover the expenses of food, lodging, toilets, etc.
• You are not allowed to pitch a tent on the mountain. It is extremely dangerous to sleep outside, too. Always use the mountain huts for sleeping.
• If you are hurt, sick, or in trouble, contact Safety Guidance Centers, First-Aid Stations, or any mountain hut.

....Oh.

Just so you all are aware of what we were getting into.

I should be clear on this before I start the story proper - don't ever attempt climbing Mount Fuji using our methods. This is going to be one of those entries that will make my mother despair every time I go travelling somewhere. Stop reading, Mom! It's not worth it.

The best hotel in Chiba

On the fated day, Drew and I met in Narita Airport and I had my suitcases whisked off by the amazing KuroNeko courier service. (More on that in another post.) Drew had arrived the day before me and spent the night sleeping by a marsh somewhere in Chiba Prefecture. The honeymooning couple, Gwen and Alec, had also arrived the day before. We planned to head to the Kawaguchiko Trail of the mountain as soon as we met the others and start climbing by nine-thirty, to give us plenty of time to reach the peak before sunrise.

In Shinjuku Station, after the 90-minute ride from the airport, we used Drew's laptop and my mobile Internet stick to look up the bus schedule for our journey...only to find that the last bus of the night left at 7:35. I glanced at the clock to see that it was 7:45. We were in trouble.

I started looking up alternate plans, but finally I had to conclude that there was no way we'd be able to get there that night, disappointing as it was. Tokyo was more than 2 hours from Yamanashi. At this point I looked at my phone to call Alec and realized "Huh? It's only 7:30." Turned out Drew's computer clock was still on Newfoundland Standard Time and so it had been showing me 7:45 AM, when it was still just 7:15 PM in Japan. So we missed our second shot at the highway bus. We had to leave the station to meet the honeymooners with all of Drew's luggage in tow.

Meeting them at Starbucks on the Shinjuku Southern Terrace, Alec informed us that Fuji ought to be accessible by the Fujikyu train line, because they had taken it on their last trip to Japan to go to Fujikyu Highland. Drew was looking pretty despondent by this point, so we all agreed to the questionable plan, tossed the luggage in some coin lockers and set out.

Vending machine bunny doesn't give us a choice anymore

To get to the Fujikyu, we had to take the Chuo Line almost all the way to its western terminus, and went to a supermarket there while waiting to change trains. It was a fortunate choice, since this would be the last store we saw for over 12 hours. (I hadn't eaten since the night before I'd boarded that plane.) Stocked up on...sashimi. Foolishly, we thought we'd be able to grab dinner at one of the shops near the station, but when we arrived it was already past midnight and everything around was closed. Thinking the mountain shops would be open late-night (since everyone starts at the fifth station and many people climb through or return through the night), we hailed a taxi and asked him to drive us to the mountain's base. The grooves on the side of the road played the "Fuji Theme Song" as we drove over them.

It began to rain. Eventually I asked our taxi driver (who was charging us over ¥10,000/$100 to go the thirty minutes to the mountain base) if we could hit a convenience store to pick up rain gear. He replied that the only convenience store was the 7-11 we'd passed twenty minutes before.

There was a pregnant pause, and then he had to confirm, "You didn't bring any rain gear?"

Of course we hadn't, but we had no idea yet how woefully unprepared we were, whereas this guy had probably lived in Yamanashi all his life, and offered to turn around and drive us back, before offering us some umbrellas he had in the trunk. Okay. Mountain climbing with umbrellas, great. Drew and I had heard that everyone from grandmas to elementary schoolers could climb Fuji, though, so I thought maybe it'd be all right.

At the base of the mountain we were deposited, and the taxi driver stood nervously by as the rest of us suited up and Drew dressed down in his t-shirt, khakis and bandanna. We laughed because our driver was so obviously concerned about us. (With, apparantly, good reason.) He offered to drive us back to Kawaguchiko Station for free, but we politely declined. Eventually he turned and got back in his cab, against his better judgement, and we began our high-spirited hike through torrential rain!

...I guarantee you that man read the newspapers carefully for the next week. expecting to see something about four foreigners dying from exposure on the mountainside.

... Continued in Part II: How Not To Climb Fuji, Or Any Mountain, Really

A Baking Story

Not cookie ingredients.

After about a month in Japan, the glamour of eating milk cakes, Meltykiss and Pocky all the time was starting to wear off and I began craving the kinds of sweets I enjoyed back home. I was starting to get a little homesick, too, so thought maybe I'd bake the chocolate chip cookies that my cousin used to make for us.

I was out at the time and knew I wouldn't be able to get many baking supplies at the convenience store, so I tried to recall exactly what was in her recipe from memory as I hopped into a grocery store, well past 9:30 in the evening. (Before smartphones, of course.) I was VERY short on cash and the ATMs in that shopping centre were closed for the evening. (Ah, mid-2000s Japan!) I decided to use what little money I had to get the rarer items, and if I missed anything, head to Family Mart after picking up more cash from my apartment. "Hmm...chocolate chips...brown sugar...uh..."

I went to the aisle that had sugar, and I found something that was the correct consistency and colour to be brown sugar, and got it. Then I found the baking aisle and picked up the most expensive bag of mini chocolate chips in existence (500 yen for about a cup and a half). I bought these items knowing I was still missing stuff, then, as I went to leave, thought... "Oh. Vanilla."

So I went back to grab a little bottle of vanilla. While paying for that (I was down to 400 yen now) I remembered, "Butter."

I bought "cake margarine" from the dairy aisle. 206 yen. My train fare home was 200 yen. Then, on the train, I remembered a missing item.

..."Flour. Damn."

I went home for money, then to the conbini at the train station, bought flour. Returned home and dug out my cousin's beloved recipe using the power of the Internet. Which, of course, called for eggs...and baking soda...and salt. Oh. Went back to the conbini, but they didn't have baking soda. I figured I'd do without. I was pretty sure there had to be salt somewhere in my kitchen; I'd gotten a reasonable amount of pantry supplies, but hadn't actually done any baking at all since I arrived. I bought eggs, went home, started to mix it up...

And realized I also needed white sugar in addition to brown. Also, I didn't actually have salt. So, missing 3 ingredients, past midnight...I had to give up.

The next day I went out and found white sugar and something that was probably table salt and bought them. Then I went to look for baking soda. I knew it existed because I confirmed with a co-worker. However, I didn't think to ask her if the name of the item was different in Japanese. I picked up the item in the aisle that most closely resembled what I wanted, brought it to an employee, and asked, "Is this baking soda?" using the katakana version, ベーキングソーダ.

Well, he didn't know what baking soda was, and whatever I was holding was used for bamboo....something. So we went through everything in the baking aisle while I tried to describe in Japanese, the various functions of baking soda. "You put it in cookies," resulted in him producing baking powder, then I said "it takes away bad smells," and "when you put it in vinegar, it explodes." None of this helped. In the end the employee used his cell phone to look it up. Surprise, the first thing I'd picked out was baking soda after all. Amazing. The Japanese term I was missing in translation was重曹 (juusou).

Baking in Japan: always an adventure.

Back home, I mixed everything up and it seemed to smell and look like the items I'd found really were sugar, brown sugar, salt and baking soda. However...most Japanese don't have ovens, and do their baking in toaster ovens or microwave-oven combos. Unfortunately, my toaster oven didn't have a temperature gauge. I was stuck staring at my bowl full of cookie dough and an oven that only had a single setting: 1000W. I assumed the W was for watts.

My predecessor didn't use the toaster oven much. Turned out, she hadn't left me a cookie sheet or pan of any other sort. I put the cookies on aluminum foil and laid them on the oven rack. This is the point where I discovered that cheap tinfoil from the 100-yen shop is flimsy and useless.

Moments later, I discovered the rack placed the cookies an inch and a half from the top element, and as a result, they began to burn. I tried to use the drip pan as a makeshift cookie sheet, but they were still burned too severely to eat. Batch one was undercooked on the bottom, overcooked on the top. And super-greasy; I suspect my Internet conversion of cups to grams for the butter wasn't completely accurate.

The second batch sat on the drip pan for just five minutes before they started to scorch on the top. 1000W was too much for them, no matter how far from the heating element they were.

At this point I gave up; I put the dough for the third batch right in the fridge to eat raw.

Cooking in a tiny kitchen is certainly an adventure. I don't know how Emily managed, but I think she bought her countertop oven within the first month!

Conan Town

Not close.

One of my greatest adventures in Japan was visiting Conan Town in 2009. I had never gone so far afield for a day trip before, and I had never taken a daytime highway bus anywhere, either. Nor had I ever come quite so close yet to getting stranded in the middle of nowhere in Japan!

My friend Ami was visiting me from Canada, and she had short list of things she wanted to do in Japan. She asked about Conan Town, also known as Hokuei-cho, a place that I'd been resolving to visit over and over but had never gotten to it due to time and cost. Just to give you an idea of how much time and cost I'm talking:

Hokuei was created from the 2005 merger
of the towns of Hōjō and Daiei Towns

Route1
Take time: 260 Minutes Transfer: 3 Times Distance: 282.5 km
Total:¥ 8,070 (Fare:¥ 5,150 Seat Fee:¥ 2,920) 

Thanks, Hyperdia.

Oh yes, that's one way. Looking at over eight hours combined travel and about $160 in cost (the exchange rate was comparable at the time) if I wanted to slog all the way out to Tottori-ken and see this place. It wasn't something I was willing to undertake alone, and none of the friends who'd been to visit me were up for this expensive and monumental task. I can't blame them - we had some pretty big adventures as it was. Ami, though, is a fan of the manga Detective Conan, and the lure of Hokuei-cho is that it is the birthplace of Aoyama Gosho, the artist of this series. 

When the idea of taking a day trip to Tottori came up with her, she immediately agreed.

If you were spending 11 hours
in train/bus seats in a day,
you'd want to relax a little, too!

I had to find a way to bring down the cost and the travel time. Luckily, my Google skills and my Japanese were just good enough to get us set up on a Nihon Kotsu bus for a very reasonable ¥3,600. I think we left at either 8 or 9 AM, and the bus was just over 3 hours from Hankyu Umeda to Tottori City (which, I should point out, is nowhere near Hokuei-cho).

Our next trick was getting from city to town, which is further into the boondocks of Japan than I had ever been. We got lunch but missed the San-in Line train, which meant buying reserved seats on the charmingly-named Super Hakuto limited express.

About two hours and one long wait for a train change later, we finally disembarked, tired and excited, at Yura Station!

Detective Conan statues were all over town

It had taken us almost seven hours to get this far. This probably should have been indicative of how the rest of the day was about to go. Still, we were happy to be there at last! It had been dreadfully difficult to find information in English on the town in our pre-Google-Translate world - I probably spent 30 minutes just digging out the name of the train station - so we didn't have much idea of what to expect. 

These tablets marked the path from the
train station to the Manga Museum

For those who got this far in the post without any idea what I am talking about when I say Conan, well, Detective Conan is a famous comic series that is among the longest-running in Japan right now. The first volume came out in 1994. The manga has been released in English under the name Case Closed.

The basic premise of the story is that a high school-age genius detective, Kudo Shinichi, witnesses a shady exchange between members of an organized crime syndicate, the Black Organization. He is caught and fed poison, but instead of killing him, the poison shrinks him into a grade-schooler. In order to protect his family and friends, he takes on the name Edogawa Conan and goes undercover, living with his maybe-girlfriend and her PI father while he tries to take down the Black Organization. I hoped to see the conclusion of the series while I was in Japan, but no such luck - it's about to hit the 20-year mark.

The original moulds used for the
statues around town 

Back in Conan Town, being the birthplace of Aoyama Gosho is obviously a huge claim to fame for this little village, though many of the elements of Hokuei-cho were a bit dated - the statues and other permanent landmarks were based on Aoyama's earliest drawing styles; mid-1990s. I had the locations, though, of seven Detective Conan statues in the town, and a list of other spots of interest. 

Walking along the road toward the Manga Museum, the main attraction of the town, tablets lined the pathway, each one showing the cover design of one of the manga volumes. The area's other claim to fame is watermelons, so watermelon motifs were quite popular. (We ended up coming home with Tottori pears, but no watermelons.)

Where the magic happens!

Where the statues were dated, the Museum was very modern. We passed a closed souvenir store that had seemingly moved into the Museum, so it had obviously seen a lot of effort put into it to lure the big fans. There were appearances here and there by Yaiba, the lead character of Aoyama's pre-Conan manga of the same name, and plenty by Kaitou Kid, star of Magic Kaitou and a very familiar crossover character. My favourite feature was the replica of Aoyama Gosho's workdesk. 

Shinichi statue at the library

There was an interactive skateboard game, a voice-changing bow tie, a showcase of Detective Conan in various languages, a selection of famous mystery novels by authors Aoyama enjoys, sculptures, toys, original pages of Aoyama's works, giant cardboard characters...this place was as thorough as any big museum in Tokyo! We spent so long going through the museum and the gift shop that we left ourselves very little time to go see the remaining statues.

Professor Agasa's car

After we finished at the museum and made a quick stop at the bookstore, we were about to head back to the station. Unfortunately, we still hadn't seen that last statue! Glancing at the map and the clock - 5:30 - I had to admit that there wasn't really enough time to go up there and see it, and still make it back for the 5:56 train. It was a Sunday, so there was only one train per hour, and this train was the last one that would get us back to Tottori in time for the bus home. If we missed the bus, I had no Plan B. Stranded six hours from home on a school night? No thanks.

Still....I really wanted to see it. There was only one statue of Ran in the whole town at the time (though now there are two!), and on the map, she did look close by. Daiei Elementary School was behind the train station, so we would be on the wrong side of the tracks, but on our not-to-scale map I thought perhaps it couldn't be more than five minutes from Yura. I asked Ami if she was up to the challenge - from the library to the elementary school and then back to the station, in 25 minutes. Could we do it?

She's asthmatic, so I'm not sure why she agreed to this, but the game was afoot. Away we went!

Don't do this.

Needless to say, when we arrived at the school at 5:42, we were more than a little worried about being stranded in Conan Town overnight. Had it been a Saturday, sure, Conan Town forever! But the best we could do was snap a couple of photos of the statue and then run back to the station before we heard the train warning bells. As it was, we had just enough time to quickly buy tickets ("How much should I put in?" "It doesn't matter! Just get any ticket and we'll fix it later!") before the train arrived and it whisked....er, trundled....us back to Tottori City and the Nihon Kotsu bus.

Mirai e no Ayumi
The statue that almost cost us dearly

From there, it was a long journey back to Osaka - when we were dropped off at the OCAT building at last, we were tired and pretty cranky, and Ami left her bag of Magic Kaitou books in the overhead compartment of the bus. By the time we realized it, we were so exhausted we didn't have the energy to go and file a claim. We arrived back at my place well after midnight, having clocked a full 14 hours in transit. That's quite a feat for a day trip!

Still, it's not a stretch at all for me to say the museum alone made our ridiculous journey worth it, and we had ourselves quite an adventure. I would have done it again in a heartbeat - but I would have given us two days!