...And we're back

Finally confronted with overcoming the extreme bout of both zen and laziness that has kept me from updating, I return. Woo?

So the rundown of the last week(s?). Uh, right.

Nothing of any note happened, really, outside of the summer festival last weekend. Hopeless romantic (and, as Hiro put it, "wannabe-Japanese") I splurged a bit and bought a yukata. Yukata is the Japanese summer kimono, very simple--by kimono standards, at least--and made out of light cotton. They even had tall sizes! However, upon trying on said "tall sizes," I found that my hips were too big, so I had to get them in "special big hip sizes" which were, in fact, a bit too short. One very humorous fitting session later, the woman helping me finally produced a kimono that fit my hip size and, though it is a bit too short, is still wearable and looks quite pretty on me. For reference:

Yep. Everyone wanted to head to the Anjo festival, which is bigger and a bit more well-known, so we were going to meet up at the school and head over on the train together. I showed up... and nobody else did. This made me a prime target for the teachers who saw me, who squealed and jumped with cries of "SUTEKI!" ("LOVELY!") and spun me around and asked me how I'd put it on by myself. (Yukata are a bit tricky, so it's usually a 2-person operation.) They then dragged me into the teachers' room to show me off. Much complimenting and fussing later, they released me to play ping-pong while I waited. I played ping-pong, and I suppose the thing got a bit rumpld, since when I decided to leave I made the mistake of asking them to make sure I was still in good shape--this lead to 20 minutes of fussing over hems and my neckline, and the teachers now alternating "suteki" with "sexy" and giggling. Mark made the mistake of poking his head in during this estrogen fiasco, and promptly left. Finally they shoved a piece of cardboard under my obi belt to keep it nice and flat--this is apparently standard practice which I, in my blissful gaijin ignorance, was unaware of--and shooed me out the door.

Long story short, Mark and I headed to the Okazaki festival instead. (Declan saw me on my way to the train station and got his jokes in about me on geta, the wooden torture implements they consider "shoes" around here.) We made it there and saw the parade, which was actually pretty cool. The whole thing basically consisted of huge groups of guys carrying mikoshi, or portable floats, through the streets. The floats (and the groups) were usually offices carrying a float displaying their company's name. They yelled "WASHO!" (there really is no meaning to that) and danced all over the place. There's a relatively famous drama, however, that's filmed in Okazaki, and that float was by far the most impressive--the star was riding on a miniature spanish warship, surrounded by lights, and the guys carrying it bounced it all over the place like it was on the ocean. It was loud and bright and generally pretty raucous.

The people were funny too. One little girl, maybe six, giggled and said "suteki!" to her grandmother when she saw me. Her grandmother ushered her forward to say hello to me. I think they thought I was somebody famous. (Erica's homestay mom, May, later explained this to me by saying "Some Japanese people see a Caucasian, and think 'movie star!' Since you were wearing a yukata and spoke Japanese, I can only imagine how excited they got.") The guy at the yakiniku (literally "grilled meat"--I don't really know what goes in the stuff) stand asked me where I was from, and though he spoke INCREDIBLY fast, I was somehow able to keep up with him. All in all it was fun. I took loads of pictures, made it back to the campus bar, had a couple of Hooegardens, and went back to my apartment to hit the sack. A good day.

The day after was the day of the fireworks. Holy shit, the fireworks. Mark, this German dude whose name I never did catch, and I all went in yukata. The groups splintered so that in the end it was just me and the German guy, and we found a great spot in the middle of a big field, some distance from the river but with an unobscured view of the sky, where the real big ones would be going off. There were an estimated 350,000 people at that show, all trying to cram onto the riverbanks. It's the third-largest fireworks display in all of Japan, and absurdly famous--for good reason.

After settling in and finishing our warm-up beers (the Japanese make lemon beer... I'm in love), the show started. It was two and a half hours of nonstop fireworks, each set bigger than the last one. Each segment was sponsored by a different company, though I didn't know this until halfway through, as the German guy (hereafter referred to as Dave for arbitrary reasons of convenience) went to the river to get us some food (beer) and heard the announcements during the one-minute lulls between sets. I'm rather glad we weren't on the river, truth be told--it was too crowded, and I was happier not being reminded it was corporate-sponsored.

The fireworks were breath-taking. They were, without a doubt, better than anything I'd ever seen in the states--it was more of an exercise in art than in general "whoa!" value. Truth be told, the shows back home get kind of contrite after a while. Each year they synch up (poorly) to the same music and while they're pretty, there's little care for placement or timing. The Okazaki fireworks were orchestrated to leave impressions; one second there would be a faint ball of light, and as the sparks trailed down, they would THEN light into bright white flares. The sky was dripping gold some moments, bursting upward in reds and blues the next. It was a-ma-zing.

(Also, as a sidenote, I had my first real "gross food" experience in Japan--ikayaki, or grilled squid. They basically take the giant cap of the head off the body and grill just the head. I was hungry, there was no line for it [that should have told me something right there] and it was only 600 yen for a sizeable... squid head. I ate it. I shouldn't have. It was like chewing on the bottom of your shoe. Hell, it was like chewing on a wooden geta. Plus it did not sit well with lemon beer, though it did ultimately stay down. Never again. Never, ever again.)

Monday I was invited to the home of Erica's homestay family from last year. I'd been there once before, just as a guest, and met their 1-year-old, Ray. The mother speaks incredible English, but we chatted in Japanese the whole time. She made me dinner and, since I had promised to babysit Ray the next day (Tuesday, aka yesterday) she showed me where everything was in case I needed to change him, or get him snacks, ad nauseum. She also introduced me to the neighbors, who have these two adorable little girls. She made what she considers a "quick meal," which to me is a feast after spending most of my time here hungry. I ate it as slowly as I could--it was that manna from heaven, grilled eel--and she bought me a bag of really nice, upscale donut-type things on the way home. I'm still working on them. They're so good. Ray, however, was a bit fussy, as he had a pretty high fever and swung between lovable and mini-terror. He liked me, though, and remembered me from the one time I'd been there before, and we played like old friends. He's a cutey.

Then came the problem. Yesterday I was in class, my head was feeling swimmy, and after I botched like the fifty-millionth sentence drill (which is really unusual for me) the teacher commented I didn't look so good. She felt my forehead, and lo and behold, I'd caught Ray's fever. I, like Ray, had been more than slightly cranky that morning as well, and after getting a smart-ass comment from JK, I subtly gave him the Jersey Salute on the way to lunch. I think he caught the message. (We've also discovered that JK, who is a know-it-all little British shit, has alienated at least half a dozen students not even in our class simply by being rude and pushy to them. I feel slightly vindicated.)

So I sent an e-mail to May, saying that since my fever seemed pretty low and it was most likely the same bug Ray had, I could still babysit if she needed me. She did. She picked me up, and I spent two and a half hours with a fevered, screaming child who kept walking calmly to the front door, waiting for Mom to come home, and after thirty seconds, broke into tears. I would pick him up, bring him back, and calm him down, only to have the process repeat five minutes later. It was trying.

After getting home, I remembered what we'd heard in class--there was a typhoon on the way. Yep, a typhoon. Sizeable, but not enough to level a city. As I feel I have been cheated out of my small earthquake which I was so looking forward to, I felt slightly relieved at the idea of not having class the next day, especially since I'd been getting hotter since class. Right before I left May's house, I used their thermometer to take my temperature, and it had become a viable fever--something like 37 celsius. So I made it home, and settled in for the storm.

To anybody who's never seen it before, the sky before a typhoon turns this insane, reddish-gold color. It's literally like burnished bronze. I've never seen it before and I doubt I will again--everything, EVERYTHING gets bathed in this gold light at dusk. It was like something out of a science fiction movie. Sarah and I turned on the TV, saw the expected predictions of doom, and went to bed.

We woke up this morning at 8--to clear skies. There was no typhoon. It had veered sharply during the night and was heading for Tokyo (eat it, Hiro!). I, however, still had the fever and was sweating like a pig, so I popped two more advil and went back to bed. Four hours later (read: now) I'm still a bit warm, but feeling better. My head seems to have cleared a bit. May told me it was probably what the Japanese call a "summer fever" which is sparked by too much heat and not enough rest. She had also told me the best thing to eat was eel, hence the eel feast at dinner. Oh May-san, you rock my world...

And bonus! Now with pictures. 2 of them.

Sampath, Justin, and I, shortly after buying our walking sticks and right before heading up Mt Fuji. The first 500 meters wiped those smirks right off our faces.

Behold! The top of Mt Fuji, with 3 seconds' video before my batteries died.



And even better, the fireworks. Hooray!

A bit too zen, perhaps

I'm not sure why, but that trip up Fuji really did something to me. Right now I feel like I owe it to myself, and to the people I love, to really sit down and figure out my life. If I could go home right now, I would, though I'm not sure why.

So starting tomorrow morning, I'm going to sit down and figure this out. I need to. The computer's off, except to answer e-mails from my parents. I really need to figure out how I'm going to make it through my next 5 weeks here without completely losing my mind.

Sorry, all. Take care of yourselves until I get back.

Fuji. The whole thing.

Be warned. This post is 7 pages long. I recommend breaks to get snacks.

7/31/06

Let me first say that at the moment, I am in the most physically (and, until after my shower, mentally) exhausted state of my entire life. I’m not saying that as hyperbole. My legs this morning had stopped functioning altogether—I had to lift them out of bed with my own arms, and wait for the throbbing to die down before I could stumble the few feet to the bathroom. Last night if I had to turn over in bed, I had to grab the headboard and pull with my arms until I rolled one way or the other, as I couldn’t shift my hips to do it.

Fuji.

Right.

So we started off from Aoi Hall bright and early at about 9 a.m. Saturday morning. After piling into two vans, we drove to a mountain some distance from Okazaki—I don’t know where it was, exactly, but it was right on the coast, and we parked our car only a hundred feet or so from the ocean. It was great to see the sea again, Jersey girl that I am. The mountain itself was only 100 meters tall, but the way up was a set of stairs (which I later learned from Justin is called a “switchback trail”) which basically just wove up the mountain, turned 180 degrees, and wove up again. It was harrowing, it was hot, and I made it to the top only under duress. At that point I (and Declan) seriously questioned my ability to do Fuji after getting so sweaty and exhausted after just that little thing. We continued on, though, up to a little Shinto shrine dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu (founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate—he’s sort of Okazaki’s homeboy, since he was born there) and then headed back down.

After that followed this beautiful lagoon, which I don’t recall the name of and I’m not going to go dig for my notebook to look up. After that came another pit stop for lunch. I splurged a little (795 yen) and got una-don, short for unagi don, which means grilled eel over rice. The Japanese have a fixation with eel, especially in the summer. According to my teachers (and the basic Japanese concept of the food), when you eat it, it makes you strong and vigorous. So I figured, what the hell, I’m climbing Fuji and this stuff looks damn good. It was, in fact, delicious as expected. Midway through lunch, the heavens opened up and it began to pour. Undaunted, we sat there with our lunches and, when we finished and the rain hadn’t, we jogged back to the vans.

We also stopped at some gorgeous waterfalls at some point, though I’m so exhausted now that the details, order, and times are hazy at best.

Then came an absurdly long car ride to Fuji-san. I don’t really recall how long it took, but after one last pit-stop to buy water and other such stuff, we drove up the mountain. It was really incredible to watch the world fall away under us, and also to watch the trees thin steadily as we ascended. We drove halfway up, to Shin-go-gome, “New Number Five Station”, and parked there. At that height, the oxygen was thin enough that the trees had vanished altogether. We bought our walking sticks—I got two sets of bells for mine, one red and one yellow, and the Japanese Imperial flag attached to it for kicks—and gathered for our last group picture pre-climb. We stood under the map of the mountain, made our genki poses, and honestly thought this wouldn’t be that difficult. It was about 6 p.m.

This word will come up a lot, and sort of became the motto for our trip, so I will explain it now. Genki is a Japanese word which translates in English as “in high spirits,” “healthy,” “active,” “witty,” “loving life,” “light hearted,” “in good physical condition,” “perky,” and a multitude of other things. Basically, it doesn’t translate at all—but the one thing it really encompasses is a sort of feeling of “good living,” with both a good outlook and a good physical state. When you’ve recovered from an illness, people ask “now are you genki?” and you say “yep, I’m genki.” Old grandmothers in wheelchairs who poke fun at younger people and laugh loudly are genki. It’s all a matter of perspective, but basically it’s the physical and psychological states of your existence.

Everybody started off with the motto “genki de!” which basically means “do it genki­-ly!” or “be genki!” We sort of yelled it at each other over the first stretch of the climb, which only took maybe half an hour.

It is, however, incredibly difficult to be sprightly when you are climbing up the soil of Mt Fuji, as it is entirely composed of PEBBLES. You heard me, pebbles. As Fuji is a volcano (still considered active, I’d like to note), the slopes in every direction are made up entirely of loose pebbles. Very, very loose pebbles. The paths for hiking (which are basically stretches with rope on one side and painted arrows on the few large rocks, not even paths in any sense) have been trampled enough so that some small stretches are just loose dirt, but the vast majority is made up of small rocks which slide the moment you get your feet on them. Not friendly.

That was our first taste of what we were in for that night. We trudged (and slipped) up to station 6, a supposed 20-minute journey which took us about 30. Our backpacks were heavy with water and high-calorie food we’d brought along to keep us going, the sun was beating down on us, there was almost no UV layer at that height, and we were already uncomfortable. The next stretch of trail was the longest, labeled to take 60 minutes.

So Declan met us at the sixth stop, told us we all looked capable of making the trip and he wasn’t going to pull anybody (to my astonishment, as I really didn’t think I was capable of making it) and bid us farewell. Our guide, Chris, stayed in the back of the line and helped out the weaker among us, namely me.

I really hated that second stretch of trail. There wasn’t any beaten dirt on the paths, only pebbles, and the light was beginning to fail. When I could find a large, solid rock to hoist myself up on I was okay, but otherwise the slipping action gave literal meaning to the phrase “two steps forward, one step back.” Psychologically, it was devastating. I was getting almost nowhere for all my work, sliding all over the place, and my backpack was laden with five liters of water, a sweatshirt, a heavy rain jacket, rain pants, and a metric asstonne of chocolate and nuts. Cursing and already determined to resign, I kept at it. Chris took my backpack from me at one point and the lightened load made it easier to go up. After about 70 minutes (surprisingly close to the marked time), I made it to Shin-nana-gome, New Number Seven Station.

There was applause and cheering as I stepped onto New 7.

I don’t know exactly what happened in that moment, but something inside me shifted. Chris asked me if I wanted to go on; the guy who ran the station (where you can stop and rest for the night, especially if the altitude is getting to you) said the next stretch was treacherously steep, and while there were slightly more solid rocks, it was by and large pebbles. I looked at the map; it only took 40 minutes. I told Chris that I would try “one more station.”

After a half-hour rest at New 7, we set off for 7 (for reference, there was a “New 7” and a “7”, followed by 8, 9, 9.5, then the top.) The climb was almost as agonizing as the one before, but this time another girl joined me in back, and having somebody to chat with, albeit only in Japanese as she didn’t speak any English, was relaxing. Chris stayed with us, at what he considered a nice, leisurely pace, and he carried her backpack that stretch.

About ten minutes away from New 7, I looked back, and told Chris I wanted to give up. The soil up there was treacherous, the light was gone, and I had slipped and crushed my knee against a rock. He looked me square in the eye and said “You’re not going back, because that would mean I would have to go back, and I’m not turning around. Keep going, you can quit up at 7.” We made it to 7. Another round of whooping greeted us as the other girl, Chris, and I made it to the station.

I don’t know whether it was the lack of oxygen, the cooling air from the sun finally setting, the cheers, or the psychological aspect of it all, but whatever had shifted back at New 7 finally stuck. The mountain wasn’t going to beat me, even if I broke my leg trying. So after another half-hour rest, we headed up to station 8.

The soil by that point had turned into unpredictable, uneven rocks, some of which were loose. Once in a while we had to go hand-over-hand to lift ourselves up. The girl in back with me was having a real hard time on the way up to 8, and by the time we got there, the altitude had hit her—we were about 2.5 kilometers above the ground—and she was out of commission. We took an extended 1-hour stay, and by then the temperature had plummeted to freezing. All the cold weather gear came out, and we huddled on benches and danced around to keep warm. We had to leave the other girl there for the night, and they gave her some oxygen and sent her to bed. Chris told us we would hit the top, maybe wait for the sunrise, turn right around, and come get her on our way down. This disheartened everyone—not only did we all want to see sunrise, we wanted to stay up there to get the brands on our walking sticks saying we’d made it to the top. Chris told us that was a no-go, and got angry and called us all narrow-minded. I understood how important it was that we came and got her, but we had all really been banking on those brands and the sunrise—it was a damper on the trip.

In any case, after about two hours in which we made sure the other girl was settled and okay, we headed up. It was only 30 minutes to 9, and though I took up the rear yet again, Mark joined me as the altitude got to his head as well. I was a little light-headed, but determined to at least make it to station 9. The soil by now had turned entirely to large, hard rocks, with a light dusting of loose pebbles to make you slip, and the light was gone entirely. Out came my dinky free flashlight, which was enough to let me see what was going on around me, and up we went. The height difference in most of the rocks (which, by the way, were in no way flat, even, or remotely near passable) was about two feet, so a good amount of the trip was hand-over-hand. Luckily we had downed most of our water and donned our cold-weather gear by that point, so our packs were lighter. I also discovered that for some reason, my hands have some unnatural ability to keep perfectly warm without gloves even in sub-freezing weather. When I’m hiking, at least—other times they’re frozen solid. As I hadn’t brought gloves with me, though, it was a useful trick.

We made it to 9. I was going to conquer that goddamn mountain if it killed me.

By 9 we were well above the highest part of the cloud line. We had literally walked through the clouds—the fog in the pictures is the clouds. By station 9, we looked up and saw stars.

I can’t describe that sky to somebody who’s never seen it before. There was no light pollution at all. The headlamps and flashlights turned off, and we all tilted our heads back and saw the most beautiful, clearest night sky any of us had ever seen in our lives. It was like dust across a black tile. There was not a breath of room which was not covered in stars. It was easily the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. We were at the top of the world, and could see the entire universe stretched out before us. In every direction, there was nothing but stars, stars everywhere. After our break, though, Chris told us we were heading out. It was only maybe midnight, and the sunrise wasn’t until 4:15—we were making good time. Unfortunately, it was also well below freezing, and sitting still was enough to freeze every extremity into stasis. Talking, though, kept our spirits up, and I made friends with a guy named Jonah, from North Carolina. We talked long and hard about how much we would pay right then for lobster bisque, or my mom’s clam chowder, or his mom’s biscuits and gravy, or a half-pound of bacon, nice and fried and fatty. We were all starving, frozen, and getting a little loopy from the thin air.

We also hit a major philosophical point that high up; we realized that at the most transcendentally blissful moments in life, the feeling is so intense that all you can really say is “…yep.” It’s a feeling of rightness. If anything it’s a little disappointing, because you expect the chorus of angels and the feeling of floating, but when you do hit those moments it’s that feeling of perfect rightness, and if anything you just become… calm.

After our philosophical waxings, we started up again to 9.5. The trip to 9.5 was probably the hardest on the group. You could literally see the mountain top from that point, even in the dead of night. We had gotten above the cloud line. Above us, the headlamps of the handful of hikers trudging slowly up to the crater looked like stars climbing into the sky. The oxygen, however, was close to nothing that high in the air. Mark started feeling light-headed and took frequent breaks. What was marked as a 30-minute trip took us closer to an hour, and even though I was feeling more genki than I ever had in my life—though I honestly have no idea where all my energy came from—I stuck back with Mark to cheer him up. I felt compelled, since I knew how mentally devastating it was to be the very last in the group, trailing behind with nobody but Chris, who was obviously not having a hard time doing this mountain, to stay with you. It was better to share agony than anything else. It worked; he hiked through the nausea and headache, and finally we made it to 9.5.

While stopping at 9.5, we could see the top of the mountain, and a loose cluster of people passing us and heading up, headlamps on as they weaved up the tip of the mountain. Jin, Sampath, Eric, and I all shared a sort of touching moment as we laughed (probably from lack of oxygen) and thanked each other for doing this together. We were going to make it for dawn, with time to spare. Below us, a huge group of hikers had the same idea as us, and was moving steadily along the trail, their headlamps looking like a trail of fireflies as they wove upward. The piece of plastic holding my Japanese Imperial flag rolled up was slipping, and the flag was close to unfurling; Jin told me that anybody who unrolled their flag before they hit the summit was to be beaten to death with everyone else’s walking stick. I laughed and promised to keep it rolled.

The last stretch of trail was a 45-degree angle ascent straight to the top.

We headed out, and for once I wasn’t in the tail of the group. I was going to conquer this mountain, goddamn it, and I could see the huge group of “fireflies” (really a Japanese hiking group) coming up on us without stopping. I paused once or twice for water, and to get some strength back in my thighs—the entire way up that last stretch of trail consisted of planting the walking stick, one leg up, then hoisting the rest of your body. Plant, leg, hoist. Plant, leg, hoist. With the top in sight there was almost nothing that could stop me. I was near the top of Mount Fuji. I was near the top of Mount Fuji.

I was at the top of Mount Fuji.

The Torii gate greeted us, and with Jonah only a few paces in front of me, I set foot on even ground. The wind whipped at us, and for once I didn’t give a damn. I threw my arms up and yelled “I DID IT!”, my walking stick in the air. When I found the others huddled against a rock to keep from the cold, I kept saying “dekita, hontou ni dekita” (I did it, I really did it) in a daze. There was laughter and yelling and chatting from every human being up there—probably close to a hundred within a minute or two of my arrival—and we all curled up against each other to keep warm. Spirits were so high that even though we felt the cold, when we complained we were laughing. I curled up with Jin on one side and Jonah on the other, and when we saw Chris reach the top we all cheered, though I don’t know who was with him. I unfurled my flag.

Here’s an interesting tidbit—you can get perfect cell phone reception at the top of Mount Fuji. So perfect, in fact, that at one point we had seen a Japanese man talking on his cell during the ascent. Chris pulled out his phone, called the girl we’d left behind, and found out she was feeling fine. We could stay for sunrise after all.

After about an hour of huddling and feeling the coldest and happiest we had in our lives, we set out around the crater. At one point my flag and my bells came off. I caught the flag, but not the bells. At that point, I realized how stupid the ornamentation on that staff was, as the staff itself had saved my life more times than I could count—I would have cracked my head open on a rock if I hadn’t had the staff to support me when I slipped.

We hiked around the edge of the crater, and made it to an edge with a two-foot-wide flat path before the sheer drop down. We climbed up from the path and found small places to sit on the stones, and watched the sun come up.

It was something I can’t even put into words. My camera’s final set of batteries died before the actual sun came out, but I didn’t care—I was there to see it myself, and I will always remember what it looked like. The sky turned millions of shades of blue and purple and orange, and finally, through the clouds, a blood-red ball slowly peeked out.

When the sun finally lifted above the clouds, we were moved, but glad to be moving back to the station and down the mountain. After a pause to get our sticks branded—the top stations opened earlier than the rest!—we started back down. I found my yellow bells, though alas, I never did find the red ones again. Coming down the first stretch of trail, we passed a long line of people heading up. Some Japanese women in their sixties or better were hiking up, and though they were having a tough time of it, we greeted them with “Ohayou gozaimasu!” (Good morning!) and “ganbatte, kudasai!” (Please, do your best!). They laughed and thanked us. One woman was having a hard time, and when I bid her do her best, she said she wasn’t sure it was enough. I told her “watashi ga dekitara dare de mo dekimasu” (if I can do it, anybody can) and she laughed. I think that kept her going.

The first walk down was not too bad, if a little difficult when it came to foot placement. I’m not that brave when it comes to heading face-first down a 3-kilometer-high mountain, so I stepped gingerly and took my time.

Beyond 9.5, though, the trail sucked.

The slopes got slippery with pebbles, and, as Declan warned us, everybody fell at least 3 times. All things told, on the way down I fell an even 10. I was doing fine until we got to station 7.5, when all of a sudden the exhaustion, altitude, hunger, and sudden temperature change got to me, and the world swam. When I sat down I held my head in my hands, and the entire world lurched. I asked somebody to call for Chris, and he asked me if I was feeling nauseous. I told him I was, and he commandeered a plastic bag. I sat there with it under my chin for a while, unable to vomit, until Sampath, Jin, and Eric, who were sitting next to me, started talking—deliberately, I think—about sausages slathered in grease. It worked; I vomited. When the world stopped spinning, I paid 200 yen to use the bathroom (a really cruel 200 yen, as the most common complaint of altitude sickness is diarrhea, and the people running the station know that), and when I came out, everybody but Chris had left. We headed down.

The first part of that next stretch of trail sucked, as my stomach was still unsettled and I kept losing my balance. After that, though, I did alright. Eventually my genki came back to me and I got the hang of sliding down the pebbles, which had reclaimed the trail by that point. Thanks to Jin, I learned that the trick was to either plant your feet sideways to ease stopping, or to dig your heels in and slide with each step. I took the latter, and was fine most of the way down (except for the vast majority of my slips, which, to be honest, everyone but Chris had).

We made it down. Christ, we made it down. When the sun was up, I could tell why Declan had called Mount Fuji a “dirty, dusty, piece of shit mountain”—it really was. Up close, it is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. The dirt is all bright red and black, and it’s really just not attractive. It looks like the earth vomited, and Fuji is what happened. From a distance, it’s beautiful and symmetrical—up close you just want to put the thing out of its misery.

On the way down, I totaled 10 slips, five shards of rock embedded in my hand (the size of splinters and pitch black, all in my left hand as my right had the walking stick), and a whole lot of souvenir bruises. By the time we hit the last trail between station 6 and 5, a hearty 5-minute jog of joy back down (though, prudently, I took my time on the pebbles), the pain really started sinking into my legs. The entire descent had been murder on my knees, especially since I bruised my right one hard on the way up. My thighs and hips had gotten the best workout, and I craved a double bacon cheeseburger. Except for a quarter-box of Pocky (total 100 calories) at station 9.5, I hadn’t eaten since we’d hit the summit. Lines of Japanese schoolchildren passed us on their way up, and greeted us with “Konnichiwa” (Good day) which we responded to in kind. One boy asked me “Tsukaremashita ka?” (Are you tired?) to which I responded “Hontou ni tsukaremashita.” (I am incredibly tired.)

We took our post-climb picture, in which everyone looked satisfied (if not genki exactly) and climbed into the vans. I slept on the way back and dreamed that the whole Fuji climb and descent was really a dream. We stopped at some point to get lunch—I got what was billed (falsely) as carbonara, but didn’t really mind the disappointment, as it was food. I also fell getting out of the van, since my legs weren’t working. I limped the rest of the way to and from the car.

The driver dropped me off at my apartment. I think it was about 1 p.m. Sunday. I grabbed my things, thanked him, entered my apartment, said “good night” to my roommate, pulled off my sweat-stained clothes, and collapsed into bed where I slept, with only intermittent waking to roll myself over by my arms, until 10 a.m. That’s 21 hours of sleep, uninterrupted.

So what did I learn on Fuji-san? I learned a hell of a lot about myself, though that’s mostly private. I learned that when people are struggling, they want somebody to struggle with them, not a light at the end of the tunnel. I learned that saying “one more station” can propel you to the top of the mountain. I learned that a little bullying can go a long way to making somebody improve. I learned never to stop and pick up a 500-yen coin that fell out of your pocket on the downslope (fell right on my ass). I also learned that it is, in fact, coldest before the dawn, by about 10 degrees Celsius. I learned what a night sky looks like, and the first sunrise. I learned that ornamentation is stupid, though the Japanese might not agree with me on that. I also learned that we try too often to replace our own memories with tangible evidence, and that maybe running out of batteries on my camera was a good thing. I stopped thinking about which lens to use, and focused entirely on that ball of a sun, and the people around me, and the people at home whom I love.

I wish you could’ve been there to see it with me.

Ben ben ben ben bento?!

Sitting in class right now with a bit of downtime. We're researching possible field trips for Friday--Intermediate Level is almost entirely field work and speaking with each other and locals, and for that I'm grateful. I have my on days and my off days.

Jin-san and I have been gunning for a week or so now to get the teachers to teach us the Osaka-ben dialect, which, to be honest, sounds hilarious. It's actually a prestige/comic dialect in Japan, and comedians use it often; people in Kansai (the region of which Osaka is a subset) are considered by the Japanese to be funnier, more personable, and wittier than the average Joe-san. It actually does sound great, and you can't help but grin when you hear it. It really just sounds awesome, to be blunt.

So Jin-san and I kept asking Tabata-sensei, our favorite teacher, to teach us Osaka-ben. She taught us one or two words, but otherwise held out--until today, when she brought in an actual TEXTBOOK on how to speak Osaka-ben. Jin-san went through the roof with joy. He's been poring over it all day.

Now truth be told, I always wanted to learn Hiroshima-ben dialect. It's just odd-sounding. It's SOMEWHAT recognizable as Japanese, but to be honest, most people from Tokyo wouldn't be able to distinguish it. (It's almost as removed as the relationship between English and Welsh... almost.) Again, though, the sound of it is just unbelievable. It's got this sort of slurred twang to it. D's turn to J's. (darou, "I guess," turns to jarou and the effect is great.) So I went to look it up, learned a few words and phrases, got the basic accent down, and started speaking to my teacher in it.

She nearly collapsed laughing.

She could barely understand what I was saying, it turns out, but she knew immediately it was Hiroshima-ben, so I guess that's a start. She did, however, comment that I sound like a yakuza, and pointed out that's where a lot of the yakuza come from. So I will bear in mind to use Hiroshima-ben only with caution. Osaka-ben, on the other hand, I'm falling in love with, and I've been told that as a foreigner, responding to an Osaka native in their own dialect always gets a surprised smile.

Jin and I now have a plan to give our presentations in Osaka-ben and Hiroshima-ben, respectively.

Wish me luck!

Apartment! Woo!

(7/25)

YOSH’. So I finally finished moving into our apartment for the next six weeks (and, I think, mine alone for the last two I’m here). The entrance/kitchen area REEKS, and when we made the mistake of opening the refrigerator, it’s really apparent that something was rotting in there. The whole entry smells awful. Luckily between the entry/kitchen and living area, there’s a door. Right now we’re sitting in the living area, with the air conditioning cranked up.

I say “now” subjectively, as there’s no internet access in the apartment. “Now” for me means about 6 p.m. Okazaki time, Tuesday afternoon. This will undoubtedly be posted about 18 hours from now. Until then, I shall write a running narrative of our move. For now, though, we need to write a grocery list and go out and get food for dinner. Word.

(A few hours later)

It’s 11 p.m. and Sarah and I JUST finished dinner. About 8,000 yen later (which we’re splitting even) we made a trip to the 100-yen store and grocery store to stock up on the necessities. It’s nice to have a kitchen, though figuring out how to cook for the two of us on a budget is a bit trying. Once we’ve got the big stuff out of the way—mostly kitchen fixings and the baking soda we spent an hour in the grocery store trying to find—it’ll be less than 2,500 yen per week for us to make all our own meals. It’s also nice to not have to eat out every night.

The apartment isn’t actually that bad, other than a suspicious smell emanating from the fridge. By “suspicious,” I mean “like somebody left a rotting cat in the back.” It was godawful. Sarah opened the door once, ONCE, and the stink was around even three hours later, after we’d gotten back from shopping. We ended up buying a little thing of scented oil to ward off the smell, and after an epic quest to find baking soda, our fridge is on its journey back to normalcy.

So one meal of half-price salmon and rice later (they slash meat prices in half after 5 p.m.) I’m stuffed and ready for bed. Okay, and so I snuck a lemon beer in there as well. It wasn’t half bad, but now I’m about ready for sleep.

Ow.

A brief update, as my long one ran far too long and I don't have the energy or mental acuity to finish it right now.

Long story short, after the hike Saturday, I spent yesterday (Sunday) on my butt. I was exhausted and sore and my calves hurt. Finally Sarah and I headed out to Seiyu, where I got some MacDonald's for lunch, and then to the PC Depot where I picked up a microphone for my computer. (FYI, for any of you who have Skype, I'm now on it as well. SN is blessedSophia)

Something didn't sit right, though, and I was sick to my stomach the rest of the afternoon. I finally got some brief respite in a few hours' nap, and then woke up again even more miserable than before. I didn't have the energy to go out for dinner, so I tried to force down a box of noodles, which I could only eat half of. I laid down and between being sick and tossing and turning, by 3 a.m. my back was acting up (I have a pinched sciatic nerve) and I gave up. I e-mailed Declan asking him to tell my prof I'd be out for the day and eventually took a muscle relaxant to get the spasms in my back to stop.

They did, and I slept for 11 hours. I finally woke up at 2 this afternoon, about an hour ago, and my legs are tingly and don't really move well. The relaxant still hasn't worn off. I'm still loopy and a bit nauseous, though the nausea now is probably more caused by the dizziness. I'm actually off to bed right now to sleep the rest of it off.

Aaaah where did my week go?

Sorry about the lack of updates in the last few days. It's been mostly due to a combination of exhaustion, frantic running about, and a sort of general achiness in my down time. So the breakdown of the last week (illustrated), starting Friday.

FRIDAY

It was my first day in Intermediate class. Hooray! The whole remaining 5 of us from Keigo module made it into Intermediate, so we're happy. I finally met Tatyana, Jarvi's friend, and interviewed her for class. The day came and went, and after class, Sampath asked if I wanted to go to the Toys R Us. I'd heard the place was out of the way, and it was raining outside--so what could I do but say "yes"? We hopped on our bikes and off we went. Sampath had a poncho, so the rain wasn't an issue for him--I had an umbrella, and very quickly had to learn how to ride one-handed while carrying an umbrella in the pouring rain. It wasn't fun, but I didn't crash (mercifully).

We got there, and Sampath admitted it was the first time he'd ever been in a Toys R Us. I decided to make a celebration out of it, by running around and playing with every sample toy. We went a little crazy--we played the video games, tried our hands at those ring puzzles, and set a robot penguin and some crazy doll to fighting on that "moving toys" table they've always got near the front. This escapade culminated in a light saber duel which I'm sure scared the hell out of the local mothers, but fascinated their children (we could hear them giggling). Eventually Sampath asked about the Tamagotchi's we had apparently come for (I had forgotten all about it until that moment) and was informed that the Tamagotchi's weren't in until SATURDAY. Grumbling, we headed back. After an ill-fated trip to a "Game Palace" (which turned out to be an absurdly loud, obnoxious pachinko hall) we parted ways for the day.

That night I hit up the bar (hereon known as Zig-Zag, as it'll undoubtedly be mentioned more), where an unusually large crowd was forming. Sarah showed up, and I sat chatting with some Canadian dude and the bartender whose name I never learned, hereafter fondly known as Frenchie. Partway through the conversation, I looked up and realized that my famous equation (proving that women are evil) which had been posted on the wall was no longer there! Slightly distraught, I asked Frenchie if he knew where it had gone. Declan walks in, tells me he was getting it framed, and unveils the equation in an oversized frame. He tells me he'll get it reframed more properly, and tells Frenchie to make me a free sandwich for my accomplishment. It was a very good sandwich, in fact possibly the best I've ever eaten. I would know.

After a few hours, Aaron showed up with two Japanese men who made it their mission to chat me up in Japanese for most of the rest of the evening. They were nice guys and continuously complimented me on my Japanese. The place filled up more than usual and we had a great time until Sarah and I had to head back before the hotel closed up at 11. Declan vowed we would close the bar together next week after I moved out of the hotel. We then remembered that next Friday is the night before the Fuji trip, so our celebration would have to be put off.

(Photo: L to R: Sarah, Canadian Dude, and Declan, looking thoroughly nonplussed.)

SATURDAY

The plan: Get Sampath, Vivi, Mark, possibly Adrian, and I together to hike the Kiso Valley, a 7.7-kilometer walk through the mountains between two preserved Edo-period towns.

The fact: Sampath backed out due to an unfavorable weather forecast, Adrian didn't want to lug his video camera 8 kilometers, and I forgot to tell Vivi when we were meeting.

So in any case, I woke up bright and early, grabbed a bento from Seiyu, packed it into my backpack, and headed over to the train station by 9:15 to meet the others. Surprise surprise, only Mark was there, and even though we waited until 10 (the designated meeting time) nobody else showed. After a confusing struggle with the pricing system for Japanese trains (Mark accidentally paid almost four times what he had to for his ticket) we hopped on the local rapid--right alongside Eric and Sarah, who were heading to Nagoya for the annual drum festival. We chatted, Eric was VERY loud to the chagrin of the locals, and Mark and I got off the stop before Sarah and Eric.

Three hours later--two on the train, a 40-minute wait for the bus, then a 30-minute bus ride--we arrived at Magome, a preserved Edo-period town up in the mountains. I had been able to watch the scenery from the train as it gradually faded from concrete to rice fields to mountains, but getting off the bbus in the middle of it was something different altogether. Magome itself is basically a tourist trap, albeit a lovely one, and not a whole lot of people actually hike the trail--in a three-hour walk we only ran into maybe three groups heading the other way, and one guy who passed us. Before we left the town, Mark spotted a giant water wheel and announced that the place felt familiar. A few moments later, he realized he'd been there three years earlier, doing Yamasa's Japan Discovery tour. I rolled my eyes and we continued on. The first hill started with the main street through Magome, then as the houses fizzled away we hit the scenic overlook. The view was breathtaking, and I figured out how to work the panorama function on my camera.

The first two kilometers or so were entirely uphill, and it was steep. Good training for Fuji, I figured, and we kept at it. Relatively close to the top we stopped for lunch before heading onward and upward. The scenery was unbelievably breathtaking. We even passed an old Japanese woman working in the rice field beside her house, and waved and yelled "KONNICHIWA" over the roar of the rapids nearby.

The hike was beautiful, but something better explained by pictures (which are all on photobucket). On the way down, however, we did swing by the two waterfalls along the trail. The large, quiet one is known as the Male waterfall, while the smaller, raucous one that is powerful enough to generate its own wind is the Female. Gotta love the Japanese. The bridge near the falls was a great place to rest our weary feet, and we relaxed quietly for about ten minutes before trudging onward.

After that, we ran into part of the path which had been blocked by a mudslide. Forced to go around it, we walked down the shoulder of a major road--and found this little fellow on a moss-covered log. See, I knew he was real.

Long story short, we hit the end of the hike, found the nearest bus station, and hopped the bus to the nearest train station. A multitude of slow-moving local trains later (read: about 3 hours) we were back in Okazaki, around 9. We stopped at the bar. Some new guy came up and introduced himself, and Mark proceeded to monopolize the conversation and do nothing but complain about everything under the sun. (He's good at that.) I got irritated and went home early--I was exhausted anyway.

SUNDAY

Woke up. Slept some more. My legs were absolutely killing me from the hike. After lunch, I started feeling sick... and thus begins the previous entry.

And now, some videos for you all:


The legendary battle of Penguin vs. Doramon


Behold Magome.

A face from home

So last night Vivi arrived from Chicago. How great is that? I had just finished taking down my laundry from line-drying on the roof last night, when I hear "Meredith-san?" and I look up, and there at the foot of the stairs is Vivi! I jumped and squealed and hugged her and we came into the room and talked for a long time. She's still seriously jetlagged so she planned on going to bed early and left (turns out she's just as bad off as I was, and didn't sleep much).

It's so great to see a friendly face from college. I took her down to breakfast today and showed her how to tackle the food--no egg, and I was a little disappointed. She's in the hotel until they get room at the student village (the big dorm) but she doesn't know how long that will be. So for the next week, at least, it'll be nightly slumber parties with me, Sarah, and Vives.

Also a sidenote, all this healthy eating has finally gotten to me--I noticed a difference in the way my jeans fit this morning. I must've dropped a pound or two since I got here, though I couldn't find a scale at Seiyu to give final judgment. Oh well, it'll be a cumulative thing and I'll see the results when I get home, I suppose.

Otherwise all's quiet here. This weekend's looking like a hiking trip with Sampath, Vives, and maybe Mark. Will post pictures and updates later.

Notes between class sessions

Aiiiii! I just rode my bike to the 100-yen store (Daiso) up the street and bought myself a bento (Japanese lunchbox) set. It's so cute! You even tie it in a little napkin. They're all about presentation here--it's actually kinda weird. I'll post pictures of it when I get the chance. (It's by a company called Happy Balloon, with the motto "The life that popped.")

Had my first exam today. I think it went well, but the bottom line for passing out into intermediate level is 80%. We won't know the scores until tomorrow at the earliest. Here's hoping.

Monday was interesting. I came back and took a hardcore, 3-hour nap in the room, then woke up, found Sarah was gone, and got some dinner at Kitsutsuki. Finally deciding I wanted ice cream, I hopped on my bike and rode to Seiyu (the grocery store/complex/thing). There I ran into Sarah and Mark, who was finishing his McDonald's dinner. We chatted for a bit, then bought some stuff, and Mark dared me to drink this really disgusting-looking sake called Nigori-sake. (Turns out it means "cloudy sake" because they leave rice in it to dissolve, rather than filtering out.) So I bought a bottle for a grand total of 400 yen (that should've told me something RIGHT THERE) and was like "okay, let's do this." We argued about where we should hold the celebration. Sarah and I said Mark's room, as he's got a single, we wouldn't be bothering too many people, and he's closer than us to the store. He argued for our room, since he wanted to make fun of the fact we're in a hotel. Finally he conceded, and we head back. Neither Sarah nor I had ever been to Villa 2 (the dorm where he lives) so he lead us back... right to our hotel.

Now it's pouring rain, and that was just mean-spirited of him. So we gave up and headed upstairs, but the mama-san (looking a bit scandalized) announced that Mark can't go up for more than like ten minutes. So I told Mark to hold my stuff, ran upstairs, toweled off, came back down, and we headed off to Villa 2. Sarah opted to stay behind, as she was soaking wet.

So we headed to Villa 2 and I drank the stuff. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great either. So I finished the bottle (with some haste) and it kicked in almost immediately. Word of warning: Don't. Trust. Sake.

Finally Mark laughed at me enough and walked me halfway home. (He argued that he wouldn't walk me all the way home because I'm not cute enough. I'm pretty sure I threatened him at that point. I also gave him a lecture about women, because the girl he's chasing right now is an air-headed bimbo who doesn't even speak English. He thinks she's "cute" because she's almost incomprehensible. Go figure.)

In any case, I made it home and slept very well.

So yes, that's been my week so far. Not exactly amazing, but it'll do.

One other random observation: Japanese cashiers are pushy. They're subtly pushy, but they're still pushy. Once you get your change, they want you GONE. There's no stopping to put your change in your wallet. Go. Leave. Make way for the next customer. It's really unsettling the first few times you notice you're getting stared at for holding up the line. Most stores actually have counters behind the cash registers so that customers have a place to put their items in bags (they don't really bag here, they just put things back in your basket and give you a plastic bag) and put away your change. It's kind of nuts.

Photos of my class!

Woo

Yeah, we're awesome.

jklrta/?!!

(last night I tried to post this but my wireless was spotty at best. So backdate this to the evening of 7/16, I guess)

I’m hanging out in my room (after another long day of doing absolutely nothing except napping and eating) and on TV there’s a travel show. They’re talking about French castles, and I realize now just what I would give to be in Europe, surrounded by people who speak English and don’t have this bizarre, permuted view of American popular culture (and who don’t desperately try to work it into every damn facet of their marketing). Japan is a lot of bright colors, insanity, and deep tradition, all the while with a very definitive sense of “us” and “them”—you can’t get it unless you’re “us”, and that’s impossible for an outsider.

Granted, my Japanese is getting better, and I chat regularly with both the proprietor and the woman who runs the bento shop, by it’s still frustrating to know that wherever I go I’m still an outsider. In Europe, if I walked into a grocery store, it’d be okay. I wouldn’t be even remotely conscious of everyone’s stares, because there wouldn’t be nearly as many—I’m not going to pretend people would overlook me completely, or that they stare as openly as the fat woman on the train here, but there’s always a consciousness that people are looking at me here. In some recess of my mind, out of the corner of my eye, I can see their eyes fixed on me. It’s incredibly isolating.

This is why the students here travel in clusters—it’s much easier to ignore the staring, or at least cope with it, when there are four or five of you to share the burden. The trip to Gamagori and Takeshima was great, because there were four people there and we got to just hang out and have a good time, stares be damned. I got acquainted with Adrian for the first time, Sampath and I faced death together (or so my aching muscles tell me) and Mark and I bonded on the rock overlooking the bay. It’s impressive how close you can become so quickly with these people when you’re all so isolated. It’s not surprising how rampant student in-dating is here—the bonds form fast and deep.

Having said that, I would give my right ovary right now for an apartment with a working internet connection, without a curfew (I have to be back in by 11 because they lock the front door), and for Japan to experience a sudden drop in average temperature (it’s averaged about 90F daily). I asked the bento lady if it was this bad every year—she laughed and told me “Welcome to Japan.”

My friends here are great. Mark is a little... over-friendly. Sampath’s a great, very relaxed dude. Adrian’s cynical, Chinese, and has a British accent (read: super-awesome). Sarah’s funny and cute, if significantly too immature to be traveling on her own. (She blew through 700 euros in her first week here, which is half of the money she’s got.) I’ve made a handful of friends at the bar—Aaron, Ken, Andrea, and “the Good Swede,” though I don’t know his actual name. (Nicknames run miles here.)