Holy crap, am I hardcore.

Let me preface this by saying that I am currently in one of the sorest states of my life. I'm lying on my stomach to write this, and if last night was any indication, I won't be able to roll over without undue pain and aching.

Also, this is an incredibly long and bizarre narrative, so where possible I have broken it up with pictures.

So, the story (illustrated).

Fridays at Yamasa are half-days. We end classes at noon and people break off into small groups to travel or just hang out, and some stick around for private classes until about 1:40. Sampath and I had recruited two other guys--Adrian and Mark--to head to Gamagori, the local beach front/"resort town" to catch some sun. Sampath and I, looking at a map, realize it's about a 14 kilometer distance. Now this gives us two options.

1.) We pay 720 yen for round-trip train tickets (which only take fifteen minutes in either direction)
2.) We save the cash, get some exercise, and bike.

Now realize that yesterday's weather was somewhere between 31 and 33 degrees. Celsius. That equates to about 88-91.5 Fahrenheit. So I don my hat, slather on sunscreen, change into some loose clothing, fill my nalgene bottle, get some hearty lunch in me, and off we go!

First leg of the journey goes down the local main road, 248. 248 is a little bit hilly (the name of the town is, after all, Okazaki, which translates to "Hill on the Peninsula") but not even sweatable. (Well, okay, I was sweating, but let's consider the heat here.) We pull away from the heavily-developed Okazaki area into Koba Town, which is agricultural and full of rice paddies. The view is gorgeous. So with frequent stops to take pictures and catch our breath, we plug on ahead.

Now according to the map (which, I would like to point out, was in no way topographical) the quickest way to get to Gamagori is to break off of 248 and head through a local main road. Sampath and I follow the signs for Central Gamagori, and before we know it, we're in the mountains. Like, literally. We're biking up a mountain. And I'm regretting every single minute of it. Granted, the view is unbelievable, but we spend an hour getting up to the top of that thing. A mountain. A serious, no-fucking-joke mountain. I realize that Sampath's insane, and I'm just an idiot for doing this. It was one of the few times in my life when I seriously considered just giving up and turning back. My stomach's cramping up--I don't know why. My legs are fine but I felt like I could vomit. I realize it’s from the exertion of pushing a bicycle up a mountain road, and, again with frequent breaks in the shade, we trudge along.

At one point very, very close to the summit (though at this point I’m unaware of how close we are), Sampath finds a great hollow in the woods and we put our bikes down there and sit for a bit. He takes a picture of me, I make my "I want everything in the world to die" face [see illustration], and we catch our collective breath. To clarify, that is in fact sweat over every single inch of my body, about a quarter-inch thick. If you had grabbed my arm, I would've slid right out of your hand. It was the most disgusting, slickest, sweatiest I have ever been. I could not have been wetter had I just crawled out of the ocean. I sweated completely through my shirt, my pants, the straps on my sandals, everything. At that point I was glad Sampath and I had collectively brought about two liters of water, since I was chugging it almost nonstop between the foot of the mountain and the top. Though, to be fair, I really did have to pee.

So in any case, we get almost to the top, and I just give up. I sit down, wanting to cry, my abs are cramping like hell for some weird reason or another (but, oddly enough, my legs are doing just fine) and I'm literally bathed in my own sweat. It was the most physically miserable I've ever been. It was worse than the appendicitis I got when I was 13. It sucked.

But finally, after a good ten minutes' rest to get my head back around me, I trudge along--

--and see Sampath, at the top of the road, standing under the "Welcome to Gamagori" sign.

Suddenly overcome by joy, we don't even remember to take a picture, and we start back down. One hand on the break the whole way, we zip along, covering the downslope in literally a sixth of the time it took us to get up. It was the first in a series of absolutely blissful moments that followed that day.

So we get to downtown Gamagori, where we'd planned to meet Mark and Adrian--about an hour earlier. We're late, and understandably, they've left the station already. After that ride, I don't mind paying 150 yen for a bottle of coke, which I blow through in almost no time flat. Sampath and I decide to chug on, still via bike, and after stopping for directions, we finally find the "beach".

The Gamagori beach was at low tide, and there was nothing but mud.

Far from being blissful at that particular moment, I was ready to flip out on mother nature, had I the energy. But, being physically drained, I was rather zen about it and decided we should check out Takeshima, a tiny, hilled island attached to Gamagori by bridge, where Benten, goddess of good luck, is enshrined. (Funny side note: Benten is notoriously jealous of couples, and if you go to the island with your lover, she'll destroy the relationship within a month. Or so the lore says.)

So Sampath and I take our tourist pictures and ride out to the island. The bridge is enormously long, and as soon as we're out in the middle of it, this wind kicks up LITERALLY out of nowhere. The entire bridge starts howling. More than slightly freaked out, I ask Sampath if he hears it too--he does. We ride back into the island, and the wind just disappears, as does the eerie howling sound. It turns out that the mysterious howling wind which is always present around the middle of the bridge is one of the miracles the island is known for, and is considered a sign from the gods of the island.

So we reach the other side, the wind stops--and lo and behold, there are Mark and Adrian coming down the temple steps, out of the woods! Adrian's brought his video camera, which is professional-grade, and he sets it up and asks Sampath about our trip here. Mark and I banter in the background. Mark hears that we went through the mountains, and considers taking my bike back in my stead and letting me ride the train--after that ride, I heartily push the possibility. He wavers, ultimately deciding against it, as the seat is too low.

After the narrative, we ask the guys to wait while Sampath and I head up to the shrine. The entire path is lined with white flags covered in writing, though I didn't stop to try and read them. Under the giant Tori (Shinto gate), Sampath and I paused for pictures before continuing up the enormous flight of stairs that lead to the top.

Shinto tradition dictates that, before entering the shrine, you wash your hands from a sacred pool. We do so, and the cold spring water feels close to heaven. I can see now why this is such a sacred ritual--it's almost spiritual, in that kind of heat, to run cool water over your hands in the shade. Simple, and beautiful. (There was, however, an open room with chairs, tables, and vending machines right next to the entrance. I playfully called them the Vending Machines of the Gods.)

So after washing our hands (a few more times than was necessary, I'm sure) we head into the temple complex. Now to be fair, "complex" in the Shinto sense means "Let's throw a handful of small shrines here and see what happens". There's no rhyme or reason to them, except that the main shrine--to the goddess Ichikishimahimenomikotopassthesalt (I kid you not... okay, except for the salt part)--is the largest, and in the middle of the site. You're supposed to drop a coin in the box, clap your hands twice--the louder, the better--and pray outside the temple in view of the altar. (That day you couldn't get inside the shrine itself, though I don't know if that's standard practice.)

Beside each large shrine there is a wooden stand with pegs sticking out, and wooden blocks with pictures on one side and writing on the other side hanging from the pegs by strings. These are prayer blocks, and seem to be gaining popularity over the traditional method of writing your prayers on a piece of paper and tying it to a tree. Strings, strung between poles lying flush against the trees, are covered in these tiny pieces of paper with pre-written prayers on them. Walking in, you're literally surrounded by the hopes and dreams of thousands of people. It's intensely moving, and the deep shade provided by the enormous trees was more than enough reason for me to linger.

Next to the large shrine there's a table with a book--I'm not sure what you're supposed to write in it, though it looks like a visitor book. I scribble my name down and the date, as well as "New Jersey/Chicago, Illinois". Next to that, in front of the shrine, there is a table with a basket full of tiny folded papers and a box next to it with "100 yen" written on it. I drop my 100 yen in and pick up one of the folded papers. It feels like a coin inside--a blessed version of the coin I'd just dropped in the box, perhaps?--but I don't open it to look.

Sampath and I wander around, looking at the shrines, unable to read anything in the Japanese, and Sampath starts to head back. I want to spend a little more time so I go to the information booth, where I buy one of those wooden prayer blocks. I ask the woman working there--whom I think is a priestess--for a pen, and she gives me one and tells me to write what I wish for on the back of the block, and my name and the city I'm from so that the goddess can find me. I pause, ask her what would be a good thing to write, and she says "anything," though she mentions that the most common things--and the goddess Ichikishimahimenomikoto's specialties--are weath, love, and childbirth. Immediately scratching the childbirth wish from my possibility list, I write my wishes down--love, fortune, long life, the health of my parents, and good luck/happiness (they're the same word in Japanese). Since I'm not sure the gods are bilingual, I write it in Japanese just to be safe. The priestess is dually impressed. [note the picture--that's my block]

I tied it up on the pegs, dropped my five-yen coin in the box (hoping the gods aren't aware of conversion rates), clapped, and said my prayer. As most of the stands and shrines were closing up shop for the day, I headed back down the massive stairs to meet the others below.

Mark, Adrian, and Sampath were idly laying around on the concrete edge near the rocky beach of the island. Adrian had his camera set up and was probably video taping a conversation between Sampath and Mark. I lie down on the concrete next to Mark and we get to talking about how well Shintoism and Buddhism mesh, as Buddhism is concerned almost entirely with the afterlife and nirvana and Shintoism is a very hard-and-fast, nature-based religion that really doesn't touch on the issue of life after death. Adrian videotapes that conversation as well. Mark, meanwhile, asks me what was in the 100 yen packet I’d picked up with the blessed coin. I open it, and see that it’s… a 5-yen coin. Mark is laughing. I am nonplussed.

At some point, somehow, it comes out that Adrian never learned how to ride a bike. Sampath leaps on this, ushers him onto his bike, and tells him to not fall into the bay.

After a few minutes of watching this unadulterated silliness, I decided that I was at least getting my feet in the ocean for all my hard work. I hopped off the concrete walk, climbed down the rocks, and marched right into the ocean--by which I mean “stepped very gingerly”, as the water was seaweed-laden. I found a nice spot to just stand in and did so, letting the water run around my calves.

Then the jellyfish come. And I remove myself from their presence. Far, far away from their presence. So far, in fact, that I decide climbing up a rock formation with a stone lantern on it is a really good idea. So I do. Mark makes fun of me for being afraid of jellyfish, and follows me up. We sit there and alternately chat and admire the view of the water, all the while listening to Adrian's frantic cries as he attempts to keep the bike from tipping over with him on it. It was a very zen moment.

Finally we decide it's getting late, so we should all be heading back. Mark hops down from the rocks, helps me down, and we head back across the bridge. I ask a local to take our picture. We smile. It's nice to have friends.
We finally make it back to the train station, where we drop off Adrian. Mark comes with me to get some food at the McDonald's, and Sampath tags along though he doesn't eat anything. Mark gets the world's smallest milkshake. At least we know the Japanese aren't trying to compensate for anything with this one.

Finally Mark departs, and Sampath and I head back to my bike. Sampath gets really startled when I sit on my bike, and tells me that the seat is far too low. That explained my stomach cramps on the way here--I was hunched over the entire time. I curse profusely and allow him to raise the seat for the ride back. He does, and we head back--the long way.

Not having the energy to tackle the mountains, we take the road around them, which is probably about five extra kilometers, but infinitely easier. I don't even get tired on the way back--I have to walk my bike only twice, once up a giant hill before we passed through the valley, and once more at the end of the journey in Okazaki, where we just had one gradual, long slope and I'd been on my bike for an hour.

So we make it back, decide to meet at the campus bar at 9:30, and part ways. I go up to my room (stopping to tell the proprietor about the trip) and take what is easily the most unbelievable, beautiful, holiest cold shower in my life. After drying off by standing under the air conditioning for ten minutes, I lay around, feeling my muscles cramp as they just begin to realize what I'd done to them that day, and then head down to the bar. I tell Aaron (an ex-student and regular of the bar) about the trip, and he’s in shock we'd taken the mountain route. All told, I settle in, make some friends, have a few drinks, and go back for the night. I slept well.

Oh, what a life.