"He who climbs Mount Fuji once is a wise man, he who climbs it twice is a fool."

I could not agree more with that Japanese saying.

It probably would have been a good idea to get a good night’s rest the night before the climb, but there was a party at work on Friday night and I had to catch a train at 5:30am the next morning. So a night of wine and sake and less than four hours of sleep was probably not the best way to start the day off…

It’s still a bit early in the climbing season (which is only July-August), so we couldn’t take the southern route because the summit was still covered in snow. The northern route (Yoshida Trail) is the most popular, but it was harder for us to get to (1 hour on two trains + 5 hour bus ride + another 1 hour bus ride).

We had a lot of time to kill before starting the climb, so we went to an onsen. This was my first time experiencing a public bath in Japan. After getting used to the fact that everyone was naked, it turned out to be quite relaxing.

After taking a bus up to the 5^th station (at 2300 m), we were shocked at how cold it was! We had heard that the Japanese are usually overly prepared for climbing Fuji, but now we all wished that we had more warm layers too. Our group of 7 students from my program joined forces with 2 other Americans and 4 Norwegians, and we nicknamed ourselves Apollo 13… We started hiking at 10pm.

The hike got surprisingly steep and strenuous. It was especially shocking to see all the old people on the mountain! Towards the end, the trail was very congested and the huge procession of people made forward progress very slow. It was really an incredible sight to see all these people slowly marching up Fuji, appearing as a zigzag of lights crawling up the mountain. There was such a strong sense of camaraderie among everyone.

Around 4am, Apollo 13 made it to the summit (3776 m)! It was freezing and super windy. Half an hour later, we got our sunrise on Fuji.

Afterwards, we crammed into a lodge with other tired hikers, I bought an overpriced bowl of miso soup (¥800!), and tried to sleep. We started the descent around 7:30am. It was very steep and rocky, so we ended up running/sliding down the entire way. Back at the base of the mountain, we went to relax and nap back at the onsen. This was the most exhausting weekend of my life.

I’ve been waiting to climb Fuji since my last trip to Japan and I thought this was an incredible experience…but never again...

Robot wedding

The other day, I had lunch with Shibata-sensei - a robotics professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology, and more importantly, the first guy to get married by a robot. They made sure that I understood that it was by a robot, and not to a robot...

Robot wedding

Revisiting Kyoto

I went back to Kyoto again this weekend since two friends from my program were visiting from Tsukuba. Four of us somehow managed to cram into our other friend’s teeny tiny apartment.

Apparently it’s still rainy season because it was pouring all Saturday, so we spent the day exploring Kyoto in our soggy shoes. We spent most of the day in Arashiyama, a beautiful forested area in the western part of the city. We explored the gardens at Tenryuji Temple, but I especially enjoyed the bamboo forest behind the temple grounds (except for all the mosquitoes, who only went after me). With the rain and fog, it really looked like a magical forest.

Next, we hiked up a hill to Monkey Park Iwatayama. There are 150 Japanese monkeys living on this mountain. I especially enjoyed watching the tiny baby monkeys. We arrived just before feeding time, which was a bit touristy but really funny to watch - the monkeys went crazy! I also bought some chestnuts to feed to the monkeys.

In the evening, we rented a karoke room for 1.5 hours and relived our middle school years by singing Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. Afterwards, we went clubbing with some German couch surfers we met on the streets of Gion. It was a long day, but it was so much fun to go out and explore Kyoto’s nightlife.

Since we hadn’t gone to sleep until about 5am, we “slept in” until 10am (since I’ve been in Japan, I can wake up at 7am without an alarm). I spent Sunday hiking around Fushimi Inari Shrine. There were many paths up the mountain, lined with thousands of red torii, leading to other smaller shrines with little torii and fox statues. We also got a nice view overlooking Kyoto about halfway up the mountain.

This was by far the most fun weekend so far, minus the swarms of mosquitoes. I just counted – I got 40 mosquito bites from this weekend…

Hot and humid and rainy in Kyoto

This weekend I went to Kyoto and met up with other students in my program living in the Kansai area. It was nice to be able to speak English freely with other people. It rained all Saturday, but we still managed to see some sights and explore the city. At Nijo Castle, we walked through the palace corridors on the Nightingale floorboards (designed to squeak to detect intruders) and the gardens.

Next, we headed over to Gion, the downtown area of Kyoto. We walked through the Nishiki Market and enjoyed taking pictures of all the strange foods, including takotamago (octopus with a quail egg stuffed inside the head…yum).

We also went to Yasaka Shrine, which I had visited last year, but this time there was a big ring made out of some plant which you had to walk through in a figure eight pattern (I’m not sure what the significance of it was…).
After a lot more wandering around, we were all pretty hungry and tired (finding a bench in Japan is rare). Gion was super crowded and most of the restaurants were too small to accommodate our party of nine, so we settled on a Mexican restaurant! The couple running the restaurant wore Mexican style clothes and the man played the guitar and sang songs in Spanish, while we got to play along with tambourines :) We wanted to stay out to go karaoke-ing, but the buses stop running around 10 so we decided to call it a night.

On Sunday, I explored the northern part of the city. I went to Kamigamo Shrine, which was near the hills and seemed to be visited by few foreign tourists. There also happened to be a market at the shrine with tons of stands selling food and crafts. My favorite sight was a man walking around with a cat sitting on his shoulder.

Next stop was Kinkakuji Temple, the famous Golden Pavilion. I’ve heard that this temple is a bit hyped up, but I thought it was actually very pretty. A bunch of school kids approached my friend Tim to ask him questions in English, but they ignored me (as usual). They asked their teacher to take a picture of them with Tim, and I think the teacher felt bad and told me I could get in their picture too.

Last stop of the day was Ryoanji Temple, with its famous rock garden. I wasn’t too impressed with the rock garden though – I think I like normal gardens better.

Some observations: Japanese people never seem to put their bags on the ground or eat while walking (which we heard is kind of taboo). We ended up doing both quite often though, since we were hungry and tired of carrying our backpacks around…

Lab

After orientation, I took the Nozomi (the super fast bullet train) for the first time down to Kyoto. I have since moved into my apartment and began working in my lab at ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International). I’m somewhere between Kyoto and Nara, kind of in the middle of nowhere. My apartment is surprisingly big. I have a bedroom with a futon, Japanese-style shower/bath, kitchen area, living room, and balcony. The garbage system in Japan seems pretty complicated – you need to separate your trash into eight categories and there are various schedules to pick up the different bags. Surprisingly, you’ll rarely find any trash cans on the streets of Japan, yet the sidewalks are somehow kept very clean.

There are only two other people in my lab and my host advisor is currently in Tokyo at her other lab. At orientation for my lab, I was surprised at how much they stressed that work hours were from 9am-6pm, you should leave at 5:30pm on Wednesdays, and you need to ask your supervisor for permission to work on the weekends or overtime on the weekdays. I later asked my labmate about these rules, and he said people don’t actually follow them, but companies are probably required to say this to prevent people from overworking (which I’ve heard Japanese workers are known to do).

On Friday evening, I went out with my labmates to Gion, Kyoto. It’s been raining all week, so we all brought umbrellas. I was told to hang onto my umbrella because, although the Japanese are good about returning lost laptops and cameras, umbrellas and bikes are frequently stolen. We had dinner at a tapas-like restaurant. They had some strange items on the menu, including whale and raw chicken, but the weirdest thing we ordered was chicken neck. Afterwards, we went out for some good ol’ Japanese karaoke!

Orientation

I haven’t had much internet access the past week, so I’ve been bad about posting entries. The first week in Japan was orientation with other graduate students from the US, Canada, Germany, France, and the UK. The orientation consisted of intense Japanese language courses, lectures, and cultural activities, including a weekend homestay with a Japanese family.

I really enjoyed my stay with the Kosaka family, and I especially loved playing with the two girls. Over the weekend, I played Super Mario Brothers on the Wii (which I was horrible at) and learned a lot about Pokemon. The family was super nice and everyone spoke surprisingly good English. Highlights included:

- Visiting the girls’ grandparents and seeing old pictures of the family

- Trying out a 3D television and playing with some science exhibits with the girls at the Panasonic Center in Tokyo

- Visiting Kamakura and learning about the various rituals at one of the shrines

- Making pottery

- And of course, eating! Soba, warabi mochi, sushi (although I didn’t enjoy the raw shrimp…)

Me and the Kosaka family

Trying on a kimono

Making a tea cup out of clay from Kyoto

Back in Japan

June 15, 2010

Back in Japan again, this time for a whole summer to do research. I flew in to Narita yesterday and took a bus to the hotel, where I was amused by the hotel across the street. This Christmas themed hotel was complete with Christmas trees, decorations, and Santa statues. We later realized from the hourly rate sign that this was probably a love hotel.


More quirky Japan pics to come...