Reminders

Today, after sitting on my butt for a good two... three... quite possibly four hours (and by sitting, I mean laying in bed) I decided that I needed to get out of the house and do some walking, since this whole "walking" thing wasn't something I had done in-

Wait. Waitaminute. I walked on Friday. On Friday I was at my special needs school with the elementary school kids, year six. Every friday, they have ”やまあるき” or "mountain walking." Since the place is pretty much built into the mountains, there's ample space to go walking up there. It had been a while since I had last walked, so I was actually pretty excited to go up.

Little did I know what awaited for me. We did our usual route at first, which took us past the cowshed and chicken coops, past the kiwi groves (how random is that), then down to where the golf course and the information... cabin thing is. Inside they have a mini map of the area, information on wildlife, and, more importantly, restrooms. So we usually walk to there, and then turn around and walk back since I mean, these are elementary school kids we're talking about.

Today though, since I was with the older kids (last time I was with the first years, a boy in a wheelchair and a small but very very very energetic little girl) I got to go in group one. Group one, since it was only ten o'clock (we started around 9:30) when we got to the cabin (must have walked too fast) was going to do the "marusaku course" and I didn't really think much about the name at first.

Turns out that means "the course where you walk up a giant-ass hill." I mean like, this was no small hill. I think we walked around the circumference of the golf course, because when we got back we were pretty much 100m away from the cabin we started at. We kept losing kids along the way as well, since some of them got tired (it was a really really long walk with a good half of it uphill) so they'd refuse to move, so one teacher would kind of hang behind and coax the kid (or wait for the kid to give up). Eventually, we would be rejoined by that kid, and then some other kid would fall behind.... We even got rejoined by this one kid whom we had left at school, only to lose him again when he too, got tired... Major props to the four kids who managed to stay with the group the whole time.

There was also some leftover snow (from Monday) around the grounds when we were walking. That was fun. That also meant it was COLD, no matter what the temperature was. If it was cold enough to keep snow for a while... yeah, cold.

Anyways though, we got back to the school some time around 11ish. A good solid hour and a half of walking, some of that being hills. I was actually kind of tired.

Saturday, I actually walked back to my place with people rather than ride my bike.

So I dunno what I was thinking when I said I haven't walked in a while. It's not like I'm in the States right now. Yeesh.

But anyways, today, in light of having absolutely nothing to do (...like not study Japanese and not work on correcting papers) I decided to take a little walk before video chatting with my parents (with my brother as a surprise guest). I've been meaning to start doing like... routine walks up the giant hill/mountain behind my house, for at least like, 30 minutes or something since it's probably the most outside working out I'll do apart from my daily commute. Plus it's really pretty.

So I started up the giant hill, with the intention of going and seeing the pretty area along the route to the mountain castle... but then I decided to see if the baseball kids were practicing or something (despite it being Sunday, the day when most shops aren't open here, including this adorable cafe I found that is one of my new favorite places in Takahashi).

As I walked up towards the fields, I came across these really cool looking moss covered stairs, and thought "hm, where do these go?" Since it's winter, there is a significant decrease in the chances of encountering one of the dreaded huge black and yellow spiders (or any spider for that matter) and bugs in general. This makes me much much much more inclined to explore places I haven't been to in the mountains, since I actually think it's pretty interesting. Up the stairs I went! I thought I was going to slip and fall, but it was alright, and at the top there was this kind of little grove and something that may or may not have been a path and a bunch of bamboo. I decided to go back down.

It wasn't long though before I reached this little park area that had a little uhhh, not pagoda, but it has one of those roof things, shoot, I swear I know the word, but I just can't... remember it. Terrace? No. It looks like a small hut and it's roundish but more polygonal with straight edges... I want to say bungalow but that's not it either. Anyways. One of those. In this little clearing area with a pond that screamed out "MOSQUITO BREEDING PLACE." So glad it was winter. But there were some stairs there as well, so I figured, why not. I was really curious to find out where those stairs went.

The entire stairway and path to the stairs were completely covered in dead leaves and mulch, as if nobody had been there for a long long while. The first thing I worried about was, "what if there are bugs and slugs and even worse, mukade, hiding underneath these leaves?" So I resolved to look down as little as possible, and made my way up the stairs. About midway, I could see that they led to this kind of clearing looking thing, so despite my misgivings about running into snakes or giant centipedes, I walked up to the clearing.

It turned out that in the clearing area, the path continued up along the edge of the hill/mountain that I could see. Along the path, green knee-high weeds had sprung up, making me slightly wary about finding spiders and spider webs. But so far, nothing.

This continued, with me going another twenty feet before stopping and looking at the path before me and wondering if I should continue down it. By this point, I had traveled pretty far. I could see the baseball field... off in the distance. I wasn't really eager to make my way down the (damp) leaf strewn stairs, and I really wanted to find out where the path went. I mean, it had to go somewhere, right? I thought originally, it went to a clearing or something, but as it turns out, it actually led to a space above the baseball field, another dirt field with this abandoned looking... fountain or something, along with a fenced in set of benches that looked like an observation spot. I was kind of tired from climbing, so I wandered over towards the raised spot where the benches were and as I got closer, I noticed that there was actually more stairs, as well as an actual path with railings and everything.

This piqued my curiosity even more, and I found myself once more wandering down the path until I got to this watchtower thing, and then to a map thing that I had absolutely no idea about. It turns out I thought I was on the wrong end. I thought it was showing that I was at the end, but I guess I was at the beginning of it? There were stairs down, so I figured "why not just follow the stairs? As long as I keep going to the left and downwards... I'll probably end up somewhere closer to my house."

I passed a bunch of paths that looked closed because of I have no idea, and these observation decks... or something. It said that it was the university park or something? The paths looked like they were somewhat maintained (as opposed to the leafy path I had taken earlier) so I figured hey... they must go somewhere! This was an area of Takahashi that I hadn't actually explored though, so every time I looked out, I had absolutely no idea where I was.

Eventually, after going down stairs for what felt like twenty minutes, and passing by this really interesting shrine with a bunch of stone figurines, I found myself in someone's backyard area, where they had a garden. Thankfully, there was a stone path towards an actual kind of road thing, which led to, finally, a familiar place, about 200m from where my house was. My legs were not so happy with me, from having to go up, then down, all those stairs. But they were more than willing to walk me the rest of the way home so that I could sit down and drink some tea.

On my journey though, I realized that I had forgotten how freaking gorgeous it is around my place. If I was in the States, I never ever would have been able to just wander off like that and get lost in the woods for forty minutes before wandering back home again. I live in a pretty awesome place. The woods were really pretty (and even better, I hadn't run into bugs). The shrines were old, and screamed out that kind of rural Japan that just made me shake my head in wonder. I mean, you see them and just go "...damn, I'm totally in Japan aren't I."

I love having those moments, even though I've been here for a year and a half, almost. Takahashi, really, is an amazing place to live, now that I've taken the time to explore it and have found restaurants I actually like. The hours suck, sure, but still. I really do love it here. I guess deciding to leave has really... made me appreciate the things I have here more.

Invisible

Yesterday I went to kibichuo cho with the two JETs there for a really nice thanksgiving dinner and general hanging out.

Kibichuo cho is beautiful and really quaint, though parts of it made me swear I was back in irvine and the lake forest area.  It made me do a double take ahaha.

Oh yeah, we had parfait too, earlier in the day, but it wasn't the huge one that I had been expecting. There were 14 of us so it was fiiiine and actually I was a little hungry afterwards since I hadn't eaten anything the whole day out of anticipation and forgetfulness.

After parfait though, one of my friends drove me back to kibichuo cho where we picked up her monk friend who doesn't really seem like a monk. He works and lives at the Buddhist temple... But he smokes, drinks, swears, and drives a Harley (and speaks really good English!). Cool, just not what you'd expect from a monk! He gave us a tour of his temple though and explained things about the inside.

It was wondrous. I geeked out so hard, since I had studied Chinese Buddhism in college. It was like oooohhh my gooood. Most of this stuff (he said) was the same as the Chinese version that had been imported so many ages ago. They had had some of the original sutras in a lacquered wooden box (is it redundant to say lacquered wooden?) and there were six that unfolded to reveal original Chinese script that was at least 700 years old.

700 years. Holy crap. That's really old. So it was kind of amazing, being able to see them. He also took us into the epitaph room, where they had the epitaphs of all the ancestors... Though he didn't mow ( or didn't say) how old they were. He said ancestors go in kind of forever and possibly these went to the beginning of time.

We also saw the calligraphy one of the calligraphy masters in china had written. They were really gorgeous. What else was there...

They had bodhisattva statues and the whole place smelled of incense. There were also small mukades crawling all over... That was kind of gross. But their slippers were amazing. They were the nicest slippers I've seen. They were green with gold patterns that were all swirly... and Chinese.

The tablet of the former ANA president was there too. He told us about how the president's house was in kibichuo and how he worked really hard at improving Chinese and japanese r elations after the war after an experience with his Chinese roommate. His Chinese roommate eventually went back to china hating Japan and Japanese because of how he was discriminated here in Japan. I can kinda understand a little.

But yeah. The temple was amazing. So amazing to go into and see.

After, we went to dinner after that at a really cute British themed place called the Bernese house. They made us thanksgiving dinner... And holy wow. It was amazing. We had a chowder soup, salad, walnut bread, and some of the best chicken I've had ever. Seriously, it was delicious. I'd take that over turkey any day. I think he tried to make it look a little like turkey; there was a piece of foil wrapped around a part that you could grab and pick up and eat like a savage haha.

The cook was ridiculously nice. Since he didn't know what a thanksgiving dinner was, he actually looked it up online and based the dinner around what he found (I guess, sadly, he found no mashed potatoes) :) He was from. Hokkaido. We had a fun talk about food afterwards. :)

Seriously though. Ridiculously good food.

Afterwards we went back and talked until eventually both of the guys left. Oh yeah, the monk also studied agriculture in salinas valley so he had been to places in California! But after they went back the really good talk started. Girl talk. We vented to each other hahaha. But we also talked about what it was like to be an Asian American and she talked about how it was hard to always be in the shadow of a fellow jet because their skin was white and they didn't look like Asian people. I don't get that too much - only when I hang out with some of my other friends. But the poor girl gets it all the time in the town, and sometimes people completely ignore her because they think she's Japanese or Chinese. I know how that feels, and to feel it all the time like that...

None of us (or well, most of us) come to Japan seeking attention, and it's not like we're saying we want lots of attention. It's not that. I actually prefer to not have much attention on me. But when you're standing next to someone with the same qualifications and everything else equal. (or maybe your Japanese isn't as good but you both still got hired, so nobody is 'better' than anyone else in that sense). The only difference is the color of your skin... not something you can so easily control. And they get showered in attention (some pr a lot of it unwanted) while you get mostly ignored because they make the assumption that you're Japanese or because you just don't look that foreign. I've been fortunate enough to where sometimes when I'm out with my friends and that happens sometimes I do get included... but sometimes I don't. And to have that happen all the time is taxing.

There are good aspects about being Asian too, don't get me wrong. My friends have all told me that it gets really annoying having people come up to you, or yell at you, or interrupt what you're doing to try and speak English, and I can understand that. I can understand that it's probably annoying to always be in the spotlight and stared at. But sometimes we get a little tired of being ignored and invisible. And yeah, I know the grass is always greener on the other side... But if it were you, would you rather be an invisible nobody, or a celebrity?

Hard call.

Sink mold

Hurrrg, so it took me this long to notice that my posts are actually all time stamped in Pacific Standard Time. Normally, I wouldn't care (which is why I haven't noticed) but yeaaaaaaaah, I was trying to figure out if I had written a post for today or not and I looked and was like "...wait how could I write this post yesterday at 8 am about a concert I went to at 6pm?" CONUNDRUM.

Or well, not really. More like, TIME ZONES LOLS. Sigh. Well, I've got that fixed now, hopefully.

*

My house is really really old - almost as old as my school. When I first got here, they told me that it was either 40 years old, or that it was built in the 40's. Based on what I've seen, I'd totally believe that it was built in the 40's.

When I first got here, there was a ring of mold around the ceiling/walls of my shower/bath room at least a foot wide. Just lots of black spots that my predecessor had warned me about. He said that his girlfriend had an allergic reaction to the mold and couldn't stay there so they changed to a different apartment. Me, being stubborn, decided that I would try the place out after giving it a good cleaning.

I'm happy to say that the mold went away, after several rounds of vigorous cleaning. It hasn't really come back either (since I try to clean every so often, and when I see it BAM out comes the mold cleaner).

My sink though, my sink is a different beast completely. I clean that WAY more than I clean anything else. Like, I have a drain and a basket thing inside the drain with a net to catch the stuff that got through the grate thing that's on top of the basket with the net. The grate thing has the biggest holes, and catches everything larger than finely diced foods. The net catches the rest of that. I try to change the net once a week when I cook during the week, but sometimes if I don't cook (or don't do dishes for a week) I don't change it until the sink is empty. I clean the basket itself about once a month, and sometimes more often.

But that once a month... oh god, it's disgusting. I swear, tonight I cleaned it but I cleaned it the last time I changed the basket, which was two or three weeks ago? But I didn't cook at all last week soooo yeah. Mold was growing on the bottom of the basket and around the bottom of the drain and some of it was black while also part of it was kind of slimy.

SO FREAKING GROSS.

I'm not entirely sure which will kill me first though- the mold in my house, or the stuff that I use to clean it. The cleaning agents here are ridiculously strong.

I meant to write about my school's culture festival preparations, but yeah, mold is kind of good at growing in places where it shouldn't be.

Halloween!

Oh my god it's November already. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? I could have sworn it was still October last time I checked. That's probably why I haven't posted for a good half month (which, I suppose isn't too bad when you look at how long it's been since I've written a newsletter...).

The thing I've been the most busy with recently - in addition to studying for the JLPT and working on applications for graduate school - has been Halloween lessons. Since Halloween fell on a monday this year, we did all the lessons a week early, though I'm told by one of my Japanese teachers that a bunch of kids turned up on Monday and tried to trick-or-treat with her.

I almost feel bad for the ALT who will be replacing me eventually... these kids are all going to attack the person and try to trick-or-treat with them haha.
I really do enjoy giving them the candy though. Saying that makes me seem kind of creepy, but I swear it's not like that. I didn't do it as much this year since I got swarmed several times, but candy has been one of the best motivators to get them to speak English. In addition to teaching them the phrase "trick or treat" I also usually asked them a question. This year, in honor of the business I was giving Japanese dentists, the question was "What's your favorite sweet?" The kids who had better English had to answer in proper sentences heheheh.

There was also a Halloween party I went to with a bunch of other ALTs Friday night (since having it sunday would have destroyed us all). It was super fun, and I actually made my costume for that this year (though only a handful of people knew my costume, which made me kind of sad. I guess I'm used to having a bunch of really really nerdy friends lol). The costume was a white mage hoodie - a surprisingly easy thing to sew together (though technically, I cheated and glued the triangles on since I lacked the time). It was by no means good or perfect - the seams were laughably crooked and I forgot to save fabric for a liner for inside the hood so you couldn't see the seams, and completely forgot to sew down part of the triangles - but it still was pretty alright. I used the sewing machines at school, since my school has a dressmaking room for the home economics girls. Doing everything was actually kind of fun, though a little tedious. Hopefully, eventually I'll get pictures up. I wore that costume to my monday school and some of my kids thought I was santa. That made me even sadder. But I guess on the plus side they said it looked really cute?

We also had an "English in Takahashi" day the thursday before halloween. English club basically takes over one of the small shops owned by the schools in the covered mall area and does activities. Last year we played Simon Says for like... the whole time (I, for the record, am awful at Simon Says). This year, since it was so close to Halloween, we decided to do Halloween things. I wanted to carve pumpkins but those were kind of expensive, so we found crafts online instead.
Using pipe cleaners, we made little pumpkin finger... things... and spiders. We also used construction paper to make pumpkins and then we glued faces on them. There was also candy, and I went in my witch costume that I no longer have. Oh, and this water color thing I brought back from the states and some Halloween tattoos. Originally, I had intended for the kids to take like... one or two tattoos back with them, but there was kind of a communication error and they ended up taking a whole page of tattoos. Part of me was like "ARGGG NO WHY" but then again there were only 3 kids who came this year, which, I suppose, is still one more than last year. Yeah though, my Japanese Teacher of English really likes to start just giving things away and I was like noooo I have other uses for these. Oh well though, hopefully the kids are enjoying them. They were pretty cute, even if two of the kids there were brothers of one of the kids who does the Exchange Diary with me.

For all of my classes except for the one actually on Halloween, I wore a witch's hat, mantle, and orange feather boa to work. It was a lot of fun, and the reactions I got from people - both students and teachers alike - were amusing. It kept surprising people. They'd turn the corner, see me, and gasp, "BIKKURISHIMASHITA" which is basically shouted out "I'M SURPRISED." There's no swearing, just stating that you're ridiculously surprised. But yeah, that was fun. Sadly though, I only have the mantle from that costume now. The hat I forgot when we visited the orphanage for Halloween on sunday and the feather boa... well it was coming apart anyways, so I gave it to one of the girls at the special needs school. When I wore it there, she was just so fascinated by that that she played with the boa for the better part of an hour. I wish I could have given her a new one, since this one was constantly losing feathers (and they'd make her go pick up the feathers). Those things were from either Daiso or the cheapo section of Toys-R-Us, so I really didn't mind. I'm glad the feather boa has an owner who doesn't care that it's losing feathers. She just looked so happy when she was playing with it... how could I say no? I couldn't.

Halloween in Japan though... is really a kids thing and a retail thing, I think. All the candy goes Halloween themed. But there's not much more. A student told me that houses in Japan are a little small, so having parties at them... not so great actually. After seeing a couple of my friend's places, I can see why. THose places are *tiny*. My place isn't, though sometimes I wish it was. It's not like people come over to my place. I should probably fix that, but seriously... we usually either go into okayama city, or I'll go to the guys' places because they have video games or whatnot.

But anyways.

I'm stealing this idea from one of the other JETs here: NaBloWriMo. Since I don't have the time to be writing a whole entire novel during this month with studying for the JLPT and with applying for graduate school (which, ahem, I should be doing now, rather than writing this blog post) the goal is a blog post a day! And to get the godforsaken newsletter out at some point in time. Yeah. Yeaaaaaaaaah.

LET'S WRITING.

The Future

This weekend was pretty relaxing, which was nice since classes (and planning for said classes, and culture festivals) are starting again this week. Saturday was mostly cleaning and cooking... kind of. The day had so much promise... and then I went back to sleep and felt rather lazy. It was kinda a meh day outside, and the observatory in one of the cities (asakuchi? Something like that... down near Kasaoka) was open to the public, but the person who was going changed the time he was going to early in the morning at 9ish and I was like yeaaaaah it takes me an hour and a half to get there at least, so yeaaaaah, not leaving here at 7 on a saturday. No thank you. It wasn't really a full day thing anyways. A bunch of people were going to the beach, but I was feeling kind of bleh (I just came back from a food eating binge in the states, after all) so that idea got nixed as well. Plus it was getting late.

And then I discovered Infinity Blade. Ohhhh man. Oh man. It's kind of awesome. It's a game for the iPad where you control this dude who's trying to avenge his father... again and again. You battle enemies in duels, and your finger swipes become sword swings in whatever direction you're swiping. You can block, dodge, and parry blows, plus throw in some hits of your own. You level up your equipment in order to gain experience yourself. Some equipment have magical abilities; what magic they have, you can use. Heal has been my best friend.

Needless to say, my grand plans to get lots of stuff accomplished that day got.... sidetracked. I did finally get out to Juntendo and Polka for doing some grocery and necessity shopping. I also managed to get a couple loads of laundry loaded, and I finally aired out my futon.

Right before I left, this nagging voice in the back of my head told me that I should probably take my futon in. Just in case. Better safe than sorry and all that.

And what did I do?

I ignored that voice.

That was a really really really unwise decision. But the day was so nice; there were few clouds in sight and it was pretty sunny. Plus the weather said that there was no sign of rain last time I checked. I thought I would be alright. I thought wrong.

Right as I got out of Juntendo, the home store, ziploc plastic containers in hand, I looked up at the sky and could have sworn I saw a drop or two. I started to get more nervous. I debated heading back home right then and there, but I still had a list of food things I needed to buy. I'd be fast, I figured. It wouldn't take that long.

It took long enough. When I exited the building, shopping complete (lists really do make things go faster), it was raining. Hard. My mind went into panic mode (and berate yourself for being stupid mode). I secured my stuff to my bike and took off as fast as I could (nearly losing some things along the way). As I rode towards my house, it started to rain harder; the rain actually was hurting as it pelted my face. I had no umbrella, no poncho, no jacket, nothing water proof; I hadn't thought to bring anything since it didn't look like rain. I could have bought one from the store or from the conbini.

I had priorities though. That priority was getting home and taking my futon. I was praying that the heavy rain was slow moving and that it hadn't reached my house yet. Ponchos, umbrellas, would have just slowed me down. I swear that's the fastest I've biked back home. Uphill. In the rain.

My futon was half wet when I got back, so I pulled it inside my house, into the doorway. So much for trying to air it out! This is the SECOND time this has happened.

Jessica: 0 Nature: 2

Sigh.

To make matters worse, my bike, left to stand on its own, was extremely unbalanced and went tumbling over, getting my stuff muddy and denting the basket a little. Nothing big. But I mean, after having biked home in the ridiculously humid rain, pouring sweat from the uphill ride, and getting soaking wet, the bike falling was super extra sucky.

Seriously, did the weather come here from San Diego? WHERE DID THAT RAIN COME FROM. Augh. Nature hates me sometimes, I think.

Yeah though, after that, I didn't get much done because I was too busy drying off and trying to sit still so I wouldn't keep pouring sweat. And then I cooked stuff (meatballs to be specific). I hope they aren't bad yet. >_> <_< They didn't smell bad. I'm still not sick today. That's a good sign, right?

Today was much nicer though. I cleaned. Just did all the dishes. Haven't felt like doing much after that. Met up with the new Kibichuo Town JETs for pastry breakfast. They're super nice. :) We ate at Chalon, the really really awesome patisserie in Takahashi and chatted a bit before going our separate ways. I went to AEON mall to watch the new Ghibli movie.

It's super cute! I didn't understand a lot of what they were saying, but I did understand a good 50% of it! And I think I understood the general story as well. Thank goodness boy-likes-girl and oh em gee drama are pretty easy to read by body language. And even though I'm only 60% sure what was going on, it was still a super cute movie. It reminded me a little of my study abroad time on the Scholar Ship, mostly because the different signal flags play a small role in the story. Really cute though. I'm excited to see it with subtitles, haha.

I suppose I should clean or something before bed. Study. Shower. I think I transferred all the dirt from my dishes onto me. -_-; It was so hot too. @,@

OH. So the whole reason why I titled my entry "the Future":
We were at AEON (we being me and my friend from Okayama :3 ) and I went crazy cause they had frozen spinich, western frozen veggies (broccoli, carrots, cauliflower), and just frozen green peas. Seriously. THis is what I get excited over now. Hooray for my life. I'm so easy to please. But I bought some before I left for Takahashi, and the lady asked me if I needed ice, so I said yes and she gave me a token.

Turns out that token is for a machine. You put your bag of groceries in the machine, on little hooks. You close the door. You put the token in and hit start. AND THEN THE WHOLE MACHINE STARTS TO SMOKE. What you're getting dumped into your grocery bag isn't just regular ice, it turns out. IT'S DRY ICE. They give you dry ice to keep your frozen stuff cold. Holy. Freaking. Shit. Dry ice. For frozen veggies. At the grocery store. At the mall. In Japan. It's time like these that Japan lives up to the "crazy technology" stereotype I had of it before I came over here.

Also, I swear I'm working on the newsletter. Slowly. Yet surely. I swear it'll get out before September, which is in.... 3ish or so days. Yeaaaaah. Yeah. Yeah. WORKING ON THAT.

White water

Today I went with a couple of AJET folks down to Kochi Prefecture to the Yoshino River for some whitewater rafting. I was suuuper excited, since I've wanted to go for quite some time. Our group chose to do the half day tour, since today was a sunday and most of us have work tomorrow (or have to wake up early), and from okayama it's about a two hour drive (though you can get there by train as well). The half day we went on started at 2, went until 5ish. There was a place we went for lunch that had pretty tasty gyuudon and felt like we were eating at this quaint little, almost rustic cottage house run by grandmas. Dinner was at a road side ramen/katsu shop. So freaking tasty. I think that's one of the things I wish i had a car for.

I had no idea driving in Japan was so expensive! Oh my god. The bridge toll to cross the Seto-Ohashi? 3,300 yen. WTF. That's like, about $40 with the current (crappy) exchange rate. FOR A BRIDGE TOLL. I won't complain about the bay bridge being $6 any more.

I didn't expect there to be so many mountains down there; it seemed like that area was pretty much all mountains and valleys. It was absolutely gorgeous, and though the day started off kind of rainy and drizzly, the rain let up by the time we got going for a really nice day. It wasn't too humid (for once), it wasn't too hot, it wasn't really cold. It was nice. :) We were split into two different cars going down; I was in the car without a GPS since I had my wifi and my iPad. Never thought it'd come in so handy like this! Very glad I bought it. :)

We went with a company called Happy Raft; they have a bunch of international guides and stuff, so we were speaking English the whole time we were down there. It was ridiculously fun. I love water sports :D The river we were on was only a 3 (out of 6) so it wasn't too too bad, though there were a couple of fun white patches. We didn't flip. We got stuck a couple times, and very nearly flipped. Our boat was getting pulled into the calm space behind a rock and we were starting to lean towards there... so our guide had all of us move over to the opposite side, and thankfully, we managed to balance ourselves out and break free. there were a bunch of calm stretches we got to play games on. Every one of us went for a swim, but nobody fell out without someone putting an effort into it. We also managed to rodeo flip our boat, head over end. That was pretty sweet. We had a huge boat too (since there were 8 of us).

t'was loads of fun; I definitely want to do this again! Interestingly enough, I did get injuries. Blisters, for one. But it wasn't from the rafting. It was from putting on the wet suit. I put it on BACKWARDS by accident, since I'm used to having the zipper in the back (that's what it was like for scuba diving). So I got to put it on twice. Now I have two blisters: one on each ring finger. Stings like a mofo. My shoulders are also really sore, but that's not from paddling. It's from being hauled back into the boat several times. Seriously, that and getting on the wetsuit were the hardest parts of this trip.

I haven't felt this sore in a while. I didn't even feel this sore after fuji or the six hour bike ride. This is like, a deep kind of achey sore that makes me feel rather... old. And tired. But I totally want to do it again sometime. :D

Hopefully I'll be able to get pictures up sometime. One of us bought the CD with pictures on it... so I suppose eventually it'll make it up here somehow.

富士山： Let's Mount Fuji Pt. 2

I'm finally going to finish my post about climbing Mount Fuji! It's kind of turned into a really really long post. Hopefully this makes up for the lack of posts in July.

So, as an edit to the last post I made about the three different groups, actually, even people who were in the second group, due to the enormous crowd of people climbing Fuji, were not actually at the top at sunrise. They were close, but they still had a bit to hike to reach the actual summit.

Really then, I had no chance of making it to the top and back down again without missing the bus and also probably missing the group at the onsen. I probably would have had to take a bus to the train and then shink back to Okayama. That would have cost an exorbitant amount of money, especially if I had to taxi instead of bus back, and I currently do not have those kinds of funds.

I'm a little disappointed that we went all that way and didn't reach the top. In retrospect, I should have realised that this hike was slightly out of my range, and that I would have had a much better time (and would have reached the top) had I done it in two stretches: hike up to the 7th or 8th stations, rest for a while in the huts, and then make my way leisurely to the top, sunrise be damned. Really, you can see a fantastic sunrise from the 8th station. Fuji is definitely not a mountain that you should rush, so it's far better to overestimate the amount of time you think you're going to take. Like I said before, we did an overnight climb, leaving the 5th station on the Yoshida trail between 9 and 9:30. Sunrise was at 4:20ish. Websites quote that it takes between 5 and 8 hours to do the climb to the top. It took the moderate group about 8 hours to reach the top. The top part, just before the summit is actually quite crowded so places that shouldn't take a long time, do. I think one of the groups said it should have taken them 30 minutes, but took them an hour instead. Many people, as we were talking after the climb, had extreme amounts of rage at the tour groups that had done the climb (there were a lot of them). Thankfully, I didn't have this rage. I'm still proud that I got as far as I did, but dunno, sometimes it's kind of embarrassing to admit that no, I did not make it to the top.

Anyways.

The Fuji trip started off way before we got to the actual mountain. I caught a train in from Takahashi to Okayama, taking the second train that got me in 5 minutes before the meet up time rather than the earlier train that got me in a full hour before the meet up time. Figured it wasn't worth trying to rush out of my house and forget something important.

I met up in Okayama Station with all the other crazies who had decided to climb Fuji, where we'd all catch the bus together. We were waiting at the West Exit, where the buses usually come and happened upon this gem of a bus:

Yeah Space Dolphins. :D

It turns out though, that through miscommunication (or just bad information or something) we actually weren't supposed to be at the west exit, so we all moved over to the east exit bus stops, and then eventually to granvia grandvia? - the fancy hotel where the bus driver walked over to escort us to the bus. Yeaaah. The first of several hiccups on our trip. But no matter. We all boarded the bus, and off we went!

A bunch of people brought movies, though half of them weren't region 2 so we unfortunately missed out on some Men in Tights and Mulan. We did watch Hot Fuzz and Amadaeus, though some people were trying to sleep during this leg of the trip since, you know, we'd be hiking all through the time when normal people sleep.

I think I managed to doze off several times throughout the trip, but not for very long each time. Our bus also stopped every 2 hours at a rest stop - and damn, I gotta say, Japanese rest stops are absolutely amazing. They're even more amazing when compared to california rest stops. In California, our bathrooms are kinda gross and dirty, and there's usually only bathrooms and maybe gas at the place, or a convenience store attached to the gas station. Sometimes there's fast food. But the Japanese ones, oh man. Ohhhh man.

One of the places we stopped had a map of the toilets that had lights to tell you if they were occupied or not. There were bathroom grandma's staffing the bathroom making sure it was spic and span; I'm pretty sure they thought I was some crazy Chinese person, especially since I took pictures in the bathroom, and came back again LATER to take more pictures. That whole place though, is CRAZY. Sadly, I had no idea where this actually was.

Eventually though, about 9 hours (that's pretty much the average time it takes to drive from San Diego to San Francisco, albeit with far fewer rest stops) and lots of snacks later, we arrived at the 5th station of Fuji, right at the Yoshida trail and the Kawa-soemthing 5th station. It's the one where most people go; there's tons of omiyage shops and shops that sell those wooden sticks and other things to climb the mountain with. It was dark when we arrived around 8:30ish, and it was COLD. Or well, not cold, but quite chilly! A nice change from the blazing heat that we had traveled through during the day, but when we looked out and saw people in their jackets and everything, it took us by surprise.

After arriving, we unloaded the bus and everyone went to go change and put on the necessary layers (we were still in our "damn it's hot" clothes). I put in my contacts, as well as my light longsleeve heattech shirt from Uniqlo - usually I wear this long sleeve, thermal-like layer under my clothes in the winter. I figured that it was better to start off with the bottom layers first, and then add as we go on. My bottoms, I was just wearing the lightweight pants that I had been wearing on the bus ride over. My legs don't normally get cold easily, so I figured that I could put on the tights that I had later when it actually started to get cold. In retrospect... I'm not sure. While it would have gotten quite warm with them on, I'm sure I would have lived. Changing anything below the waist involved a lot of work; when I actually did put my thermals on, it was really really really really tiring. I had to unlace my boots and pull them off, careful not to step on the gross bathroom floor (though, for public toilets, most were fairly clean). It also took a lot of time to do. So I'm not sure.

Anyways, we all gathered as a large group after we had all finished changing and our group leaders told us about the trail and stuff and about how long it would take, and what to expect going up and coming down, and about altitude sickness (actually called acute mountain sickness though, AMS). We double checked our climbing buddies. Adjusted our headlamps. My headlamp was TINY. Not so good an idea, actually. It was cute, yes, and it made it look like I had a giant power button (and was waterproof, which I wasn't sure if the other was) as well as not super expensive. Yeah, I kind of wish I had picked a different headlamp. One that rotated would have been excellent, because then I wouldn't have to move my head as much in order to figure out what was directly below me. That got annoying.

Everything in check, I decided to start off with my climbing buddy. Our friends were still taking a little bit of time to get ready, and the main group had already gone off. And well, I'm really slow. I know this. So I didn't want to wait around for longer because, I figured, I needed as much of a headstart as I could get if I was going to get up the mountain in time. So off we went.

Initially, from the 5th station, the Yoshida trail is actually really really easy, and really nice. We were walking down it and were like "yeah, if Fuji is like this the whole way, piece of cake." Oh how naive we were. At some point, we actually started walking *down* and I was kind of like, what, why are we going down? This downhill part became an annoying and aggravatingly long uphill walk on the way back.

We hit a more gravelly area, and I got tired of not being able to see stuff as easily with the headlamp on my head, so I pulled it off and attached it to the top of my walking stick instead. It reminded me of Gandalf a little bit, so we had a good laugh fooling around, pretending it was a magic staff, pretending it was He-man's sword, the thundercat sword... Yeah. This was while we still had energy and thought all was well.

Eventually, we hit this part that was lots of rocks going up. We saw this and were like "ah, so Fuji, you start to show your true face" and began our ascent. Shamefully, I was/am far more out of shape than I thought (and I had already assumed I was pretty out of shape) but the altitude hit me really fast and it wasn't before long that I was huffing and puffing for breath as we continued our climb up. I had to rest several times to catch my breath before I could continue. It was kind of embarrassing, and I felt bad for my climbing partner.

Eventually, our group of friends caught up to us; they said they had started off extra fast in order to catch up to us. I felt kind of bad. They would have caught us eventually; this was inevitable at the rate that I was going. But after they caught up, the six of us set out together. This was right before the sixth station, I believe, for we soon hit the really boring zig-zaggy bit after the sixth station where you're basically just walking up loose gravel (like, really lose gravel) and rocks for a looong while. It was here that it became apparent that our group had several different speeds. Alia and Lok were the fastest, followed by Hannah and Gemma (my climbing parterner). In the rear with me was Caroline. Both of us were not having fun going up the hill. Mountain. Have I mentioned how much I hate going uphill?

Eventually, it got to the point where the two fast ones would hike ahead, wait for us, and then we'd catch up, wait a bit more, and then set off again. If that were me, and I was trying to make it to the top by a certain time, I'd definitely be... annoyed a little. So eventually, we decided to swap climbing buddies - Caroline and I would be partners, while my partner, Gemma, and her partner, Hannah, would be climbing buddies instead. That way we were with people around our same speed. Happily paired, we let them go on ahead while we continued to tackle the route, bend-by-bend. Literally. We'd go from one bend to another, resting a little bit (or a lot if it was a harder path) at the end of each one. I've never felt more out of shape in my life. But the path that we were treading on was this volcanic rock stuff, large pebbles that shifted as you stepped on them, making your foot sink in and slide back a little bit each step. This is my reasoning for why such an uphill climb felt harder than it looked.

But hey, it worked I think. Small goals, we told ourselves. Small goals. Each bend in the road. More frequent, short rests meant that we could catch our breath faster without feeling like we're dying, thus saving time over all. I thought it was pretty effective.

At each station, and each hut, actually, as well, there's a guy who sits next to this giant kettle with the embers of a fire and a big giant brand, which he'll burn into your stick for 200 yen. They're really cool brands, and if you're looking for a souvenier, this one is pretty good. Plus my stick came in fairly handy when I was leaning or pulling myself up rocks or whatever with it. It was a little annoying when it got to the rockclimbing parts (I tried stowing it between me and my backpack, like a sword-stick, but I underestimated just how damn long the stick was, and ended up in constant danger of hitting things like the rocks and my climbing buddy), but otherwise it was perfect. I didn't spend too much money on hiking poles (though they would have been useful going down I think) and it also gave me something to stamp at each hut that we made it to. It kind of felt like I was unlocking achievements with each hut I got to, and then was thusly rewarded with a stamp that got branded into my wooden walking stick.

Most of the guys manning the branding bits were young dudes (won't complain about that) and generally, when you walk up to the station, walking stick in hand, they can tell that there's a chance you'll want a brand. Especially if you already have lots. So a lot of them actually came up and were like "braaaaand?" and I was like "YESPLS *pant pant*" in the least attractive way possible lol. Not that it mattered. But as the night wore on, a couple of the huts actually weren't giving out stamps because the brander was sleeping. One of the dudes though, let me in to the nice warm branding hut and entertained a couple of questions while we waited for the fire to warm up that I managed to piece together in Japanese and a little English. We had a fun conversation about how the kettles used to heat water in the old days, but now they just used the electric pottos and didn't really use the giant kettles so much. It was a nice break from walking.

Also, at these huts where they sold the brands, they usually also sold food and beverages, so in case you ran out of or stupidly forgot water or sports drink, you could buy it there... for a price. That price being an arm and a leg. Water, if I remember correctly, was around 400 yen. Food was more expensive. I think a cup ramen was going for 600 yen or something. EXPENSIVE. And it only got *more* expensive as you got closer to the summit. Since I didn't make it all the way up, I dunno how much it cost up there but I heard it's a pretty yenny.

On a related note, water is HEAVY. I never noticed this as much before. I took 2 L of water in those GIANT 2L bottles, as well as a 500 mL bottle of pocari sweat. I'm actually really really glad I took the pocari sweat along, because drinking from the 2L bottles is a giant pain in the rear. Like seriously. When you have to stop, unzip your backpack, haul out the 2L bottle, then repack your 2L into your backpack with all your layers of clothing, it gets tiring really fast. Wasted energy. So instead, I poured some of the 2L into the smaller bottle and stopped every so often to fill that up when I ran out. I drink water like a fish though, so the 2.5L of liquid lasted me about until we started our descent, and then I ran out. Luckily, my climbing partner had barely touched her water (which might explain why she got such a bad case of AMS) so I "liberated" some of the weight she was carrying as we went back down.

I digress though. After we made it to the 7th station up the zig-zaggy loose large chunky gravel path, we got to the dreaded region between the 7th and the 8th station. The view from here was absolutely phenomenal though. Looking up, you could see the huts that lined the path between the 7th and 8th, giving you some kind of tangible goal to work towards, and the line of lights as people (headlamps and flashlights attached) made their way upwards. We wondered, many times, which group of lights were our friends, and wondered if they wondered how far behind we were (actually less than we had thought, kind of). The sky, too, from that area was absolutely gorgeous. Anyone who climbs the whole way without stopping for a little bit to look at the night view is truly missing out. The sky was clear; you could see hundreds of stars dotting the sky, and the faint wispy path that we assumed was the milky way. Below us were the city lights, though there were far fewer those than there were natural lights above. Honestly, had it not been for the stars, climbing at night would have utterly sucked.

Why? One, I bought the wrong kind of headlamp. A rotating headlamp, so that you can point it at the ground while you look on ahead at the steep cliff of a chunk of rock you're supposed to climb up. So that you don't have to move your entire head to aim your light at what you want to look at. I found out later the headlamp I wanted to buy but didn't because it didn't say it was waterproof actually was. Sigh. But yeah, hiking - and rock climbing to a small extent, though my rock climbing friends would probably laugh in my face if they saw what we were calling "rock climbing" - in the dark was just kind of annoying because you had to go slower since you couldn't see half of the things and had to actually look around for good handholds and footholds (there were plenty though, and as long as you had good hiking shoes, it was actually not too bad). It just got kind of tiring. I imagine, if I were the kind of person who just scrambled up rocks without being so concerned and worried about where I was putting what foot and falling off the mountain - some people would call this overly cautious - it would have been much easier and less tiring. But I'm not. Oh well.

This was the part where I abandoned my stick and relied instead on my hands. This is where having gloves and thick pants come in handy, because the rocks are rather... sharp sometimes. One girl actually ripped her pants in this area, so an underlayer isn't a bad idea either.

Have I mentioned how much I hate rocks right now?

A number of people passed us on the way up to the 8th station, and the cool thing about hiking Fuji is that everyone hiking it tends to be pretty friendly (at least, below the 8th station). We actually struck up a conversation with some of our fellow hikers as we rested and gawked at the rocks we had to climb. There was a man who was over here for business and had just decided to climb Fuji. There were some people our age from the Bay Area (small world!). Lots of Japanese. But everyone had this kind of fighting spirit and sense of camaraderie, kind of, that we were all going through this together.

As we going up from the final hut at the 7th to the first 8th station, we actually passed a guy from HiroshimaAJET who was heading down. He didn't look so great. He said that his climbing buddy was actually at a hut at one of the 7th stations, and that he had gotten a bad headache and felt a little nauseous so he was also heading back down the Rocks of Doom. I offered him some of my oxygen, since he had none, and he said after it helped a little, and then continued his descent downwards.

You could not pay me to climb down those rocks in the dark, especially after we spent all that energy climbing up.

This is about when my climbing partner's headache started to get worse. But, like I said, neither of us wanted to climb back down, and we wanted to make it to where we could take the supposedly easier path back down (little did we know!) so we started resting more often, but continued our climb up.

After what seemed like forever, we made it to the 8th station, and pretty much collapsed on the floor, out of breath and really really really tired. We actually ran into one of the other girls from Okayama pretty much right after that. She had also split from her hiking buddy, and was feeling really nauseous so was similarly heading back down. My partner wasn't feeling so hot. I decided to use the bathroom and put on my underlayer of pants while my partner rested and hopefully started to feel better.

Changing was a battle in itself. Hiking boots are a pain to take off, and there was noooo way I was letting my clothes touch the floor.

When I finally finished (out of breath), my hiking partner informed me that yeaaaah she really wasn't feeling good. At all. Like was not able to go on. So we stopped to assess our... options. We could continue going really really slow and try to get as high as we could by sunset (which was around 30-40 minutes away at that point). This would get us closer to the summit. We thought we would have to make it up there in order to get the easy path down... and at one point, we weren't sure if we would make it back down in time. Caroline suggested we email our leader and let him know that we won't be meeting them and that we would take a taxi or bus back to a shinkansen station and then shink our way back home. I told her that I was not going to miss our bus back, since I could not afford that (taxis are ridiculously expensive and Fuji is not super close to a shink station) and I didn't want her paying for me. I was in favor of the climb-to-keep-warm-and-get-as-high-as-we-can plan. We took one look at the path to the next station and my partner was like yeaaaaaaaah... no.

The other option was to stay at the huts, which, I found out after asking, was going to cost us 3500 yen, and we could stay until 5 am. Expensive. But she was in favor of this plan, since she didn't really want to split up. Don't blame her either. I feel like a bad friend since I was considering it. Since I didn't want to stay in the place, but she did, I figured that she could stay, I'd hike up to the next station, and I'd meet her on the way back down.

We had actually found out from the hut-dude (who spoke pretty good English) that once the sun came up, the short-cut paths that linked all of the huts on Fuji to the "easy" downhill path would be open. So we wouldn't have to go back down the rocks again (thank god). So I figured this plan of mine - meet her on the downhill path - would work out just fine.

Except, when she went in to pay to stay at the hut, she paid for me too. At this point, it was like... 4 am, and predawn was already giving us a fantastic array of colors in the morning sky. (Someone made the comment that now, they understood where those stupid rainbow gradients come from). We had like, 15 minutes til sunrise. And she had already paid and said not to worry about the money. I felt so bad since I was totally ready to just wait until sunrise!

So I got 10 minutes of sleep before I woke up to see the sunrise. And wow. Sunrise was GLORIOUS. One of the most beautiful I've seen in my life. Above the clouds, clear sky, gorgeous colors... it made me question if I truly loved sunsets best.


Really, I think what's so amazing is that we were above all of that. Far above that.

After we had our breath stolen by the sunrise and the lack of oxygen, we decided that it was better to head down sooner or later so we weren't left at Mount Fuji stranded without a bus. Cause who knew how long it would take to get back down.

Our climb down looked something like this, times 50, and less gorgeous the more times you zigged-zagged down it. It wasn't like it was a particularly hard descent; it was just monotonous, boring, hard on the knees and feet, and full of small-to-medium sized mars rock colored volcanic rock where your foot sank a bit every time it stepped. It made slipping really really really easy. If it weren't for the bends in the road that would have you tumbling down the mountain should you overshoot, I would have considered running most of the way down (cause let's be realistic, I wouldn't have been able to run the whole way down). Taking larger steps and going faster (and generally, not caring whether or not I slipped) made it much easier and less painful to go down.

The whole way would have been much more beautiful and much less annoying had it not been for the - I kid you not - swarms of small flies and wasps that were populating the area. I was already surprised by the vegetation that started about halfway between the 7th and 8th stations, but this? This surprised me much more. I had not expected bugs, let alone this many, to be up close to the summit! I mean, seriously, the area is mostly rock. What do these dudes eat? (Tourists, obviously). It's part of what motivated us to get down the mountain so fast. No joke. We would be resting at one of the bends and a wasp would come land on one of us... and I figured out early on that swatting at a wasp was totally not a good idea. So instead, I ran. Generally the wasp came off as I ran (silently screaming) down the hill to the next bend in the road, where the process would repeat itself.

The downwards path has exactly one toilet in between the summit and the 6th station, and they're biotoilets, which is code word for the water looks disgusting but is actually probably good for the environment.

Even after the zig-zag path ends, it's still quite a ways away from the 5th station. We continued to walk downward, realizing just how freaking far we had come. We went down at a pretty steady pace, and it still took us something like 3 to 3.5 hours to get back down all the way. There were a bunch of really cute small children who kept passing us and saying "OHAYO GOZAIMASU~" to which we were obligated to say "ohayo gozaimasu" back in a far far less genki and half dead voice. Not my first choice for what my precious oxygen and energy was going to.

So we were nearly there, at the bottom of the 6th station, when we came to this bend in the road. Both ways said Yoshida trail, and we had been warned earlier about making sure to stay on the Yoshida, since way way way further up the Yoshida trail splits into a completely different train that takes you to the opposite side of the mountain. This was not that split. This split was whether we wanted to go to the base of the Yoshida, or back to where the buses came. And clearly, we wanted to where the buses came, but my climbing partner wasn't completely convinced, so out came the direction paper we received on the bus... that was no help. We also couldn't find the name of the bus station on the map, though we did see the buses. Either way, the trails eventually connected. But the one that we weren't supposed to take was 10 extra minutes long. And I did not want to hike for 10 more minutes on top of everything (I was tired at this point, alright? Or well, I'd been tired most of the hike). We settled for asking one of the Japanese lady tourists we saw near the map, and she pointed down the path that a) we had come and b) that led to the buses.

Yeah... I'm still a little smug about that. That my directional senses weren't completely off. Cause I mean, I'm used to getting quite lost ahaha.

It was at this point that that early nice downhill part on our hike up started to become agonizing and annoyingly uphill. We were like whaaaaaaat. Theeeeeee. Heeeeeeeeeell. WORST PLACE TO HAVE AN UPHILL PORTION EVER.

But I mean, we made it, finally, to the end. And met up with the Hiroshima people who had also gone back, and sat on the ground, and were sorely tempted to just flat out lie on the ground. But we didn't. I had meat on a stick (that had been taken off the stick and cut into pieces) for breakfast. I thanked my hiking boots.

Eventually, people started to trickle down and unbeknowst to us, the others were regrouping at the drop off point about 50 feet away. One of the guys came over and was like "oh yeah we're meeting over near the drop off point, and glad to see you down here because nobody had heard from you guys and we didn't see you at the summit." I was tired, and pissy at that point, but I held back my reply of "yeah I know I didn't make it to the summit jerk, thanks for rubbing it in, but I didn't want to be left behind." Instead I imagined him tumbling down the mountain - wee!

Actually, not going all the way to the top turned out to be a prudent and responsible decision. We would have been very very very late, and probably left behind. Our leader wasn't exactly the sympathetic to being left behind type (wonderful guy though, don't get me wrong). As it was, there were two groups that came in behind schedule (but some came back before the bus was supposed to leave). One was my group of friends. We had gone back to the bus by then, and then they came back and we were still missing 3 people at that point. We were supposed to go to an onsen at that point, so people started to look a little annoyed and uhhh... uncomfortable about having to make a decision about whether or not to leave them.

Thankfully, right before we decided to leave, everyone turned up and we all made it to the onsen - hooray! The only thing was, that left us with like, not very long to eat, and not very long to shower and onsen. Like, by the time people were finishing their meals, we had between 20-25 minutes to shower and utilize the onsen.

...my normal showers take about 20 minutes to shower and then dry. The onsen meant we had to change into the robes, walk to the onsen, take off clothes, shower at the stall thingies, go back to the room, dry off, change into rental robes, walk to locker room, and change into normal clothes. At a minimum. 20 minutes was laughable. One girl decided not to shower because with her hair and everything, it would have taken far longer (though I don't know why she couldn't have just washed her body). But like, I mean, girls take forever. And as long as I wasn't amongst the last few... it'd be fiiiiine.

Unfortunately though, the showers were FULL when I got there and I was like OH CRAP. Embarrassment aside. But thankfully, a spot opened up, and I still had enough time to take a fast dip into the lovely hot onsen. And I still wasn't the last one out.

Seriously though, onsen are meant to be leisurely enjoyed. Like, 1.5 hours minimum for eating and onsen-ing. Silly late people.

Guess this means I'll just have to onsen again!

Maybe after the next time I try to tackle Fuji. I wasn't scarred enough from the first time, lol. I want to do it again, and reach the top, so that I can say I reached the top. Because I felt really really stupid as everyone came back and was like "hell yeah I made it to the top of Fuji" and I was like "...yeah I made it to the 8th station". Silly for me to feel this way, I know, since 8th is still an accomplishment, but I dunno, it just... didn't feel completely. I want to go again, but take more time to go up and not worry about rushing or about missing trains or what have you. Maybe go up for the sunset instead.

At least I won't have to buy another walking stick.

Summer Hideout

In the winter, it was so cold in my house. I had no central heating, so I would bundle up and sit under my warm kotatsu and then sprint into bed with my heated blanket (when I didn't fall asleep under the kotatsu). Basically I lived in my living room under my kotatsu for all of winter.

But now that it's summer, I've found myself holing up in my bedroom, since that's where the AC is. Last summer I managed to go for decently long without running the AC too much (and then I caved) but I feel like I've turned on the AC really early this year. But my room is the one place that's really nice and cool in my house - though when I need to use the bathroom or cook, it's like running into a wall of disgustingly thick heat when I step out of my ice box of a room.

Not having wi-fi (since my time capsule broke) is making this experience much more annoying. Also, the fact that my softbank internet thingie has no signal in my house (but my phone has full bars! I don't understand! Augh!) makes it even more annoying.

Oh! So for something not heat related, I *finally* did what people have been telling me to do for AGES. I planted a small garden in a planter box. It looks really awkward and a little stupid (I have this giant long container thing that's this not-so-pleasing color of pastel-y green). There's also the chance that nothing will actually grow there, since I'm planting my seeds really really late. I mean, I know it's a little on the late side to be planting stuff, since generally that's done in the spring (thank you Harvest Moon) but I didn't find the proper seeds until just last week or so.

I'm trying to grow zucchini, since it's EXPENSIVE over here for zucchini! One zucchini at my grocery store today was about 180 yen - almost $2 (with the exchange rate, probably $2) for a single zucchini. Wat. The. Fak. So I found the seeds at the hardware store (and was like "omg where have these been?" since I've been looking for zucchini seeds for ages, and I swear those weren't there when I went to the store in the earlier months.

I also think I planted them wrong. ._. After I planted them, I was reading that you should plant one seed per hole thing about a couple inches or so apart... I kind of just dug holes in a -_-_- pattern and planted them there like that. Yeah. Probably shouldn't have done that. Sigh. And I dumped two to four seeds in each little hole.

I'm growing a little basil plant though, that's doing quite nicely. If I want like, a couple of leaves it's fine for that, but I'm like, for cooking purposes it's not really... yeah. I'd have to have like, a couple of basil plants. Maybe I'll do that sometime. But I think I'm supposed to thin the plants out, you know, like survival of the fittest style.

Last night I went over to Hannah's place with Caroline and we watched Up and Tangled. :) Good times. I love being able to just hang out like that sometimes and not like... do anything but watch movies and eat. We found a cockroach in her house partway through the movies though, and had a... an interesting time freaking out and standing on the couch and the bed haha. Regular bunch of girls we were. This was promptly followed by a trip to the supermarket she lived by (it was 24 hours! Had a nice bout of city envy right there) where we stocked up on things that can kill cockroaches. Sticky roach traps, roach dango, and this nice spray stuff that we used to also kill several flying bugs that had come in when we opened the door. I don't think I could do the traps, since it means I'll have to remove it too... and that's just kinda gross.

I'm pleased to report though, that I was not among the hysterically screaming. Nope. Freak out yeah, but like, there was very little screaming and swearing from me. Probably because it wasn't my apartment.

It's kind of weird though. The roach was about the length of my thumb - super huge! We were like GOOD GOD. But roaches don't actually bite or anything. They're just really annoying and move really fast. (Most of them) don't even fly or jump. You'd think that we'd react worse to mosquitos or something. But yeah, they're kind of disgusting. And by kind of, I mean, really are.

Someone also said they were never visiting me during the summer because of all the bugs haha. I don't quite blame them; there's a ridiculous amount of flying critters around light sources (like the train station) during the evening.

I think I'm getting a little bit better at bugs. The ones I can anticipate anyways. Maybe. Haha. I am still, by no means, "good" at being around bugs. I still freak out. But I like to think that I freak out a little less. Maybe. Probably not.

Replacement Fridge!

Today, after much "Jessica must locate obscure piece of paper with the refrigerator contract on it" hunting, the electronic store people I'm leasing the fridge from finally came around 2:30 today.

But first I had to find the paper. I am so very glad that I did not throw that away. I was actually going through all my papers and didn't know that was it until my supervisor told me to "look for the B4 sized paper with lots of japanese on it" and then I was like "hm, I have no idea what this paper is and it has lots of Japanese on it" and he was like "aha! That's it."

Yeah. They were supposed to come today at lunch, so I quickly ate everything and went to wait at home. Yeaaaaaaaah. They didn't come. I suppose some things don't change? And then when they were supposed to come later, they were late. My supervisor actually commented on that, and how in Japan punctuality was really important (but no company).

I think it was something wrong with the power cord. Either way, they took my old fridge and gave me a temporary replacement.

It's about a third the size of my old fridge. I mean, this thing is TINY. I'll get pictures up sometime. The freezer... is meant to hold like, maybe a pint of ice cream, one ice cube tray, and maybe some frozen veggies. The fridge is also tiny. I kind of laughed when I saw it. But I mean, a tiny fridge is better than no fridge, right?

I'm sorry I ever had smug thoughts at having a big fridge.

Also, apparently, according to my teacher summer has not come yet. It's still the rainy season. But today was soooo friggin' hot and humid, so I don't know what she was talking about. Yarg. I'm not a summer person.

My goal is to try my best at reducing the amount that I complain about it being hot. Yep.

Freezing!

I understand now, why Japanese people like to bathe at night.

It's because in the morning in the winter, the pipes sometimes freeze, and then ohnoes, you have no hot water (and sometimes no water at all).

I've been bad; I haven't posted in ages and ages. I haven't worked on the newsletter. Bad Jessica. But it's because I've been working on studying for the GRE and studying Japanese in what spare time I have. Like seriously, I feel like I'm doing as much studying here as I was at home! My week days aren't exciting. I get home. Go on my computer. Get sucked into the black hole of warmth that is my kotatsu. Occasionally crawl underneath the kotatsu for full body warmth. Remember that oh, I haven't cooked dinner yet, and oh, maybe I should eat before 10 o'clock. Study a little bit. Fail to do that because I'm on facebook or watching a show or a movie (or playing my DS). Regret not studying and attempt to study for a little bit. Decide to not feel as bad because usually I study at school or on the train for a little bit. Think about how I should go to bed or wash the dishes. Do the former, but not in bed. Wake up at ungodly hour of night. Crawl back into bed. Sleep. Wake up for work. Go to work. Repeat.

That's pretty much what my week days look like. Exciting, no? Occasionally, I'll even stop at the grocery store or something. Usually, that's on a monday because I'm already out of the house/away from my house, since I dislike having to ride up the hill to my house more than I have to. But the kotatsu... wow, my electric bill is going to be high, but it's so so so lovely to stay under (for the bottom half of my body anyways).

You know, the funny thing is that I'm actually going somewhere EVEN COLDER than here and Niimi at the end of the week.

side note: I can't believe it's February already! I'm going to sapporo on Sunday! O_O This is going to be my first really really big trip (since I don't count going to Chigasaki as a big trip for some reason). Yaaay snow! I'm excited. X) i'm also still debating whether or not to bring my laptop.

Brrrr It's Cold (In Here)

I said there must be some playas in the atmosphere~

Please don't hate me for making that reference. I already kinda hate myself for it. But haters gotta hate. :<

I've been really bad about typing/journaling/making newsletters/blogging lately. At the start of the new year, I told myself, "Self, it's a New Year. You should write at least one post a week."

And have I done that yet?

No. No I have not. So I'm going to try to be better about that. And not just posts like this one about how "oh, I'm bad about posting" but actual stuff. Starting now.

I've never lived in a place this cold before. Even when I was out traveling, I don't think Shanghai or Hong Kong ever was this cold when I was there during TSS. Other than that, I've lived in the bay area or San Diego. Sometimes I visited Tahoe, and I was in DC when it was snowing, but it's never really felt as cold as this. It's definitely... interesting, to say the least. My electricity bill is SUPER expensive. It's stupid. But how else am I supposed to stay warm? I've been using this reasoning to justify paying for my trips into Kurashiki or Okayama; at least then, I won't be paying to keep my house warm.

I'm sure forgetting about my kotatsu and leaving it on does not help at all.

Oh, speaking of that, I forget that before I came to Japan, I had no idea what a kotatsu was. Basically, it's a table with a heater underneath (that never gets hot enough to actually burn you really, with most models) and a removable top (so that you can put a blanket underneath it).

It looks a little like this picture:

Note, that's not actually my kotatsu, but I don't have any good pictures of it right now. Maybe I'll put some up later or something. but it keeps your bottom half/legs sooo warm and sometimes I like to crawl in underneath and lay on my belly with my head poking out. So freaking warm. It's quite lovely. I might get a better, thicker kind of carpet/blanket thing to go underneath if I keep doing that. I've fallen asleep under it quite a few times as well haha...

Right now I'm huddled under a blanket with three layers, sitting at my kotatsu. I'm thinking of crawling in sometime soon, cause it's what... about 7C in my house. Cold. T-T

Hm, also today, I got to use the observatory at my school for the first time. Yeah, my school has an observatory on top of it. It's actually in quite a good position; the school is on a giant hill, so it overlooks most of the city. The view from the observatory is absolutely wonderful, just as good as if not better than the view from the hike to Bitchu Matsuyama Castle since there are no trees to obstruct the view. The observatory has a giant telescope and can rotate (!) and they finally got it fixed. I noticed that the observatory was open when I was wandering around campus, so I wandered over to where the observatory was and the sensei in charge was kind enough to let me look around and told me to come back at quarter to six, when it actually was darker.

So I did, and wow. It was so cold! BUT IT WAS SO COOL. They had fixed the telescope and were looking at Jupiter; you could see Jupiter even during dusk because it was so bright. When I looked at it through the telescope, you could actually make out a couple of salient features, as well as the four Galilean moons (Io, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa). I even had a student tell me in English about this. :) It was sooooo amazing. I was practically dancing as I left the observatory. That's probably one of the coolest things I've done in Japan, and it makes me like my base school that much more.

Seriously, if they split my position up again into its two original ones... Niimi and takahashi, I'd have a damn hard time picking where I wanted to live. I used to be bitter about having to commute to Niimi all the time since the trains suck and it takes an hour and a half to get to Okayama (and there are so few trains to begin with). But, I love being at Kenko no mori and Niimi South campus, AND they have kyuudo. I love going to kyuudo club. The kids there are so awesome.

On the other hand, Takahashi High school isn't that bad. The teacher are really cool. I know more of the teachers there. I'm part of cooking club. Most of the kids are nice. There are monkeys. Wild monkeys. And an observatory.

It would be a difficult choice. Thankfully, it's not one I have to make, though admittedly, when I first got here I was really frustrated with having that many schools and being split between two cities.

I'm alright with that now though.

Current feelings about recontracting: 65/35 staying/going

Catch up

Wow, so it's been almost a month since the last time I made a post. Oopsie. What can I say, I got slammed pretty hard in November between work and NaNoWriMo.

A quick word on that one, I did finish. :) Hooray! Or well, it's more accurate to say that I hit 50K words. My story is nowhere near finished. I intend on finishing it though. Sometime. Hopefully soon, otherwise it'll never get done. :< I won't go on too long about this, because I get a little embarrassed when I talk about it actually lol. But suffice it to say, it's about a girl who goes to Japan to work, is tricked into becoming part of the yokai world, and must find a way to return back to being just a regular ol' mortal again. Oh, and her yokai power is that her food is so goddamn tasty that people have reactions. Not in the yakitate sense (though kinda) but more like the ratatouille sense. Her food is transformative, shall we say? :)

And then work hit. Oh work. The kids have had their exams and I've been busy making the listening sections for the tests with garageband. It's really really funny. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I've had to record (for several teachers now) a dialogue with two people speaking (or one time, three). And the teacher apologized for making me have to do that and so on, since when we demo'd the dialogue in class, I basically just pitched my voice really really high for the woman's part, and kept it regular for the man's part. The class thought that was highly amusing. I did too. I think I had to stop at one point cause I was laughing so hard.

I didn't want to do this for the oral exam though. What if the kids missed a part cause they were laughing too hard? Their problem, not mine? Well, thanks to the magic of garageband, I was actually just able to slide the pitch bar down for the man's part, and either leave my voice or pitch it higher for the other part(s). The end result? I showed the clip to the first teacher, and she asked who my friend was. I had to tell her several times that no, all those voices were me. Her reaction was incredibly hilarious to watch because she was so shocked, though I think my face only gave away a bemused look. The same thing happened with all the other teachers who heard the clip. Love them all to death. I think they think I'm a computer genius now, which is so far from the truth. Hell. My computer (my baby) is let's see now... gonna turn four pretty soon. :) Which doesn't really seem like that long when I look at the number, but seems really old when I look at the other computers around here. I'm just praying that it carries me through the JET program. Note to self, save up money so you can buy a new computer when you go back.

I'm thinking of doing a desktop/iPad combo. X3 That way I can still do stuff outside, like type (cause I mean, I have a purse yeah, I'll just carry that around with my keyboard when I feel like typing, or, I'll eventually, like the iPhone, learn how to type fast on the iPad) but I have the gorgeous and beautiful desktop waiting for me back at home. And then, I can be in bed and surf and stuff, and then actually do work at the table or desk or whatever. Save me some money too. Though I do admit, I type a hell of a lot in bed and work from places that aren't normally a desk. I don't actually have a desk here in Japan. So the thought of being tethered to one place is slightly intimidating. But that's what the iPad is for... right? Hopefully, I'm hedging my bets that one will come out sometime in the spring and that it'll be a gazillion times better than the current one. While part of me wants to wait for at least the third gen to come out, (like the 3Gs for the iPhone) part of me wants it now. Part of me says, well, you should have just bought the first one and then upgraded to the third one. But if I get the second and fourth...

That's assuming I'll have enough money for the fourth one. But I digress. Back to work.

The picture, above, is related to the oral exams I've been giving. We've been doing a "make a monster" activity which I really like, cause it lets the kids be creative and it's pretty fun. It works on their listening too. I basically read off body parts (though so far I've only done the face) while they draw them. We've had the class do it as a whole group activity too. Fun times, and some of them are really freaking awesome. :) Woo creativity!

But yeah, unfortunately, with exams, comes grading exams. That's sucked. A lot. I spent the whole day grading on wednesday. I thought my mind was going to explode.

So far though, November was really quiet. I didn't really go anywhere. Or well, I went places that were close to home. I spent a lot of time in Okayama. I went to Naoshima. I cooked. Kinda.

I made crepes! :D Jeana gave me a recipe that's waaay super easy and doesn't require too much. Mostly flour, water, butter, and... salt. Was that it? Probably. It's really simple. So I've been making crepes, and they've kind of become my new "tortilla". I just cook them until they're a little crispy, and add cheese (the Japanese cheese, which I have formerly complained about how much it sucks, is actually quiet good for this) and TADA, cheese crepe. Crispy. :D I had some tunafish too, and I added a little lettuce and mmm, tastiness ensued.

I also bought a new kotatsu. It's super warm. It got rather cold, rather quickly. Like, inside my bedroom is 6 C right now. That's almost freezing. My fingers are so cold... :< I need to order those stupid gloves already and figure out how to pay for them. >_O

I also need to send money back home. -_-; Craaaaaaap I should do that before I spend it all lol.

What else... I've bought winter clothes. SO many winter clothes. And a kitchen island! HOORAY! I have yet to put it together though. That's today's project. I know I'm not going to be living here for a long time, but two years is a while, yeah? It wasn't too expensive either. And I'm starting to get really annoyed at having to sit at my table to chop stuff, cause the tables are tooooooo freaking short to be able to cut properly at without your back starting to hurt.

I can't believe the year end is coming. Holy crap.

I won't be going home for christmas. :< I didn't know I could take off that much time for work... though now that I think about it, the time I can take off is pretty much the time after the 1st, which is when everyone goes back to school. So what would I even do at home anyways?

I might try to see if I can make it out to okinawa for that week or something. That'd be super fun. :) But I might be lazy lol.

I am planning on doing a couple of shorter trips over the winter vacation though. :) That'll be fun I hope!

And February is looking like it's going to be pretty busy... and full of awesome. :D

So that's all for now. I'm trying to kick my butt into writing christmas letters and postcards cause like, yeah, those need to happen. I've been soooo bad at that. So I'm going to try and be better about it today.