Japanese Diary - Catch up!

Sooo.... It's been kinda a while since my last post - a month, oops! Actually, in total I've been in Japan almost 1/3 of the entire time I have here! I can't believe it really, it's been going so fast yet also I feel like I could have been here forever! Anyway, I thought since it had been such a while since my last post I should do a little summary of things I've done in the time. I actually do have a couple of bigger posts on the go at the moment, but procrastination and the fact I cleared up my laptop enough so that I can play games on it now has been getting in the way (Guild Wars 2 by the way, if anyone plays my user name is Roverandomness.4891). 

So what have I been up to these past weeks? Well excitingly, I've had a few visitors to Japan. I've also been investing a lot of time in baking, daring rescues, terrifying bug encounters and UNIVERSAL STUDIOS EEK!

First, I'll just let you all know even though I know you're dying to hear about it, bug encounters are getting their own post, because there is a lot to say about bugs, really there is. Also Universal Studios will probably be getting its own post sometime too, a detailed one once I've been again... ;)

Onto my catch up though, a couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting up with Kyoko and her son Tyler, who I actually know back from Torquay in England, although Kyoko's from Osaka originally, so it was pretty awesome to meet up whilst she was back visiting family! For anyone around the Devon area (of England), you should pop by Kyoko's place, aka the best Japanese restaurant ever, Maido Japanese Noodle Bar, you will not be disappointed!

We hung around Shinsaibashi for the day, for those who don't know Shinsaibashi is pretty much Osaka's equivalent to Harajuku in Tokyo, and it's great there! There's also an area called Amerika-mura, or America town, where everything is kinda American-y... But from a Japanese perspective, it's interesting anyway! In Shinsaibashi, we ate really good pizza, and wandered around loads of shops (including a really big Apple store!) until we stumbled across a newly opened Cosplay Cafe!

Weapons and props display, all handmade!

Cute balloon mascots

Anna and Elsa!

Base 2_5 had literally opened two days before so they were still establishing themselves, and upon entering we were greeted very enthusiastically by a couple of sweet girls in cosplay, and they showed us around and told us about a lot of the various props and handmade pieces that were around, and posed with us for loads of photos! They also told us to come back in a couple of hours, they have a daily cosplay show in the afternoon, so we decided to do just that. We came back a little early, and sat down to have drinks and cake before the show started, and my dessert was amazing! Strawberry and mango ice cream with chocolate cake and strawberries and cream, in case you were wondering. Japan really knows how to do dessert well. The show that day was an abridged version of Frozen! Both cosplayers looked great and their singing was pretty much perfect, too. After the show we spent a while getting photos with all the cosplayers, we also got interviewed by a TV news crew who wanted to ask me loads of questions about cosplay and it was terrifying T_T Unfortunately despite watching out for it, I never got to watch the show, that's probably a good thing though that all that awkwardness is hidden away forever.

Since Tyler really didn't want to go home, we continued to wander around after that, walking to Namba and exploring some more shops, and a small hidden shrine where you poured water on a statues head before praying, it was cute. Koko and Tyler had a plane to catch back to England though, so eventually we parted ways but I had a fun day!

Obviously we did purikura too

The next visitor I had was actually a weird one, one of Jason's friends from work finally decided to visit Japan after I helped him with visa stuff (He's from Nigeria, so he even had to apply for a holiday visa!) and he spent a few days in Osaka where I showed him around, and we went to USJ whoo!

First stop though, was the Pokemon Center, of course. I've been there tons already (maybe I should make a post about it sometime?) but Zino hadn't so of course we had to go, and as usual it was great. I bought some cute pokedolls and pikachu shaped cake moulds, Zino bought a pikachu pillow the size of me and then a snorlax plush that was even bigger. Still no idea how he got them back on the plane. But the highlight of my trip was Pokken.

If you don't know about Pokken, it's a Pokemon x Tekken fighting came crossover that released in Japan on arcade machines a couple of weeks ago. Arcades are still a pretty big deal in Japan, and the games that come out on Arcade are always being updated and sometimes have huge queues of people waiting to try them out. I've been waiting to try Pokken since the day it came out, and they installed a few machines in the Pokemon Center so perfect excuse to try some, as it was later in the afternoon and no queues, so I got a few games in! You play against other people online though, so actually I had no idea what I was doing and lost the first few times, oops. After Pokemon Center we just wondered around for a while, discovered a new shopping centre I never knew existed and ate cake and ice cream of course.

Welcome to USJ

Next on the list though was USJ. Like I said I won't go into a lot of detail as its kinda big and deserves its own post, but just know there were minions EVERYWHERE, Harry Potter world was amazing but no way were we waiting 3 hours to queue for the rides, I got a souvenir Butterbeer tankard, and everything was really really expensive. 

Welcome to Hogsmeade!

Apart from Harry Potter world though, it wasn't actually as busy as I was expecting which was pleasant, but there still wasn't a lot of time to do everything we/I wanted. We didn't even manage to eat anything the whole day. But I think now I know roughly the layout and structure, next time I go will be a lot more efficient. And skip Jurassic Park its good but not worth how soaked and uncomfortable it made me.

As for other things that have been going on, I've actually been having a really great time baking in Japan! People who know me in person will definitely know that I LOVE cakes and baking, and often don't know when to stop, making 50+ cupcakes at a time and just wanting to bake all the time. Well, here it's not a lot different. With the added bonus of having an entire industrial sized kitchen all to myself, fully equipped with almost everything I need (Except an electric whisk!!!), baking in Japan is super fun and although finding the ingredients I need can be a little bit of a challenge, I've baked a lot. It's also really great that my host family loves cake, especially my 'English' cakes. So far, Apple and Cinnamon Loaf cake and Choco-Orange/Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownies have been at the top, but I've also make lemon drizzle cake, Victoria sponge, strawberry cupcakes and a Strawberry trifle, the trifle being particularly as I made the custard and Strawberry Jelly from scratch, as they are not ingredients commonly found in Japan. Over the next couple of weeks I want to try making Checker board Icebox Cookies too, and pretty much anything else I come across. 

Individual Victoria Sponges, Strawberries and Cream Cupcakes and Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes.

TRIFLE!!!

 Okay, this is probably it for my mini update, I'm going to go work on all my other really long posts now and try and make some sort of schedule ahahahahahaha. As always if you've got any questions you'd like to ask me about living in Japan, leave me a comment and I'll try and be as helpful as I can.

So for now, またね〜 From Osaka,

Japanese Diary - Mount Fuji! 富士山はのぼりました！

 “Everyone should climb Mount Fuji once; only a fool would climb it twice.” - Japanese Proverb

 

So, last weekend, I climbed mount Fuji.

Me, at the 5th station before we started. There are no after pictures.

There is a lot for me to say about this trip, a lot happened. First of all, for those that missed my last post on the topic that explains what I am doing and why, you can read that here.

For the most part, we managed to stick to the plan I outlined in the previous post. Except when I said it would take around 5 hours to get to the 8th station. Because it actually took us 9. I think that pretty much sums up the tone of this blog, as in, I am not cut out to be a mountain climber. Or a hiker. Sometimes walking up a hill is too much. It was hot when we arrived at the 5th station, despite the fact it was around 8am, it was already 30C, and we knew it would only get hotter. 

We stayed at the 5th station for around an hour and a half, as advised, to acclimatise to the altitude, having breakfast and making sure to buy our commemorative hiking poles to help up climb the mountain, as well as get them stamped at all the huts on the way up as a kind of ultimate souvenir. At the end of it, I have to admit, its a pretty cool thing to have. After we actually started walking, the first hour or so is a complete lie. Most of it involves walking mostly horizontally, I guess it felt a bit like a tutorial in a video game, there were small, slightly easier bits of everything that was to come. 

Despite using the word 'easier', it took me approximately 25 minutes to realise I had made a mistake in wanting to climb this mountain. The sun was absolutely blazing down. It was probably the clearest day that has ever existed, no cloud cover at all, and supposedly it was to be the hottest day of the year as well. Brilliant. I started off sensibly. Coverings on my arms and legs, wearing a hat, sunglasses from the glare etc. but it wasn't long till the heat got the best of me and I couldn't possibly stand to be under so many layers of things. Huge mistake NO.1. In around 30 hours I would be suffering from second degree burns (Yes, second degree!) on my face and arms, literally covered with painful blisters and a heart filled with regret. DO NOT FORGET TO TOP UP YOUR SUNSCREEN! ESPECIALLY ON A MOUNTAIN! I also found out after that because of the thinner atmosphere the suns rays are extra strong, which makes complete sense but never occurred to me because I've never been so high up before.

Aaaaaanyway. As I said, it wasn't long until I realised I had made a mistake. It was, however, very long until we reached anywhere like the "hotel" (quotations very important, you will find out later) we had booked to stay in overnight. The hotel was at 3400m, on the 8.5 station, so a pretty decent climb. I think we had just gotten past the main 6th station when I started to struggle badly. The heat was really getting to me, and there were so many steps! I was already finding it difficult to lift my legs high enough (though to be fair, some of the steps came up to my hips) and the heat and brightness was making it hard to even look ahead. We made a few kind Japanese friends along the way, though. Odd people would see me struggling and shout 'Ganbatte!' to encourage me. I don't think even £1million at the top would have been able to encourage me enough. But it was okay, there was already no going back (the down path and up path are separate, so no way to go back really!) and we still unknowingly had 7 hours of walking ahead of us. Yay. We pressed onwards, stopping briefly at every hut on the way to purchase additional stamps for our walking sticks, which were fire branded on which is pretty cool. All the water in my bag had already become hot, as in actually hot, so I was forced to keep buying cold drinks at extortionate prices because I really can't drink hot lemon water (its not like lemon tea at all).

At some point, as well, the path started to change. What was once an incredibly uncomfortable, zig-zagged walk, with ridiculously huge steps and a painful rocky floor up the side of the mountain transformed into something else. It became and almost vertical actual rock climb, where using both hands and hoping you didn't slip to your death was a real thing, and not made any easier carrying my ridiculous walking stick. Maybe 'slip to your death' was a slight over exaggeration, but at some points if you slipped it would have been completely reasonable to seriously injure yourself, some falls were probably almost 10 feet, needless to say I refused to look back, or look down, and somehow I made it with only near falls and a twice twisted ankle.

It was still really pretty, though.

Some pain, and hours later, we got past the 8th station (I think), and all of a sudden it hit me, bad; Altitude Sickness. There are very strict instructions when climbing the mountain, detailing Altitude Sickness and that if you feel sick at all, get off the mountain, as if that was a super easy thing to do. I decided to just keep going to the hotel, and I was lucky enough that my hiking buddy Quentin was able to dash ahead and get me an oxygen cannister. It was sorely needed and I think I wouldn't have physically been able to go on without it, though I could barely go on with it, so that's not saying a lot. 

From this point, it was nearly 2 hours still to the hotel, and the sun had started to set. Though it was still around 20C at this point, the wind was actually so cold that it felt around 5 or 6 degrees, especially without the blaze of the sun, so even though the extra layers were super constricting, we were forced to put our 'winter' clothes on, but it was a constant struggle between freezing wind and exhausted heat. Also, at some points the wind was so strong, it blew me over. On a tiny marked path on top of a mountain, that's a pretty scary thing, especially as it started to get darker and darker and I kept thinking to myself, 'we're never going to make it to the hotel, I'm going to die on the mountain'. A little dramatic, I guess, but I remember feeling that very strongly. As we approached the hotel and I could see its lights, as it was already almost completely dark, my legs were no longer working but I managed to drag myself up the last bit of rock, as Quentin ran ahead (like seriously, he was fine and could still run up the steps and I have no other alternative but to assume he's some sort of vampire) to check it was definitely the hotel and let them know we were there.

Now, the hotel. Technically, the place is called the Fujisan Hotel. TECHNICALLY I think its a hotel. Do not get the wrong impression. When you walk in, the entrance/dining area is decent, what you would expect from a mountain hut thousands of meters up. Dinner was fairly decent, but after all that walking/climbing, I probably would have eaten anything (Cute side note: I must have looked absolutely miserable because they drew a smiley face on my food in sauce in an attempt to cheer me up). 

So they checked what time we wanted to be woken up, as most people leave early in order to get to the summit before sunrise so they said they'd wake everyone up around 2am, and showed us to the sleeping area, that sleeps 700 people apparently. So, it was a bunkroom, both sides of the room were filled with floor level beds and a bunk level of beds, but when I say beds I mean 700 sleeping bags lined up with about half a foot of room per person. It was REALLY cramped. I don't really know what else I was expecting, but we paid 8500Y each for the privileged of sleeping on the mountain not outside, I guess. Seriously though I have never experienced anything like that before, pretty sure battery chickens have more room. Some random person was next to me, already snoring before we even got there, we also had to use our bags as pillows, as there was no other space to keep them. I just can't even get over this experience, it was probably my worst nightmare possible, and on top of all that, the toilets were UNISEX. There was trauma I will never be able to unsee or unhear. Anyway, pretty much 5 minutes after dinner I decided I was ready to sleep, I could barely move and wanted to pretend I was home in a lovely cosy bed not on a mountain. 
Of course, I didn't get a wink of sleep.

The close proximity to other humans combined with disgusting stranger sleeping noises, the insufferable heat and the fact I couldn't breathe, I spend around 6 hours lying there with my oxygen cannister around my face praying I didn't suffocate. This did however, give me time to think about things and I decided there was absolutely no way I could continue up the mountain, especially in the dark. I had already been advised against going any further, and although I was gutted to get this far then stop, I think I would have needed to be air rescued if I tried (in hindsight, that would have been the best outcome).

The sunrise from Mt. Fuji, at 3400M high #Japan #mountfuji #fujisan #sunrise

So I stayed in the 'hotel' whilst every single other person left, and happily had two hours of sleep with actual space to breathe, before getting up myself at 4am, so go and watch the sunrise, which to be honest couldn't have looked much different from a couple of hundred meters higher. After waiting another 5 hours for Quentin to return from the summit (During through which I went over a lot of 'what if he went past and left me', he didn't though, obviously) we started our descent because I really didn't want to be waiting around.

But something that is not obvious on the way up, the way down (a separate path) is pretty much just a slide made of rocks. It takes 3 hours to get down, with one toilet hut on the way, and it's just sliding on the side of your feet and trying not to topple over yourself and land face first in the dirt, or try not to topple over the edge as the zig-zagging of the path has a very steep drop. Also I'd like to take a second to talk about the toilet. It's 200Y for the toilet (like every other one on the mountain) and that is supposed to go towards cleaning and general care of the mountain. I thought the unisex toilets were bad enough, as I walked into this one, a woman came out crying and shaking her head, telling me not to go in. Oh my god, I should not have gone in. I can't even explain what was going on. All the toilets on the mountain are chemical, and I think one just exploded. Like, literally exploded. I don't know how I managed to not throw up.

So there's not really much more to it now, we finished sliding down the mountain, completely exhausted, by around 11am, and our bus left at 8pm. So we ate a lot of ice cream and pancakes and drank a lot of cola whilst we waited at the 5th station, all day. I also used it as an excuse to buy souvenirs, and some great omiyage (a (usually edible) gift to take back when you've been travelling) to bring back to Osaka, in the form of a cute sponge cake in the shape of Fuji with white chocolate drizzled over the top! It was too cute to resist.

I still don't really know what I was expecting from this challenge. From a distance, climbing Mount Fuji seems like the ultimate, perfect thing to do whilst in Japan. In reality, unless you love difficult physical challenges and are in really good shape, you'll probably appreciate the mountain more from a distance, like going past on the shinkansen. Of course I don't want to discourage other potential climbers, this was my personal experience but I don't think it as easy as it seems, definitely nothing like most of the climbing guides I read in preparation (despite how it sounds, I was VERY prepared!) and probably the hardest physical challenge of my life. Either way, it is over now, I have some pretty awesome souvenirs, some very unique memories and the ability to tell people I climbed Mount Fuji. I guess that's all I really did expect to get out of it, anyway. I'm also really grateful to have been able to do this all in aid of Rowcroft Hospice and I hope the money I've raised will be of some small help to this amazing organisation.


And for now, またね〜 From Osaka, and as always feel free to ask me anything you're curious about!

Bonus picture:
All the traffic cones in Kawaguchiko
looked like Fujisan...

Japanese Diary - Mount Fuji!

In a bizarre turn of events, it turns out that in just 10 days I will be climbing Mount Fuji with a friend I met here in Osaka. We kinda talked about it for a little while, then all of a sudden we've started booking things and making sure we have appropriate climbing gear?!

Ah, for a little more clarification, Mount Fuji is actually only open to climbers (that aren't professional, and crazy) from early July to early September, as that is the only time that there is little enough snow to actually reach the summit. Apparently its tough, but manageable for amateur climbers. Which is good, as my experience with mountains is 'once I walked across Dartmoor for about 10 minutes, then back to the car'. But I should be climbing it over a weekend, here is my plan in a little more detail:

 We will get an overnight bus from Osaka to Tokyo on the 24th July, arriving at Kawaguchiko station (near Tokyo) at 8.30am on Saturday 25th. From there we will get the shuttle bus to Mount Fuji’s 5th station, about 1/3 of the way up the mountain. After adjusting to the change in altitude for an hour or so (and probably grabbing breakfast)  we'll start climbing Fuji's Yoshida trail, the easiest and most popular trail, and hike for around 5 hours till we reach the 8th station, where we will be staying overnight and leaving again around 3am to hike the last hour and a half to reach the summit for the sunrise. Then I can't wait to post postcards from Japan's highest post office, and have ramen on the summit too. Then we have a 3-4 hour climb back down before getting the bus back to Osaka (ready for work on Monday morning waaah)

I also felt like I really wanted to make this for a good cause, so I decide to set up a just giving page to support Rowcroft Hospice! They do really amazing things and it would be really great if I could do this cool thing whilst also raising a bit of money for them.

Please feel free to donate towards me here!

Have some Mount Fuji Facts (possibly to beef this post out a little and make you think you learned something) 

Mount Fuji (Fuji-san, 富士山 in Japanese) is the highest volcano and highest peak in Japan and considered one of the 3 Holy Mountains (along with Mount Tate and Mount Haku). Fuji is a perfect, beautiful stratovolcano about 60 miles south-west of Tokyo, with an exceptionally symmetrical shape making it into famous symbol of Japan and an important element in Japanese art. It is a popular destination for excursions. More than 200,000 people climb to the top of the Mt Fuji every year. The last eruption of Mt Fuji was in 1707–08. Between 2000 and 2001, seismic activity under the volcano was at slightly elevated levels, rising concern about a possible reawakening of the volcano. 

Gotta get to the top of that...

I'll be posting at least an update when I have finished, maybe even something from on top of the mountain (It has WiFi now...) So keep tuned~

But for now, またね〜 From Osaka

And maybe please consider donating for my climb that'd be cool of you! Click :D