The Rest of the Japanese Adventure

Friday, July 11, 2008
We’re in Kyoto and it’s great. We rented bikes for 5 bucks each per day and have just taken the city on by bicycle. Kyoto is cool because for years and years it was the capital of Japan but 150 years ago, the capital and the emperor moved to Tokyo. We went to the Emperors Castle but everything other than the gardens was closed to visitors. We were a bit bummed by that. After that we took the bikes up to Takaragaike Gardens. It was beautiful up there. Kyoto is surrounded by “mountains,” Appalachian style mountains, not Rocky style mountains and this park was in the northern hills of the city. After that we tried to go see some temples but everything in Japan shuts down at 5:00. No shops, no temples, no nothing. So we found a burger place for more American style food. Tonight we are trying trying trying to find some sort of asian food. We tried a Chinese place a couple nights ago but they told us there were no seats available. We think it’s because we weren’t dressed nice enough for the place. So we might try it again tonight. The food looked great. I’ve let my hair do its own thing while we have been in Japan because the humidity is so bad that I have no control. You should see it, it’s amazingly curly. Zane loves it. Crazy kid.


Thursday, July 17, 2008
Well the last entry ended a bit abruptly. Sorry. I am on the plane now back to London. Today will be the longest day of my life… literally! I left Tokyo at 11:30 this morning and am arriving in London at 3 local time, after a 12 hour flight. How much sense does that make? J So today is going to be 30 hours long. It will be even worse for Zane, that is if he was able to get on the plane after the laundry disaster! He left Tokyo at 4 on Thursday the 17th, and is crossing the international date line and arriving in Denver at 2:00 on Thursday the 17th! So his calendar is pretty much as if he didn’t even fly! Except for the 12 hour flight that he has to endure. His July 17th is going to be 16 hours in Tokyo plus 12 hours on the plane plus 10 hours left of the day in America equaling 38 hours long!!! Anyways, I ended in Kyoto. We got to go to the Chinese restaurant that night and really liked it. I think Zane was left hungry but the food was good. We were the only diners in the restaurant for our entire meal and to be honest, we were awfully grateful for it. We looked so funny trying to figure out what everything was, the little cups next to the chopsticks, the different meals. It’s funny out here because they bring the food out when it is ready, not when the whole tables food is ready. So when we got my meal, we thought it was the rice we ordered, just thinking maybe the rice was hidden underneath the meat and noodles, so we started sharing it. Then after a few minutes they brought out Zane’s dish, and we realized he was eating my dinner! Because then finally after another 5 minutes or so, the rice was brought out, and sure enough, it was regular old familiar rice! It was pretty funny, I’m sure the waitresses got a kick out of watching us.


For the rest of Kyoto, so kept the bikes and saw the Kyoto Meiji Castle and this beautiful Temple painted in gold leaf. We also got to see Gion, the Geisha district, which you would recognized if you’ve ever read Memoirs of a Geisha. It’s one of my favorite books, so I was really excited to visit there. Apparently there was some festival going on in Gion around the days we were there… but not the day we went. The day we went it just looked like a carnival was closing up or something, and we didn’t know why, but later learned of the festival after leaving Kyoto unfortunately.


After Kyoto we went to Osaka. It’s a smaller sized Tokyo just 20 minutes from Kyoto. We had a nice hotel there right on the main shopping street. We kept it pretty low key in Osaka because this was something like our 26th day of travel, and we were a bit tired. We saw the Osaka Castle and all of the shopping around the hotel, but that’s about it. They had something called America Village right by us that advertised as American shopping, where you can buy all the vintage 1960s looking clothes as you want and apparently they sell thousands and thousands of dollars worth of Levis. It was sort of American looking to us. I guess a lot of slogan t-shirt shops.
So after Osaka we had reservations at a hotel at the base of Mount Fuji, planning to see the mountain, maybe climb it, just sorta playing it by ear. Well because of the language barrier we were sold tickets on the bullet train that has loads of stops, so after like 11 stops, we finally got to ours after 3 hours. We were mad because Fuji is between Osaka and Tokyo and it took us longer to get to Mt Fuji than it took us to get to the Osaka Kyoto area from Tokyo! But a long train ride was welcomed I think, after our exhausting trip. Well then they told us to take a bus to the hotel from the train station, a 2 hour long bus ride! We had to take 2 separate buses through the cities around the base of the mountain. It was rainy and foggy so we couldn’t really even see anything from the bus. So we just sat there getting motion sickness for 2 more hours. Finally we got to the hotel and Zane says as we are checking in “Alright, lets get our stuff and go climb the mountain!” With all the rain, I sort of assumed we weren’t climbing the thing, but of course I had to show him pictures of the beautiful sunrise that everyone climbs Fuji for, so he had his heart set. I was a bit upset about it because we didn’t have climbing gear (I was wearing Sketcher tennis shoes and he was wearing K-Swiss), it was rainy and we couldn’t even see the mountain from the base, and if it was going to rain for the whole climb, I was going to freeze at the summit in soaked jeans. So I may have thrown a fit about it, but Zane stood his ground and we did it. His point was that everything we read said that the sunrise is amazing, no matter what the weather at the bottom is, because you climb above the clouds, and at that point the rain had stopped. He said it will probably be miserable, but it will be worth it at the end. So being our 2nd to last day together, I wasn’t about to stay in the hotel while he went to climb a mountain alone at night. So I went. It took Blood, Sweat and Tears (lots of tears early), but we did it. We took the 915 bus up to the 5th station, where most people start the climb, got there about 10 and were off. We wore jeans, our street tennis shoes, tshirts, sweatshirts and jackets and I think we did alright. They say that it take 5 to 7 hours to get to the summit from the 5th station, and leaving at 10, if we go on the slower side, it puts us at the top around 4 for a 4:40 sunrise. Well, we got to the 8th station at about midnight, where there is a sign that says 3 hours to go. So we were making pretty good time. Well there are multiple station 8 huts from there to the summit, and we got to the last hut, which is an hour away at like 1. So apparently we were bookin’ it! By that hut, it was cold cold cold, so we went into the hut and had a cup of noodles each and 3 hot chocolates over an hour and a half. About 2:45 we went back out to make it to the top. The wind was whistling on the side of the hut and when we went out it was dense dense fog. We each had headlamps but mine was more of a flashlight, whereas Zane’s was an LED light with a wide angle giving him a pretty good sight. Mine was horrible, all I could see in the fog was the beam of light. The climb was rough in parts, especially between the last hut and the summit. None if the trail was smooth. A lot of it was climbing on hands and knees through mazes of huge rocks trying to find the smoothest path. I was a little scared that we would get lost, but the path was very well tied off with rope. They say 300,000 people climb it each years, so it is made to keep people safe. So we finally get to the summit at around 3:45 I think. There was a lot of traffic in that last part because everyone was trying to make it up for the sunrise.


So we finally got up there and the summit huts were closed until 4, so we had to wait outside in the cold wind. It was still foggy at the summit and we got a bit worried. They opened the huts and we waited. Zane took his big backpack to carry water and food for us, so he was exhausted after essentially running up a mountain. Anyways, we sat around and chatted with the other climbers until 4:30 when we realized the fog wasn’t going to burn off before sunrise. The sun came up and we saw nothing. We were so heartbroken. We were so excited to see it. Google Image Mount Fuji sunrise sometime, and you will see pictures of what we were supposed to see. Poor Zane was so excited for it and all for nothing. The point of staying up all night is to see this majestic sunrise, and as it turns out, all we get out of it is saying we did it. I think it’s still pretty impressive though. The base is at 3,700 meters and we climbed from 2,300 meters. It isn’t Mt Everest, hell I bet the mountains in the snowy’s peak higher than that, but it was the roughest terrain I’ve ever hiked. So I think it is a pretty good accomplishment. AND after the fit I threw when Zane wanted to go, I actually enjoyed the hike and took it as a competition almost, and the whole time we were in the front of our busload. Zane had this way of being right ALL THE TIME and once again, he was right. We had a good time. When we realized we weren’t going to see anything we went ahead and started the descent. We wanted to see in the crater of the volcano and the views from the other angles of the mountain, but we couldn’t see anything, so we gave up. The descent Is a lot different from the ascent. It is steep switchbacks the whole way down and its loose dirt. It would have been much easier to climb up that path, but boring. But anyways, the view from the descent was great after about 20 minutes. We were above the clouds but below the fog at the summit. We didn’t get to see the colors of the sunrise but we got to see the world from above the clouds. I have some pretty good pictures from this part.
After the hike we went off to Narita Airport – Tokyo’s international airport – and stayed the night at a hotel there. This morning we got up and Zane rode with me to the airport. My flight was at 11 and his wasn’t until 4 so we had to say goodbye at the security point. It was one of the hardest goodbye’s I’ve ever had. My two breakups have basically been because of a move, but leaving was so much harder this time because everything is going great. We have had an amazing month travelling together and it’s so hard to separate when we are so happy together. But we’re going to keep in touch and we’ll see what happens. I’m really anxious to hear how his flight went. His passport was washed in our laundry disaster, and was a bit worn. It didn’t look in very good condition. We took it to the embassy in Tokyo last week and the man at the passport office said he can’t guarantee that the immigration officers will let him out of Tokyo or into the US. He said the passport was on the bad side of OK condition and that he could get an emergency passport just in case, but Zane decided against it. All of his information readable and none of his stamps smeared. The officer said he may be denied entry onto his plane. That the officer in the states will most likely let him through, but the Japanese officers are the question. I couldn’t even wait to find out. So he may still be in Tokyo for tonight until he can get an emergency passport. I really hope not!!


So I’m moving into the hostel in London tonight. I’m really looking forward to not having an agenda. There are really only a few things on my list. I need to get a bank account and apply for some jobs, and I also want to get a book on professional photography. Zane and I have decided that I need a professional camera. I have all of these great pictures, but they could be so much more. With the amount of travel I want to do in my life, I think a really good camera will be worth it. Oh and also, I need to watch the last several episodes of the Bachelorette and see what happened! I haven’t gotten to see them since before I left! Gosh I love you abc.com! Anyways, I’ll write again when I do something interesting :)