emarrific

November 14, 2005

Yuushin Hike

This weekend (November 12-13) I went for an awesome one and a half day hike in the Tanzawa area with the lovely A-Lo and the debonair Yotokyoyo. We hike up Tou no Take peak (a place I went to last month) and then climbed down to Yuushin valley, where there were lots of turning maple trees. I love fall foliage; you will soon become all too aware of that when you see the nauseating number of fall tree pictures.

先週末（１１月１２日−１３日A-LoとYotokyoyoと一緒に丹沢で登山とハイキングをしました。最初の日、大倉から先月も行った塔の岳を登って、ユーシン（谷）に降りました。ユーシンには紅葉のもみじがいっぱいありました。わたしが写った幾多紅葉の木の写真から分かるでしょうが、紅葉が大好き！

We then stayed at Yuushin lodge, a musty throwback to the 1960s complete with dusty National Geographic magazines from the early 1980s, cobweb laced exhibits with rocks and skulls, non-existent heating, a great big ski lodge hall, dim lighting, soviet-style announcement speakers, musty bedding and lady bugs in the bathing room. A-Lo and Yotokyoyo were completely enamored of the place. A-Lo felt right at home, saying it reminded her of the Eastern European hostels back home. Yotokyoyo was just happy that it wasn't as bad as some of the mountain huts in South Africa. (Apparently it can be so bad that it's just better to sleep in a tent.) He was really loving the bath with the lady bugs.. so much so that A-Lo and I were wondering what was keeping him. Fetish for old Japanese salary man.

その晩ユーシンロッジに泊まりました。８０年代のナショナルジオグラフィックの雑誌が置いたあったり、暖房機なかったり、薄明かりであったり、古い布団が置いてあったり、とても６０年代っぽいでした。A-Loにとってこういう所は懐かしくって、故郷の東ヨーロッパのホステルに似てるそうです。Yotokyoyoは南アフリカのある貧しくってテントに寝た方がいいような山荘に比べてとても嬉しかったそうです。お風呂にもとても感動してたそうです。

The next day we walked out of Yuushin valley against a deluge of day hikers who had read the fall foliage day-trip magazines on all the racks right now. But it was still pretty quiet, and then we got to go home.

次の日、丹沢湖まで歩いてバスに乗って帰りました。

Posted by Emarrific at 10:35 PM | Comments (1)

November 05, 2005

Gorgeous 23 Degree Celcius Weather Made Me Do It!

日本語バージョンは後から...

Today started off rather normally for a November day... it was overcast, it was a bit chilly, and I was hunkering down for a weekend of grey rain, chores and studying. But then around eight a.m., what is this? The sun started to peek through. I hurried over to the computer and looked up the weather for today. Today's high temperature would be 23 degrees celsius? Hot damn. I have to get outside. Screw cleaning (I've been screwing it pretty hard for the last two or three weeks) and off to:

Fujisawa: For obsessive indecision over Kamakura guide book/map

Gokurakuji: For eating gokurakuji teishoku at three p.m. and do a short walk on the back (but extremely care-worn) trails to the northern area of Kamakura with Alamode.

Yokohama: For a 45 minute quickie study session, middle eastern cuisine, belly dancing and a combo strawberry, grape and rose hooka with Chalimar, Alamode, Ironya and Laetichan.

Oh. You're still reading? OK, here's some more details, for the Readers Who Want to Saber©

Maps: There are few perfect maps for walking in Japan. See in Jpaan, there are no signs for road names, therefore maps need to include many landmarks and details. So, for me the walker, the map scale should be less than 1:10000 to include enough details and roads so I can find interesting places to walk. Also, I hate unfolding maps; I like them to be in book form. But I want to be able to see the bigger context in which the smaller detailed maps fall into. I also want the map to cover enough area so that I could walk for half a day and not walk right off the map. Then, I'd like the map book to include a few hikes that are several hours to half a day long, a few details about major tourist attractions, and be compact (B5 size). I'm not asking for too much, am I?

Gokurakuji: The sign outside said "Special Gokurakuji Bento -- 900 yen" Like all good Japanese people, I couldn't resist the lure of eating a local specialty. We sat down at the solid dark wood counter and chatted as the owner went about grilling the fish and her cat meowed in the background. The bento was a giant two layer container. Rice with shirasu (mini white fishes), nori (seaweed) and ikura (large fish eggs) made up the bottom layer. The top layer was a potpourri of side dishes (mustard greens, soy bean mash with carrots, chikuzeni--veggies boiled in japanese style soup) and grilled fish. The fish was soft, moist and delicious. The bento also came with miso and pickled veggies.

Kamakura "hike": The trail was so worn down from traffic that even the stones looked a bit shiny and careworn. I think I prefer to keep my hiking to the more distant, less-travelled mountains now. I think my favorite part of Kamakura is not the nature, but the way the architecture blends in with the nature. I'll probably stick to the quiet back streets from now on.

Middle Eastern Restaurant in the heart of Yokohama:
During the walk in Kamakura, Alamode mentioned that Chalimar was inviting friends to go to a Middle Eastern restaurant in Yokohama. She had met the owner in church, and had been thrust a brochure. I decided, what the heck.

We get there, sit down and order. I ordered the Tunisia course which was a steep 4200 yen (about 40 dollars US). We didn't have a choice... Friday and Saturday nights are dinner course only. But it was worth it.

The meal started with a kind of Mediterranean tasting chopped salad: tomatoes, cucumbers, vinegar, oil, herbs. Then came a spicy tomato soup. Next course was Brick: dumpling with potato and egg in it with a wedge of lemon to squeeze on top. It was delicious!

All throughout, Ironya (Alamode's Japanese guy friend) was trying repeatedly to say "Thank you" in Nepalese to an anxious and flighty Nepalese waiter. Ironya's face was lit up with a slight pink hue as he kept on speaking unintelligibly in a mix of Japanese, English and Nepalese.

Then, there was a slight interruption for a belly dancer. The dancer had a perfect gym body... thin, firm and nice breasts. She was technically excellent but she lacked *sexiness*. I'm not sure if it was lack of hip curves or a certain "wild abandon". Still, it was fun to watch her expertly handle a sash, castanets, a sword and a gold cane. She also got some of the audience to participate, including Chalimar, Laetichan and me. It was kind of embarrassing, though, because she tried to get us to imitate her shaking her shoulders and hips, but we just couldn't do it.

And now it was time for the main course: Chicken Tajin with couscous. Dessert was an almond pudding and mint tea.

Just as we were thinking it was time to say goodbye, the owner comes out in white robes holding a HOOKA, pipes draped over his shoulder. I've never sucked on a hooka, so I was a bit unsure about it. I've smoked a couple cigarettes here and there, and find them harsh unless accompanied by alcohol. That night, I had not a drop of alcohol in my system. Still, I apprehensively took a tiny suck. It was really mild and tasted faintly of strawberries. I sucked some more to get more of the taste, and also to get smoke to come out of my nose. It really did taste like strawberries. On closer inspection, we really were smoking real strawberries with some kind of ash around it. The owner told us that it was strawberry, grape and rose leaves.

Smoking the hooka made me kind of giddy, and then made me sleep in really late the next day.

Anyway, here is a video of us sucking on the hooka, taken with my new cellphone. Enjoy!

Hooka Girls

Posted by Emarrific at 11:52 PM | Comments (3)