April 10, 2006
Shikoku pilgrimage and tourist tromping pictures
Just up on Flickr: my pictures from my 6 day/160 km mini-pilgrimage and tourist tromping in Shikoku. I will be writing a long and boring narrative of my trip at a future date. Keep your eyes peeled. :)
I realize my blog is just becoming a middle man between me, you and my flickr site. I'll work on that in the future, if I have time.
Meanwhile, I have lots of pictures left to post. Ack!
Posted by Emarrific at 11:13 AM | Comments (4)
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)
October 02, 2005
Tou no Take Hike
This weekend, I went for a hike to Tou no Take 塔の岳 (a part of Mt. Tanzawa) in the East Tanzawa area with a couple of ALT friends. The hike was about 8 or so hours, including rests and someone's knee acting up. The trail was really well maintained, so it was less treacherous than other hikes I've done in the area. However, it was also more eroded than the other Tanzawa hikes, even the Ooyama trail. Also, the landscape was more craggy and dry. I guess in my mind, misty/moist = mysterious and beautfiul.
Therefore, I wasn't as trigger happy as during the misty Hinoki Bora Maru hike of the week before.
However, there was a simply breath taking view of Fuji at the top. I think that's why it is considered one of the 100 "famous mountains" of Japan (a list which includes Mt. Fuji). I don't think my pictures can really accurately convey how beautiful the view was, although my imperfect panoramic picture might give you a little of an idea. I hope you enjoy them.
Next week: Oze. Send me good weather.
Posted by Emarrific at 07:05 PM | Comments (2)
September 27, 2005
Hinoki Bora Maru
I went on a beautiful but treacherous hike with two fellow ALTs in the West Tanzawa area. Words and phrases to describe the experience: misty, narrow, steep, ladders, rusty chain rock climbing, sweating, dwarf bamboo ground cover, chicken runs, typhoon damage, poisonous snakes, leech, surreal, camp, hurrying to catch the bus.
Posted by Emarrific at 08:40 AM | Comments (2)
April 30, 2005
Makuyama
Wow, what a beautiful day it was hiking up Makuyama (Mt. Maku) today with MN and SO. The hike was close to perfect... four hours of moderate hiking without crowds in warm but slightly breezy weather. There were some steep inclines at the beginning of the hike so we felt a little warm. But when we got to the top of Makuyama and sat down, we cooled down real quick with the breeze. We enjoyed snacks and a rest while watching the view of Izu peninsula and the vivd green hills.
There were also many flowers in bloom that we stopped to snap pictures of.
My only complaint was that the sky was kind of hazy and overcast, even though it was warm and sunny. The view was bleached out with a hazy white light and you couldn't make out the ocean so well. It was beautiful, but I think it would have been stunning if only the sky was clear.
The walk down was fraught with danger because it was somewhat steep and was slippery with gravel and lose dry dirt. MN actually fell a couple times and almost twisted her ankle on the stuff, and I had a couple of pretty close calls there myself. SO, on the otherhand, ran and hopped down the mountain with her hands out at her side like a penguin with a tutu. It was very cute and athletic at the same time.
At the bottom of Mt. Maku there is Makuyama Park, which is a really clean and beautiful with a river running through it and some grassy flat areas. We sat on some rocks and stuck our feet in the icy river water. We saw a golden retreiver, a pomeranian and some guy whipping around a fishing line with no bait on it, or so it seemed from where we were watching.
As we headed away from Makuyama Park, we ran into a bungalow soba/udon restaurant that had nice interior and cute owner couple. Big balls of dried branches hanging from the ceiling and all the tatami tables looked out on the river in Makuyama Park. The food was excellent and very well priced; we each paid 650 yen for grated mountain potato zaru soba or grated daikon zaru soba. What a treat!
Near the bottom we ran into some tea leaf harvesters who suggested going early in the morning (8 or 9 am) to get the clearest skies and views. Maybe next time I'll leave the house at 6 a.m. so I can get the better views... By the way, the smell of fresh tea leaves is so fragrant and sweet! I really wanted to scoop up a handful of the freshly picked leaves and try eating it straight, but I don't think the harvester couple would have appreciated it.
I definitely want to go back to Makuyama and catch a clear morning view Izu peninsula. It's a repeat offender, for sure!
Posted by Emarrific at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2005
A cylcin' commutin' we'll go!
I biked to and from one of my schools today. I kind of took a long detour this morning so it took me 1.5 hours to get to school instead of 1 hour. I also had to go really fast to make it to school (almost) on time... about 30 km/hr on the coastal freeway near my house. The most bikable roads in my area tend to be the highways, unfortunately. But it was a beautiful day if a little windy, and I tired myself real good. I did 40 km or roughly 25 miles round trip. I used to laugh at such pitily little distances, but I'm really out of shape now so it kicked my a$s.
But I enjoyed it so much more because my feet weren't stuck to the pedals and so I wasn't afraid of dying. The roads are too narrow and scary for that.
Posted by Emarrific at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)
January 30, 2005
Hiking Up Old OOyama ("Big Mountain")
It was cold and rainy in the mountain I hiked up. I hiked in an area known as Tanzawa. There are many mountains and forests in this area. I left around 10:30 am and got to Hadano station at around noon. The next number 21 bus didn't leave for another 30 minutes, so I went to a bookstore in the station and bought a fold-out map of the area I was going. Otherwise, the station was pretty sleepy, although not quite as rural as I had imagined. There were actually a fair number of chains like Mister Donuts, Souzai bentos, Tsutatya Video Rentals, and so forth. Still, it was a bit sparse considering this was the center of town.
I caught the next bus and got off at an isolated bus stop at the end of the line called Minoge. I looked at the map and it said it took an hour to climb up to another bus stop (that is currently out of service because of the season) called Yabitsu Touge. (Touge means ridge or pass.) I figured that these times were probably made for old people so that they wouldn't underestimate how much time it would take.
There was hardly anyone on the path. At first I passed a group of six hikers but after that, I only ran into approximately 6 hikers the whole day! It gave the hike a haunting quality... there were no human sounds, so I was keenly aware of the sound of the trees swaying in the wind, the rustling of the bamboo and later, the sound of snow crunching underfoot, the few neat piles of deer feces, the sound of snow falling off branches, the misty clouds all around...
By the time I huffed my way up to Yabitsu Touge, I was sweaty, a bit wet and one hour down. It was now 1:40. The thing is, the times on the map were written for the old people I was seeing along the way, and those old people were hauling ass! I ate an onigiri (rice ball), filled out a hiker's card (so if I didn't return that night, they'd know where to look for my body), and decided to keep on going. There was a decent amount of snow and rain on the ground, so I thought that I might not be able to go very far. I had already come up to 761 meters but now I was going up to the summit at 1251 meters. There was sure to be even more rain, snow and cold as I went up.
But, as I got farther and farther away from where I started, I decided it made more sense to complete the loop then go back. The snow was definitely slippery at times, but going up it wasn't so bad. Meanwhile, I felt like I was in the cover of Snow Falling on Cedars. There was mist all about, there was wild bamboo growing out of the ground, the pine trees swayed in the wind like in typhoon reports on TV. I passed a few rest stops and restrooms which were completely closed. It was so quiet except for the wind and the trees.
By the time I got to the top, there were little white tendrils of snowflakes growing on my bag. The last ascent was very slippery because the temperature was going up and the snow was melting, not to mention the rain from earlier in the was falling off the trees. At the bottom of the last ascent there was a sign in Japanese that said, "Keep up the good work! You're almost there! Only 200 more meters (10 minutes) and you'll get to a rest stop with food, drinks and bathrooms." This was completely untrue of course, since it was the dead of winter and nobody in their right mind would try to run a business in these conditions. But it gave me a little laugh.
Anyway, I got to the top. The upper shrine and everything else was boarded up and abandoned for the winter. I felt rather like I was at some abandoned shrine in Tibet or something, even though I'm sure it's much colder there! It was already 2:50, so I only spent about five minutes there reading over the map and eating my onigiri (rice ball). I was starting to run out of water, but it didn't matter, since I wouldn't be getting to any bathrooms for another hour and a half. I rested under the eaves of a small shrine at the summit of Ooyama (Big Mountain) and then headed down to the mountain as a big hard chunk of snow-ice fell of a tree along the path. I thought that if I were a bird and that hit me, I would surely be dead.
I took a different way down the mountain to a different station. I had to use my feet as a slide, at first, to get down the slippery upper slopes, but luckily this new path started having non-snowy patches sooner than the path I had taken up. There were more signs of civilization on this path too. Signs, abandoned but cool looking rest stops (can't wait till they open), and benches. I tried to go as fast as possible, but the supposedly 1 hour trip downhill took about an hour and a half. I actually ran where possible because I was worried that if I took my time, I wouldn't be able to get off the mountain before it got dark.
I finally got to the lower shrine and temple around 4:30. I stopped at a rest area to get some odango (three rice cakes on a stick with sweet miso brushed onto it) and a bottle of water, expensive at 350 yen and 200 yen respectively. I guess you're paying a premium for the inconvenience of getting all that merchandise up the mountain. The old man at the store was nice and even told me the faster way to go down (called onna-zaka or woman's slope) and that if I didn't hurry the ghosts would come out. I jokingly asked back whether the ghosts were the fun or scary type, to which he replied mysteriously, "sounanoka," which roughly translates to, "so that's the case, eh?" Of course, it could be a huge misunderstanding on my part.
I almost didn't go down the women's slope because I was against the sexism of it all, but I was running short on time and the light was already getting dim. It gets dark so early here because there is no daylight savings time here. Anyway, I resolved to go up the supposed "male" slope next time. As it was, the female slope seemed steep enough and long enough. I had to haul some serious butt to get down to the bus stop by 5:00. Then, of course, I had to wait 20 minutes for the next bus, hot, sweaty, wet and tired, BUT very happy to have done the hike. I can't wait to go again. I might wait until the temperatures are better in a couple of months, though. I'll have to find mountains without snow to climb until then. But I'm still quite entranced and might go back again before the weather improves and the crowds thicken.
Posted by Emarrific at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)