Yokohama 横浜市

Wednesday and Thursday of this week we took a train trip to the Tokyo and Yokohama area with the first stop being the Minato Mirai 21 area of Yokohama. Yokohama is one of the major port cities for Japan and has a lot of history. We stayed at the Royal Park Hotel which is located in the Landmark Tower, at one time Japans tallest building. Our 56rd floor was really awesome and we had a great view of the city. While there, we visited the China town district, The Yokohama Maritime Museum, and several great shopping area's like Queens square and World Porters. Also across the street was the Cosmo World Amusement Center which is famous for its highly visible large Ferris Wheel. Due to the recent amount of Seismic activity we took a pass on the wheel. We did wake up one morning to a nice little roller which was easily felt on the 56th floor. Yokohama's Minato Mirai area is very new and very clean, as was most of the areas we visited around town. The are some decent restaurants, we visited the Hard Rock and Chandlers Seafood, a Seattle based chain. Overall this was a great place to visit except for day 1 when we had record high temperatures for the area which made moving around during the day a bit a chore.

The Aloe Sundae

For lunch today we decided to hit Wendy's. It wasn't until after we filled up on a good greasy Big Classic and fries that we noticed a Summer Sundae campaign going on. While Peach, Blueberry, and Mango, didn't seem too far from ordinary toppings, we had to wonder about the "Aloe".

Though I didn't give one a try today, It is a thought that next time I scald the roof of my mouth or throat on a piping hot drink, or a slice of pizza, I just can swing by a Wendy's afterward for treatment.

A Breif visit to Nikko 日光市

Pretty hot yesterday so we thought a drive to the mountains to cool off would be a good idea. Headed up to Nikko which turned out to be a bad idea. We took the back route up and it was fun driving as there were few cars, however, as its a holiday week we found the very popular tourist spot itself was over run with vacationers and tourist to the point that we really didn't get out of the car. Though traffic the was bad in Nikko-shi, it was still a nice day to get out of the apartment. The Nikko range is usually visible to us from our apartment most of the year and was nice to see the peaks up close. The snow capped pic is a view of the mountain from our balcony in Feb or March, and the others without the snow shot today at the top. We will return later this fall so we can check out the waterfalls, the lake and other nice stuff that Nikko offers.
http://www.nikko-jp.org/english/nature/index.html

お盆 Its time for Obon, which means a week off of work for us....

Obon is an annual Buddhist event for commemorating one's deceased ancestors. The Buddhist festival has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people from the big cities return to their home towns to relax, visit family, and clean their ancestors' graves. Traditionally it includes festivals, and it has existed in Japan for more than 500 years. The Obon week in mid August is one of Japan's three major holiday seasons, which in turn means a week off of work for many of us. It is probably also Japans busiest travel season, so this year due too late planning, Heather and I decided to keep things local.
We decided to spend our first few days relaxing in Utsunomiya but later next week we will travel to Yokohama and then spend a few days across the water in Central Tokyo, sightseeing, maybe looking for a good steak, hitting a few happy hours and generally being tourist.
The heat and humidity this week here in Utsunomiya has been the usual oppressive August fare, telling me it will probably be really nasty in the bigger cities farther south. We will do our best however to enjoy it and hopefully get a few good fotos to share here.

富士山 The Mt.Fuji Climb

So I finally did it. After 20 years of looking at Mt. Fuji out of Jet and Train windows as i passed by, I finally took the challenge to make the climb. At 12,396 feet, it is Japans tallest peak. The weather finally partially cooperated giving us no rain to climb in, but the peak was obscured by clouds from below and vice-verse. I must say that this was one of the most physically challenging things I have ever done, and it would have probably been a little easier at 22 than 42. People of all nationalities, ages, shapes, sizes, and background's come to climb the mountain, and from what we saw, many people reach the top whom you wouldn't expect, and many perfectly healthy folks never reach the top due to exhaustion or oxygen deprivation related sickness.
I joined my other expat climbing companions, Beth, Amanda, and Kim and we started our ascent at about 2pm on Sunday afternoon at the 5Th of 10 stations. This is the common starting point for climbers. The climbing was not really challenging from a terrain standpoint but the altitude definitely had our lungs working harder than normal.
We reached our rest hut at about 6:30pm, and there we had a cup of noodles and a place to rest until about 1am when we were off again, trying to reach the summit before sunrise. Many people climb straight through but resting for a few hours at the 8Th is a good idea to let your body acclimate to the lack of oxygen.
At about 1am we were off again trying to reach the peak before sunup. Yes this was actually the fun part as the climbing became more treacherous, with real rock climbing, and of course we were in the dark, using headlamps and flashlights . At this level many people start to have problems as the climbing gets tougher and the trail narrower, and the the trail actually became a traffic jam of climbers.
Happily we clawed our way through them and reached the peak at 4:30am in time to see the 4:45 sunrise. So total climbing time minus rest was about 8 hours.
The sunrise view though obscured by the clouds far below was as awesome as everyone said it would be, and the rest of the views down the mountain and of the craterd top also made for a worthwhile trip.
Finally we rested a bit, shivered a lot, took some pictures, and then decided to head back down the mountain.
The descent was actually more physically gruelling than climbing. While the down trail was basically a flat crushed lava rock weaving back an forth down the mountain we had no idea that this would be difficult. I thought after the climb up it sounded pretty good, but the reality was that 4.5 hours of a steep downhill grade, deep sand, and rocks, and our exhaustion, was by far much worse than any thing we were dealt going up. Took us about 4.5 hours to get down.
Actual travel time up and down was about 12.5 hours, save the 6 hour break on the 8TH for a overall total of about 18.5 hours.
Im sure you have looked at the pictures above, but do also take some time to visit the links below to Amanda and Beth's pictures also, as they both took time to snap some really great shots. Amanda's photos actually include a timeline of the whole day/night. My photos alone absolutely do not do this trip justice.

Kevin's Fuji Photos
Amanda's Fuji Photos
Beth's Fuji Photos

A long day? Yes! Worth the time and effort? Yes! Should you do it? Yes, if ever given the opportunity! Would I ever do this or any other large mountain climb again? Absolutely not, once was enough for a lifetime.
In the end it was one of the great adventures in my life and the pictures cannot begin to show you how amazing Fuji is or relate to you completely the experience we had.

Sayonara to the Sullivan's

July end brings the departure of another family that has run a 3+ year term. On both a personal and professional level, Shawn and Beth Sullivan have been great support to Heather and I both before and after our arrival in Japan. We had a gathering at Seychielles to see them off. We know they leave Japan with some great memories and we wish them and their daughters Colleen and Audra nothing but the best in the future.

Harland visits again

Last weekend Harland was in Nagoya on a business trip, and since the Fuji climb was cancelled by the Typhoon, we decided to meet him and his companions in Ueno at Fridays for dinner. Of course we finished the night at the Hardrock over a few more cold ones.

Now Testing the 宇農前通り Unoumae Dori Live Cam

You may see at the top of the left hand column we are testing the beta version of our live street cam. Its basically a view of the world outside our apartment window. It may be a little buggy and up and down as I try to figue out a good server host, the camera, and required software. If the server is connected, push play(maybe 2 times) and you should get a live view. We are currently using a Microsoft VX3000 webcam and Ustreamtv. Ustream may or may not ask you load the Adobe flash plugin to view the stream, dont worry it is safe. We will try this for a while, let us know how it looks on your screen.

梅雨 Tsuyu The Rainy Season Sets In.............

The 2007 rainy season or tsuyu as it is called in Japanese has finally set in for 2007. It usually occurs in this area mid June to mid July. While it is great for the rice fields, flowers, and other local crops, it can start to seem pretty dreary for humans after the second week. While it doesn't rain all day long it has rained more days than not in the last couple of weeks and looks as though it will rain 24 hours a day. As you can see from the picture comparison , it is not yet raining this morning, but the city is entrenched in a foggy haze and 100% humidity pretty much eliminating our nice view of the mountains and the west side of town. These pictures were shot about the same time mid-morning with the bright one being shot in March, and the foggy one being shot this morning, but it could be any recent morning. I tried to zoom in to Utsunomiya Tower but the haze limited the shot to the about as far as the Shinkansen tracks.

This weekend myself(ksaul) and 3 other expats had planned to climb Mt. Fuji, but had to cancel do to a Typhoon coming up the East Coast of Japan, which would have centered off the coast in the Mt. Fuji area about the time we pushed for the top Saturday night. We hope to reschedule the climb for next week, work schedules and weather permitting.

Typhoon MAN-YI http://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/0704.html should be as far North as Utsunomiya Sunday, but should hopefully mean no more than another Utsunomiya rainy season day for us.

Beths Going Away Party

Friday night Beths sensei threw a ladies night out going away party for Beth, this party is the 1st of several sayonara parties for the Sullivans! We had a great time, we went to Wara Wara and then to The Flying Squirrel which is a local darts bar.