For quite a while, Tomo has been trying to convince me to attend the Fuji Rock Festival, held every year at the Naeba ski area in Niigata-ken north of Tokyo. While I love a good live show, and the open mountain space seemed cool, I never made it there. Music festivals sometimes seem like more work than fun: I’ve been to two Coachella festivals, and one Summer Sonic. Both of them were extremely hot, multi-day draining experiences. Of course, I saw some good acts, at those festivals, but I will admit I was looking forward to the end of the festival.

Since I feel like I am living a little bit on borrowed time here in Japan, I decided I would attend Fuji Rock this year. And I’m really, really glad that I did and will most likely go next year if I am still here. There are still plenty of excuses I could make not to go, and they are all true. There is no convenient way to get from Nagoya to Naeba – if you go by train you still need to go to Tokyo, if you go by car it is a 6 hour drive that is fairly inefficient, and if you take a night bus, well, that’s just hell. Also, it ALWAYS rains at Fuji Rock. Always. Plus, late July, early August in Japan is super hot and humid, even in the mountains. Each one of those excuses came true (well, no night bus), but I overcame them and my age and had a blast.

One additional problem is that Tomo almost always has some commitment for Fuji Rock as well, so he doesn’t really get to see the entire three days as a concertgoer. This year was no different, as he had obligations for Saturday and Sunday of the event. I really wasn’t that keen on spending two of the three days at the festival alone, but I cajoled one of my young Japanese colleagues to go to Fuji as well. Thanks Kanamori-san for joining on Sunday. It made the experience that much better.

Prior to the festival, I did my necessary scholarly research and learned of some new bands. Many already had a buzz about them, so picking up a few albums on iTunes was a welcomed expense. The way the lineups were shaping up, Friday and Sunday were looking amazing and Saturday was looking, um, well, not that interesting. Sorry John Fogerty, I’ve never really liked your voice or your solo work.

In order to get to the festival for the first band, we decided that I should come up to Tokyo on Thursday night so we could catch a 7:00 am train from Tokyo Station on Friday morning. Of course, I had a full day of work, on a really hot day as well so finally getting on the train felt great. Vacation.

By the time we were buying our shinkansen tickets to the nearest train station to Naeba, all the reserved seats were sold out. Uh oh. This was not to plan – I had expected the tickets would have been purchased already. But, no biggie, we got seats on the train no problem. Once we got to Yuzawa, the line to catch the shuttle bus to Naeba ski area was probably 1 hour long.

It was about 8:30 am and the first band was at 11:00 am. We were already pushing the schedule. Hey, things take time. Tomo did some scouting and discovered a taxi ride would be about 7000 yen. But split 4 ways, it was only about 2000 yen each. Definitely affordable. It took about two seconds to find two people to share the taxi and away we went. We arrived and started schlepping our luggage to the area where Tomo thought was the drop off point. Except it wasn’t. I felt a little silly dragging my over-nighter around with me while other more rough-and-tumble festival types were camping.

Others went for tiny car camping.

We got almost to the ticket area and merchandise area and then Tomo realized that the left luggage area was the other way. Oops. At that time, we decided to get our wristbands since we were nearly there. Already the line for wristbands was really long, and definitely was going to get much longer. Fortunately, we were on the guest list for that day thanks to Tomo’s connections (thanks to The Cribs!) so it was really easy for us. No wait, just our special red wristband.

The merchandise line was really long but we decided we could come back for that later. We started against the crowd to drop our luggage. As we were heading in the general direction, I suggested to check with our “ryokan” to see if we could just drop off our bag even though check in was at 3:00 pm. The answer was basically, “Sure, no problem.” So we had a plan – everything would be taken care of. We would have checked in, our bags would be were they needed to be, and all we had to do was enjoy the show. At this point, it was getting hot already and I was wondering if boots with wool socks was a smart idea. Short answer – the weather is very changeable and it was a great idea.

I’ll summarize all the bands we saw at the end of this entry. But the opening band was, “Superfly,” a pretty popular Japanese band. We made it for the start and enjoyed it a lot. FRF has about 5 main stages spread throughout the valley, with about 3 or 4 small DJ stages elsewhere. On the first day, we didn’t make it beyond the first two stages – the Green Stage (headliner stage) and the Red Marquee. I would call Red Marquee the stages for up and coming bands (although Fishbone laid down a set full of hate towards an ex there).

Superfly on the Green Stage

Even the young enjoy the show

And the crowd behind.

And the Red Marquee

Tomo had raved about the food and he was not wrong. The food was excellent. We immediately enjoyed とろろめし (tororomeshi) for breakfast on Friday. I actually enjoyed it EVERY morning. Basically, it is rice, soupy ground Chinese potatoes, and a little soy sauce. That’s it. Kanamori-san told me that the rice from Niigata is the best rice in all of Japan. Maybe that was the secret. I don’t know. I just know the food was great. We also enjoyed miso soup, pizza, ramen, tacos (as in Mexican soft tacos, not taco like octopus), corn on the cob with soy sauce, and of course beer. We were lucky for the most part because the oft promised rain came without fail. There’s basically only one covered stage – the Red Marquee - and we were in it when the rain came. We weren’t so lucky when we were eating dinner, but soon were able to move inside the tent and stay dryish.

We were able to enjoy MUSE together. Unfortunately, the beginning of the show was somewhat impacted by a totally obnoxious, totally drunk Brit. Imagine a rude Brit? So out of character. Once the crowd started surging when the music really got going, we decided to beat a hasty retreat and enjoy the full spectacle of the show without injury or burns from the Brit smoking in the no smoking area.

We headed back to the ryokan and soaked our tired bodies in the public bath in our ryokan. Tiny bath, and not very clean but the water was hot and it felt good.

Japan is very conscious of manners, or マナー (mana-) as it is called here. It is such a crowded country, manners go a long way. What was absolutely amazing about this festival is that the grounds are so clean and so respected. People bring their trash to the trash area and sort it very specifically. I think that’s great. I think it is amazing. Coachella becomes a big trash can by the end of the night and it all has to be cleaned up for the next day. But in Japan, the grounds, although muddy, are very clean.

Saturday

From early Saturday morning, I was solo due to Tomo’s commitments. There was still so much I had not seen though I could spend the whole day alone and just wander the site. In the morning I did decide to get some merchandise. Unfortunately, by the second day, the shirt that I really wanted was already sold out. So was my second choice. Not to be deterred, I bought something anyway. That’s good marketing – settling for your third choice because you just want something.

I caught some bands in the morning and then took the “Dragondola” to one of the local peaks where people were decidedly more “chill.” If this was Coachella, I’m sure the smell of pot would be everywhere. The whole weekend I caught one strong whiff only.

Of course there was a shop dedicated to THC

Actually, I am quite amazed at the ability for Japanese to sleep anywhere, anytime. True, alcohol could have something to do with it as could a difficult night of sleep in the rain in a tent, but every at every stage there where people totally crashed in their chairs, on a tarp, on the grass, wherever.

The Day Dreaming and Silent Breeze stage had a clearly chill groove to it, and was very relaxed.

I returned and ducked down below the gondola to hit a REAL bathroom, and as I came out, so came the rain. Lucky again, sheltered in an otherwise wide open festival. I watched the rain fall down around me and enjoyed the boots of the kid hanging out with me (well, actually with his parents).

Actually, as I said before, the fashion was very interesting, very much just wearing what was necessary to battle the elements. I saw a lot of shorts and leggings on guys and girls, and the variety of rain boots astounded me.

I wandered around the various stages and saw each of the areas, including a Dog Park, a drumming area, Orange Court, Field of Heaven, the NGO Village, and the White Stage. I encountered some surprising bands like a bluegrass band from the UK, and a New Orleans group that sounded like any one of 1000 house or show bands, complete with a cover of, “Shout.”

Dog Park

Stone Circle drumming

Orange Court

Acoustic stage

Field of Heaven

NGO Village

Kidsland

White Stage

The ski area has a nice walk through the woods that revealed an acoustic stage and lots of interesting light art. I actually walked the boardwalk twice, once in the day light and once as the sky darkened so I could get the full effect of the mirror balls.

I caught a little of Fishbone as I ate some food but the rain started coming down. I decided that it would be better to get a restful evening since Sunday was a big day, so I headed back to the ryokan in the rain so I could get dry and relax.

 
Sunday

Kanamori-san was going to drive up from Nagoya on Saturday, but he arranged some people to share the ride and share the cost, so his 6 hour drive started at about 10:30 pm on Saturday night. Poor guy, I had been sending him tons of advice from the festival, “Rain boots, camp stool, rain gear, rain boots, muddy” and so on. He probably was ready to kill me. He found rain boots, and we both determined that no rain would happen since he had them.

We had a last minute back and forth as Kanamori-san was bringing people with him, and those folks might be looking for a place to stay. I had room for two more on Saturday night, but Sunday was full with me, Kanamori-san, Tomo’s friend, and the friend’s friend. The logistics was seeming to work out, and I told Kanamori-san to call when he got to the ryokan and everyone could crash for a few hours of sleep. Like clockwork, at 5:00 am, the phone rain and Kanamori-san was there, drinking a celebratory beer with … 3 other people.

Uh oh. Definitely only room for a total of 4 people and now we had 5. No problem though, as one had another place to stay.

We slept a little bit more, 4 very cozy in a 6 tatami room. The Kanamori crew got past the logistics pretty easily and then we went to have とろろめし again for breakfast. At that point, Kanamori-san said, “I’m already happy,” which made me happy as well. After all, when you feel somewhat responsible for someone spending a bunch of money and traveling 6 hours by car, you hope they don’t say, “Well, this really sucks.”

We wandered from stage to stage, and met up with Tomo for a little bit as well as he had some down time. Tomo sought out Thom Yorke for an autograph, found him, but was DENIED! He was able to see Flea and have a chat with Jake Shears though.

We met up with Haru-san, one of the travel companions, and her crew at the Green Stage. It was nice of the crew to welcome us into the fold. I hung with the over 30 crowd while the young ones fought their way towards the front for Atoms for Peace. We were all given flashing rings to celebrate.

The day was remaining relatively rain-free, and the curse of the rain boots seemed to be doing its job, and also quite a job on Kanamori-san’s feet as huge blisters were developing. Then, during Belle and Sebastian, the drizzle started. By the time we made it to Scissor Sistors, it was a full fledged downpour. At that point though, I was caught up in the music and the festival, and danced, danced, danced. What a great way to end the festival.

We made it back to the ryokan to meet Yaya and her friend, and then the various members of the crew showed up as well. Ichikawa-san ended up sleeping in the car. Sorry dude. But he’s young. He continued to sleep on the way home too.

It was Grand Central Station at 1:30 am in the ryokan and a bit confusing, but things settled down and we went next door to an onsen, stood in line for about 15 minutes waiting to use the shower, and then had a very nice soak in the hot spring water. So nice.

 
Monday

Monday morning we woke up as planned, loaded up, and headed back to Nagoya. The roads were clear and the weather was fine, and we made the journey in about 6 hours. The time flew by for me.

The festival was fantastic, and I want to go again. I hope I’m around for it next year.

 
Bands

 
Friday

Superfly (Green Stage) – Japanese band to kick off the festival. They were the NHK theme song for World Cup this year, so I was familiar with the sound. The lead singer could really sing, and she did a cover of, “Natural Woman.” The pronunciation was a little questionable at times, but the voice was amazing.

Jamaica-Live (Red Marquee) - French band, singing in French and English. The were good. It was early and I forget most everything about them.

The Cribs (Green Stage) - Thanks for the guest list. And now I’ve seen Johnny Marr perform. We were way back in the back and they had a hard time reaching the audience back there.

Miike Snow (Red Marquee) - Excellent. I’ve heard mixed reviews about them live but they were very fine. Are they orthodox?

Broken Bells (Red Marquee) - I remember nothing.

The XX (Red Marquee) - Very art school. I think they may be too cool for school, or maybe really interesting to talk to. There’s such a fine line between brilliant and stupid.

MUSE (Green Stage) - Getting bigger and bigger every show. Heading towards arena rock self importance. Still a good show.

 
Saturday

Dirty Projectors (Red Marquee) - I kept calling them DIrty Professors, maybe because I’m still scarred by my EE professor getting a little too close for comfort. Anyway, had the misfortune of having the same drunk Brit from Muse stand next to me eating and getting in a food fight with his mate. Classy. The band was fine.

Kula Shakar (Green Stage) - Just heard them passing through the Green Stage area.

Third Eye Blind (White Stage) – By mistake. Wrong place at the wrong time.

Kitty Daisy & Lewis (Field of Heaven) - After hearing their bluegrassy sound I didn’t expect them to be Brits. But they were. They brought on a Jamaican trumpet player as well. Anytime you bring on a trumpet player I’ll perk up. Very entertaining.

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue (Field of Heaven) - I had NO plans to see this band. I didn’t even know who they were. But Mr. Shorty wasn’t so short, could sing, could dance, played trombone, and played trumpet. How in the HECK did he switch from Trombone to trumpet? I’m guessing he plays from two different positions so he’s got his trumpet embouchure and his trombone embouchure. Felt like a Vegas house band, but the crowd was really in to it.

Fishbone (Red Marquee) – Caught a little bit of their vitriol as I was trying to have some dinner and escape the rain

 
Sunday

Matt and Kim (White Stage) - Like watching a kids TV show with expletives. Really energetic, really goofy, really fun, but bordered on gimmicky.

Ocean Colour Scene (Green Stage) - Guitarist plays with Paul Weller now. Rocked out. The crowd enjoyed them.

Akihiro Namba (White Stage) - Another band I had not planned to see. Japanese, kind of punk. Apparently were really big about 10 years ago. Kanamori-san wanted to see them. They started to play “Stay Gold” as I was fiddling with my phone or something. Everyone rushed the stage and I ended up taking refuge in front of Kanamori-san. High energy, fun show.

Ozomatli (Field of Heaven) - Everything I miss about multiculti Los Angeles. Hispanic, White, African-American, Asian all represented in this band, with lyrics in English and Spanish. It felt so LA, and even the songs are about LA. The crowd enjoyed them as did I.

Vampire Weekend (Green Stage) - I was really excited to see them, but watched them from far away. As the show went on, their energy seemed to dwindle. Actually, I was disappointed in their live performance. Still love their album though.

Boom Boom Satellites (Green Stage) - This was another Kanamori pick. I was blown away - electronica meets rock. A Japanese duo who seemed to hit it big in Europe first. After watching them, I didn’t even bother to see Hot Chip or LCD Soundsystem.

Atoms for Peace (Green Stage) - Although Thom refused an autograph to Tomo, I still allowed myself to watch. AFP seemed to be generating the biggest buzz. They were great as I expected. I am not as familiar with the music as I am Radiohead, so I didn’t connect as much. Thom was looking really bad, but sounding really good.

Belle and Sebastian (White Stage) - Belle and Sebastian are always good. Maybe it is the trumpet that brings me back. I really enjoyed their show even as the rain started falling. They even did a sing-a-long for a song that hasn’t been released. It will be soon.

Scissor Sisters (Green Stage) - Last gig, pouring rain, and I danced my pants off. Jake sounded great and was loving showing off his new body. I really did dance a lot to this show.
 

And now for some pictures that don’t really go anywhere else.

Along the river

General scene around the Green Stage

Some Engrish. Not sure I want to drink from the Womb Bar.

Words don’t mean the same in Japan

And to leave with the youthful enthusiasm of a young kid drumming his Dad’s head.

When I posted “Ishigaki!” as a subject on Facebook, people were puzzled. The thought I was counting something, sneezed, and my brother went as far as to say it was the sound his cat made when trying to expel a furball. Thanks for the comments everyone. No, Ishigaki is an island in the Ryukyus (琉球), better known as Okinawa.

When most people think of Okinawa these days, they think of the controversy over the US bases on the main island of Okinawa. However, there are many islands that are part of the island chain. I wanted to go where there weren’t so many Americans to minimize the potential for hostility. We decided on the ANA Intercontinental in Ishigaki and a day trip to Iriomote. Ishigaki and Iriomote are part of the Yaeyama group of islands within Okinawa.

Unfortunately, the dates we chose were right in the middle of rainy season, or tsuyu (梅雨, つゆ), and the weather did not let us down. Somewhat surprisingly, it didn’t really impact our plans at all. It rained every day we were there, but the heaviest rain was conveniently timed when we were moving from one location to another, or in some sort of protected situation. Even when we were stuck in the rain, it wasn’t bad since the air temperature ranged from 24 degC to 29 degC the whole time (77 degF to 84 degF).

Tomo flew in from Tokyo, and I flew in from Nagoya and we met in Naha before continuing to Ishigaki. What amazed me is that I flew a 777 from Nagoya and Tomo flew a 747. His was cool too. I’ve never flown such a big airplane for a domestic flight, and for such a short flight. Well, a few times I’ve taken a 747 from Singapore to Jakarta, but I was amazed that there was such a demand that a jumbo jet is standard.

As I learned in Kyoto, it is school trip season and the airport in Naha was filled with packs of junior high school kids.

We got to Ishigaki fairly late on a Friday, but early enough that we could find a place for dinner. Tomo had a few ideas from a book, but the taxi driver made our final decision for us. The restaurant was fantastic, clearly a local place, and appeared to have a mix of locals and visitors.

We had decided to go to Iriomote for a day trip and actually booked a tour. I’m not a big fan of tours, but they can be convenient. By booking the tour, we didn’t have to worry about renting a car, or being tired as we drove from location to location, and we can get a little bit of local description. Of course, like any tour, each place we went conveniently had some shop associated with it where we could buy souvenirs, ice cream, etc. One our itinerary was a boat ride along a river and through a mangrove, a 2 hour hike to a from a waterfall, lunch, a visit to a beach where the sand is shaped like a star, and then a water-buffalo cart ride to another island.

To get from Ishigaki to Iriomote required a ride in a ferry. The only time I rode a ferry consistently was in Sydney, often taking the ferry between Manly Beach and Sydney Harbor. When I was there, you could choose between a big boat or, for a premium, the hydrofoil. So when I saw our “ferry” I thought, “Uh oh.” I’m not a great sailor and I worried about the 35 minute ride. The boat seemed so small and so claustrophobic. I was expecting to hang out on the deck, letting the fresh wind buffet me as we meandered to the next location. Instead, I walked down a few steps into a single aisle, 3 x 3 seat configuration with a ceiling lower than a 737. I was afraid this was going to be bad. Once we started though, I realized why we weren’t on deck – this boat was a speedboat! We were sitting right at water level, and the boat was flying across the sea. There was no rocking of the boat – any waves we encountered were either destroyed by us or pounded us in a slightly different direction. In true Japanese and transportation form, most everyone slept.

Inside the boat

Once we arrived, we found our tour bus, and had a total of 5 people in a full size tour bus. I was thinking perhaps we picked a lame tour, but I realized that there just weren’t that many people visiting. Cool. Iriomote has two stoplights on the entire island, and we encountered one of them.

Iriomote has two main rivers sending water from the mountains to the sea, and we took a boat ride through a mangrove. Pretty scenery, that’s about all to say about that. We were dropped off upstream, where we started a hike to an upstream waterfall. The hike took us through a rainforest, and the path was a mixed of pavers, prepared stairs, and roots. We were both wearing sandals and realized afterwards that we were really sore from trying to maintain balance. Since we had no ankle support our legs were doing a lot of work. We saw many interesting things along the way, including multiple spider webs with a mean looking master. The waterfall was nice although I guess I was expecting a 200 foot tumbling spectacular instead of a stretch of rough water.

The boat dock

Tomo, looking 1960s Italian in his Ben Sherman shades

In the rain forest

The spider

Waterfalls along the river

Lunch was provided at a nearby resort. It was a set course, and very good. It was very colorful as well.

Next up was the hoshinosuna (星の砂, ほしのすな) beach. Basically, the sand contains many star shaped “grains” which are actually shells. It is interesting though to run your hand through the sand to find the star shaped grains. Both Tomo and I found a grain immediately, so we spent the rest of the time enjoying the scenery and checking out the tidal pools.

Starry sand

Trapped in a tide pool

The beach

After that, it was around the island to a place where you can ride a cart drawn by a water buffalo to another island (Yubu Island). I was not really keen on this part of the tour, but apparently it was made famous by a commercial in Japan, and also by a television show. So it has become a part of the Iriomote circuit. My thoughts didn’t really change when we reached the location and the wind was whipping and the tide was low. But we rode the buffalo to the island. It turns out the island used to have residents but during one particularly strong typhoon they left the island and decided (or most likely it was decided for them) that they would not return. There are still a few buildings left over from that time, including a school. It was very LOSTesque and I was afraid Ben or the Smoke Monster might show up. Instead, it seems an eccentric couple turned it in to a kind of horticulture park.

Water buffalo and riding over on the cart

The scary things on the island including a falling-down school, some strange fish thingys, and Doraemon

Some of the interesting flora on the island

Iriomote is also famous for the Iriomote Mountain Cat, a nocturnal cat that no one ever sees. I didn’t see it either, but found a few signs that made me think I didn’t want to encounter it!

We then zoomed back to Ishigaki, got cleaned up, and went to a yakiniku (焼き肉, やきにく) restaurant for some famous Ishigaki beef. Our reservation was for 7:30 pm and we were warned that they may be sold out of some items by then. Island life is early! And so ended our first full day in Okinawa.

Ishigaki Island

The next day, the weather wasn’t very promising, so we decided to do an Ishigaki tour. This time we had a full sized tour bus for just the two of us. Yikes! I wish we had a minivan. The tour started off rather ominously, visiting a memorial to Chinese that were killed by the British and Americans after their ship wrecked on the island. Hmmmm. But then we headed to Kabira Beach. Our guide offered us a glass bottom boat ride for a little extra money. Since we didn’t have anything else going on, we decided, why not? I’m glad we did. We visited the beach and were told that it was one of the top view points in Japan. And it was indeed. It is beautiful in bad weather and I can’t imagine what it would be in bright sunny skies.

The scenes around Kabira Beach

Interesting things on shore

Low tide around Kabira Beach

The glass bottom boat, after an initial tangle with other anchors, was pretty amazing. The water is so alive so close to the shore. Most islands in Okinawa are surrounded by reefs, so there is lots to see. Certainly Kabira Beach was the highlight of the Ishigaki tour.

Naha

On the way back to Nagoya and Tokyo, we had a long layover in Naha and spent some time on Kokusai Street. It was raining a ton and chocked full of junior high school kids. We had some good タコス, or tacos. We wandered through the shopping area and then headed back to the airport.

The shopping area at Kokusai Street

It was a great time, even if it was just for a long weekend. I wonder what it looks like when the weather is nice?

A couple of weekends ago a friend of mine from LA came to visit me for the weekend. Yes, for the weekend. We were IMing one day and I asked him when he was coming to visit. At that time I thought my days here were numbered (now, I think I have gotten extended again but I have no paperwork to support that) and he was going to the East Coast for work in the Fall, so he hopped on line and bought a ticket. For a weekend. Cool, I say, always glad to hace visitors.

So what do you do in a weekend in Nagoya? Go other places! Hey, if you only have from 8:00 pm on a Friday until Noon on a Monday, why should we just hang out in my apartment / cave in Nagoya. If you had two days what would you do? We went to Kyoto on Saturday and Tokyo on Sunday. The old, the new, and some expensive transportation costs.

For Nagoya-ites, of course the first night I had to take him to Yamachan. Nagoya tebaski, it doesn’t get any more Nagoya than that other than maybe kishimen. It was a hit.

Saturday morning we hopped on the shinkasen and went to Kyoto. I have several variations on the same itinerary. We checked out Kyoto Station, then visited Ryoanji, Kinkakuji, and Gingakuji (with a stop at Omen restaurant). Instead of Higashiyama and Kiyomizudera, with took the Gion option. That turned out to be very interesting. Back to the train station, Nagoya, dinner (my favorite ramen) and then crashing hard.

Kyoto Station -

What makes a terrace happy?

I’ve described Kyoto many times before, here, and here, and here. I’m not going to describe it all again. I will say though that this is the first time I’ve ever been here in the late Spring. I’ve been here for sakura and fall colors, but never this time. I think Kyoto is beautiful in all seasons, except for maybe the dog days of summer. Well, even then it is probably beautiful but the heat is likely too oppressive to remotely enjoy it. I was carrying two cameras, so I decided to use my “big” camera and shoot only black and white. I used my soon-to-be-deceased point and shoot for color. That’s what I thought anyway. The leaves were remarkable.

Fresh leaves at Ryoanji

To get a little off topic, I have been shooting in RAW with the option to save a JPG of the image as well. I shot RAW because it is the pure sensor output – no processing by the camera. Well, when I loaded my images in to Aperture, I only saw color. I guess Aperture, although it had both the RAW and JPG, only chose to display the RAW so everything was in color! I went searching for the black and white, found them, but it was harder to preview them. The cool thing is that there are a few pictures I shot that are more interesting in color so I never lost that data. But now editing and browsing in Aperture is a little difficult. I haven’t fallen in love with Aperture and don’t know what it actually gives me. Even the directory structure got all messed up.

So, as I said, I shot in black and white mostly, and for this blog entry I’ll try to remain true to my assignment. However, I did shoot some in color and there might be a few that I will allow myself to start with the RAW image because, well, color was better.

Which way? The usual route, but please do not touch the trees.

As Aaron is just a child and a triathlete at that, I figured we could walk from Ryoanji to Kinkakuji. It was swarming with folks of course. I’ve saturated on Kinkakuji quite honestly but it is a must stop for first time visitors. It was school trip time, so the place was crawling with junior high students. We were “interviewed” by some students and that was pretty funny. When they asked where I was from and I answered, “Nagoya” I think they were a little confused. Heh heh.

A few pictures from Kinkakuji -

And the swarming students at Kinkakuji (and Ginkakuji) -

We caught a taxi to Ginkakuji, and stopped for udon at Omen. Stull yummy, the first restaurant I ever went to in Kyoto. Thanks Kevin. Ginkakuji was really nice this time. The renovation was complete and the grounds were beautiful. We did a little of the Philosopher’s Walk as well.

The curtain of the udon shop.

I thought we’d go to Gion next. I’ve never really wandered around the Geisha district. When I was in Kyoto with my family, a taxi driver took us through that area. We decided to walk through andenjoyed the old school flavor. How much was old and how much was made to look old I’m not sure. While we were walking around we say a Maiko walking down the street. I felt a little guilty but I snapped a picture. There was a westerner basically just running in front, taking a load of pictures, running in front, taking pictures, and so on. I thought it was a little bit rude. We wandered around a little more and kept bumping into Maiko. We saw an old すけべ Japanese guy chasing Maikos as well so I didn’t feel so bad.

Street scenes in Gion,

A high school archery club, possibly post event,

And finally a Maiko,

We decided to walk to Kyoto Station from Gion. We came across another beer vending machine, and this time Aaron could not pass it up. When we got to Kyoto Station, the light was fantastic so I snapped a few pictures there as well.

Aaron buys a beer,

Kyoto station as darkness falls,

… and in color.

We ended the night with a very satisfying Sapporo ramen at the Nagoya train station. We got home and Aaron passed out. Not bad for day 1.

And on to Tokyo

After a great day in Kyoto, Tokyo promised to be even better. We were planning on meeting Tomo and then running around the city together. Except Tomo was too tired to get out of bed so I rearranged our plan – better known as making it up as you go along. We got to our first cool place, I pulled my “big” camera out of the bag and turned it on. Except it didn’t turn on. Drat. The battery was fully charged, and snuggly in the charger in my apartment. Well, luckily I have two cameras. I pulled out my year old point and shoot and powered it on. Except it didn’t power on either. It had its battery. So Tokyo was captured on the iPhone camera. Oh well. The bad thing is I ended buying a new battery for the point and shoot, and the problem still existed. So I bought a new charger. Still won’t power on. So I guess the camera is just dead. I really don’t want to buy a new one here because they are more expensive (yeah, go figure) but I’ve paid for half a camera just trying to get the broken one working.

We first went to Harajuku / Meiji shrine and looked at the Goth. Where did everyone go? I guess I’m 15 years behind the times. Aaron declared he was temple / shrine saturated. That didn’t take long. We wanted to check out a bicycle shop nearby so we walked through Yoyogi Park. I had never been there before, and its HUGE. We checked out the remarkably tiny bike shop and walked down Kitayama to Shibuya. We found conveyor belt sushi so lunch was solved. We were meeting Tomo at Shibuya Station and ran across a festival in the central part of Shibuya. With bon odori and everything. What the heck? It was a strange site.

Once we met up with Tomo we ran some errands and wandered up to Omotesando / Aoyama. We did the usual Prada building gander, and walked through A Bathing Ape. At that point, we all declared it was time to sit and chill. Aaron and I had been walking for days on end. We went to the Paris priced Anniversaire café / wedding factory and had some drinks. It was nice actually to sit and watch the people go by while chatting. I love the European café feel and they are few and far between.

We then went to Tsukishima to enjoy monja and okonomiyake. Yum. Tomo is an expert monja and okonomiyake chef, so we had a great meal. And Aaron wasn’t grossed out at all by it. We headed to the Oedo onsen in Odaiba and had a nice soak before catching the last train to Nagoya. What a weekend. Busy, and fun filled.

Sakura for 2010 has come and gone. Well, I assume it is gone since I’m not actually in Japan at this time. When I left last week, the wind and the rain were taking their toll on the trees.

I was able to enjoy sakura a little bit this year, although I think the peak time was probably when I was in between traveling to and from the UK just prior to traveling to the US. On a side note, I will say that I am very relieved that I got out of the UK before Eyjafjallajokull erupted. (Say Eyjafjallajokull fast three times, come on, I DARE you!). So, although I missed the peak, I did get some early viewing in and some night viewing.

Luckily, Yahoo! Japan has an entire guide to cherry blossoms on their website, so you can see EXACTLY what the conditions are throughout the country. There are also other websites dedicated to watching the progress of the blossoms, such as this one for Nagoya.

Tomo and I went to Tsuramai Park early in the season for our own little 花見 (はなみ - hanami - cherry blossom viewing party). As always, you can count on festival foods – the really unhealthy stuff. We had からあげ (karaage – fried chicken), 焼そば (yakisoba – fried soba noodles), and were tempted by たこ焼き (takoyaki – squid in a dough ball). And, of course, beer. Public consumption of alcohol is stilled allowed in Japan. I wonder when that will end?

A week later I went out on my own on a lonely Saturday night to 山崎川 (やまざきがわ – Yamazakigawa). I knew that Yamazakigawa had illumination and I thought that the path started near Aratamabashi, but when I found the river and started walking the correct direction (courtesy of my trusty iPhone GPS) I was underwhelmed. There were lots of cherry trees but very low level lighting. It was cold as well, and I was bundled up. I kept walking though, knowing that there should be something more dramatic. Eventually I found a mob of people and overly illuminated cherry trees. Clearly I was there.

Sakura is a great time of year in Japan, signaling the beginning of springtime. Once I returned from the UK, spring was busting out all over. I’m sure that when I get back just before Golden Week, Spring will have sprung completely.

Enjoying Tsuramai (or Tsurama) Park.

The underwhelming night view along Yamazakigawa…

… that fortunately got better further down the path.

As I was meandering through the streets trying to find my way to a different subway station, saved again by my iPhone GPS, I stumbled across some interesting architecture including this overgrown gerbil habitat. Interesting.

Monday, September 21

Our crossing from the British Isles to continental Europe was uneventful, marred only by the crazily loud Brits in the seats in front of us. That did not deter Tomo from sleeping though, as all Japanese are specially trained to sleep in any moving vehicle. We arrived at Paris Gare du Nord on time and with bags in tow. The train station is huge, and so much different than a Japanese station. We made our way to the taxi stand and of course got a negative reaction to our luggage. Hmmm, the taxi stand was at a major international train station – should he expect everyone to be free of luggage? On the taxi ride to the hotel, Tomo commented something like, “Paris is ugly.” Admittedly, the area around Gare du Nord is not beautiful, but I thought, “Uh oh.”

We arrived to the hotel and were luckily upgraded from an incredibly tiny room to a really small room due to my platinum status. Hotel rooms in Paris are small, and we knew ahead of time that the room would be small, so it was no big deal. The room was quite nice – the time we were staying at the Renaissance Paris Vendome. It is considered a “boutique hotel in the heart of Paris.” The location is great – just off the Rue du Rivioli near the Tuilleries. I was able to use a couple of free nights there too, so the cost was amortized. That’s the only way I can look at it. Hotels in Paris are expensive, especially with the weakness of the dollar right now.

(Recall, I’ve added a gallery using Apple’s MobileMe gallery. Check it out here.)

As part of my frequent stay status, we are allowed a “welcome gift” so we thought champagne would be appropriate. Usually the welcome gift is given shortly after your arrival. We went to the room, unpacked, relaxed a little, and waited. And waited. In the meantime, since I cannot live without the thought of being connected to the interwebs, I hooked up my computer to get online. We were meeting a friend the next night for dinner, so I had to get online to check the when and where. The connection was dead. We called the front desk, and a kid was sent up to look at it. We tried several different options, and still dead. He gave me the Gallic shoulder shrug and short “pfft” sound and said, “Someone weel loook at eet toomarrhow.” Great. (Tomo asked me why the French say, “eeet” instead of “it” – interesting question. Because the “i” sound equals a long e sound in English I guess.) Ah, I really was in France!

We gave up on our champagne and decided we’d just get some dinner. We went to the truly friendly (as in truly friend, no sarcasm at all in this statement) front desk and mentioned about the internet, our lack of welcome gift, and did they have any good dinner recommendations in the neighborhood? They gave us a free internet pass for use of the computer in the lounge, said they would look into the problem tomorrow, delayed our welcome gift, and suggested a good restaurant. Tomo and I both decided that we wouldn’t worry about the internet – if the hotel wasn’t able to fix it then we would assume they would change our room. We won’t talk about my attempt to get access to the electronics behind the wall, and the cracking sound that happened when I tugged on the board that I thought was an access door. Now I’m not sure that it was.

We asked to go to a simple bistro / brasserie nearby because we were a bit tired. We were sent to L’Absinthe on Place du Marché St-Honoré. I was expecting something a little less upscale, and was surprised by the €50 price on the meal. Oh well, c’est la vie. The meal was very good, but the ensuing drama behind us was disconcerting. The weather was remarkably mild, so we chose to eat outside on the patio. One thing about Japan – there’s really no eating outside. It is too hot, or too rainy, or too buggy, or just too too. But as anyone who was been to Europe knows, eating al fresco is quite popular.

We were settling nicely in to our meal and then heard a ruckus behind us. An American couple, or at least they seemed American, were having a fight. Something happened, we think it was with the woman complaining about some aspect of the service, and the husband reacted. The husband stormed off, returned, and then stormed off again. Public conflict always gives me the shakes, and I don’t like seeing it. Unfortunately, the voyeur in me can’t keep from watching or being interested. So throughout meal, we tracked their progress. They ended up waiting for each other within 50 yards, but invisible to each other. If one or the other had walked to the edge of the Place du Marché St-Honoré they would have seen each other. Instead, their obstinacy won out and they departed separately. Oh boy, I’d hate to be near their hotel room that night. How horrible on vacation.

Our meal was very good, and I was quite satisfied by the recommendation. It was getting late, so the restaurant was actually quite pleased to get us on our way.

Our dark table,

Place du Marché St-Honoré,

The evening was beautiful, the food was heavy, and it was our first night in Paris so we decided to go for a walk even though it was late. We walked across the Rue du Rivoli and entered the Jardin du Carrousel. From there, we could see the Arch de Triomphe du Carrousel and look across the Tuilleries, the Place du la Concorde, down the Champs-Elysées, to the Arch de Triomphe. Look to the left a little, and there was the Eiffel Tower in all her majesty. Turn around, and the Louvre and the IM Pei pyramid is right there. So much fanstasticness in one little spot. Paris is definitely not ugly. How the city maintains its grand feeling in these modern times is very special. I love Paris (I will avoid the cliché) and always will.

Here is the Louvre at night,

As we were walking back to the hotel, the clock struck midnight and the Eiffel Tower sparkled for a while as tons of strobes blinked on and off. To think that the Eiffel Tower was hated at the time it was built.
 

Tuesday, 22 September

Paris is for walking, and we had a pretty big plan for Tuesday. First on the schedule was the Eiffel Tower. At least that was my schedule. Tomo wanted to hit the Arch de Triomphe first to get a map of the city in his head. Not a bad idea, of course, since all roads lead there anyway. You can walk to the top and get a great perspective. Before climbing to the top though, we enjoyed a view of the Champs-Elysées.

We climbed the stairs to the top, and it was a rather gray day. It looked like the morning haze would burn off though, and the temperature was fine. From the top, we got a great view across the city, and I could point out all the areas we planned to visit.

A hazy day in Paris,

While we were inside the Arch de Triomphe, we saw what Tomo reckoned was a tribute to Fred Perry. It might have been about peace.

We found a statue inside that reminded us of Aunt Linda from Saturday Night Live, a Kristen Wiig character who does movies reviews. “Whaaaaat?!?! I give 3 ‘are-you-kidding-me’ and a ‘mleh.’” Tomo is doing his best to imitate in the background.

Going down the staircase to leave the Arch de Triomphe, Tomo snapped a really good picture of me.

We then went by subway to Trocadero to approach the Eiffel Tower from the North. In this time of year and this time of day, this is not the best photographic approach. All photos were shooting straight in to the sun, so it was almost impossible. Turn around though, and it is a beautiful blue sky. There’s really not a lot to write about visiting the Eiffel Tower. It is majestic, and the area approaching is beautiful too. There are lots of illegal vendors selling souvenirs, but they scatter when the bike cops ride by.

Remember, you can see higher resolution photographs of Paris, in color and black and white, here.

We decided not to go to the top of the tower. In the past I’ve done it, and we thought we’d be better off just wandering around a bit. It was also getting close to lunch, so we decided we’d slowly make our way towards a restaurant. Once we got to the southern side of the Eiffel Tower, things brightened up a bit. And finally, I can prove that I was actually on this trip.

We walked down the Avenue du la Motte Picquet towards a restaurant recommended in Tomo’s guidebook, L’auberge Bressane. Interestingly, they have a Japanese website as well. Hmmmmm. The food was heavy, but good of course. As we were walking, I saw an old, beautiful building that felt very much like Paris.

Next stop was Les Invalides, and somehow we approached it from the Musée de l’Armée side. I got a good picture of the courtyard, and then we went in to the Eglise St-Louis des Invalides. Just on the other side of it is the Eglise du Dôme where Napoleon’s Tomb is located.

Eglise St-Louis Des Invalides,

Eglise du Dôme,

The tomb of Marechal Ferdinand Foch, which is brilliantly lit by deep blue stained glass,

I didn’t find the tomb of Napoleon that interesting as it was, quite naturally, far too large and overstated. However, I did find the mosaic in the floor to be interesting.

The day wore on, and we were getting tired of course. We continued towards the National Assembly, and on the way passed an interestingly named shop. This picture is for my friend Ben, and while the name of the shop is quite correct, I think he’ll get the connection.

At the National Assembly, we crossed the Seine via Passerelle Léopold-Sédar Senghor and made our way back to the hotel. At this point, we wondered if we were going to receive a Treatment Parisian regarding the interwebs, or if a solution would be provided.

On the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar Senghor,

I’m happy to report that upon arrival, we were told the internet could not be fixed so they had moved us to a different premium room. The room was slightly different but a little more bright than our previous, the internet worked, and all was well. In addition, our delayed welcome snack was brought to us and we enjoyed champagne after a long day.

In the evening, we met my friend Blaise for dinner. I met Blaise when I was participating in a 9 week study program in Strasbourg in 2003, courtesy of our companies. Blaise and I talked shop and reminisced while Tomo did his best to follow along. It was great catching up with Blaise, who is genuinely a great guy, and hopefully it won’t take 6 years to see him again.

Another highlight of the day was walking past Michael_Kors on Rue St-Honoré. Yes, that Michael Kors of fashion and Project Runway. We were too late to stop him and ask for a picture. He was walking down the street gabbing with a friend, looking very much like he was gossiping. A friend said, “Did he have on blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and a blazer?” Why, yes he did as a matter of fact.
 

Wednesday, 23 September

What would a trip to a major city be for Japanese without a visit to a major department store? Or in our case, TWO major depart stores! We planned to get おみやげ on this day so that we wouldn’t have some last minute panic prior to leaving. We decided to go to Opéra and the Galeries Lafayette and Printemps department stores. On the way, we happened to stop at Celio, which is a sportswear shop. On my first trip to Paris 20 years ago, it was so hot when I was there that I had to buy some shorts. At Les Halles, I bought some shorts at Celio. Now, 20 years later, we were shopping at Celio again. Tomo found a really cool shirt that they had in XS. I wanted one too, but it would be sort of silly to have the same shirt. As we were checking out, the cashier could not find a pen. In my best French I was able to say, “J’ais un stylo.” I have a pen! It was a proud moment in my trip. For the first time, I uttered a complete sentence in French without mixing in a Japanese particle or Japanese word.

We wandered around the department stores, purchased the necessary gifts for colleagues in Japan, and ate a very unimpressive lunch. You can’t always pick the right restaurant while wandering about the city.

Inside Galeries Lafayette,

Our plan for the afternoon and evening was to visit the Louvre, which is open late on Wednesday nights.

We headed over to the Louvre at around 5:30 pm, walking through the Tuilleries and the Jardin du Carrousel again. The day was just beautiful, and the color was fantastic.

We arrived inside the Louvre just in time to take advantage of the noctourne admission price. Hey, that wasn’t the point but I have no issue taking advantage of a cost saving. Of course, there is way too much to see in the Louvre, and you cannot expect to see the entire museum at once. As a matter of fact, it is a bit crazy to even try. You’ll be so tired of the art that you will become numb. I can spend about 3 hours in a museum alone, usually a little less time if I am with someone else. Since this was Tomo’s inaugural visit to the Louvre, we HAD to see the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and the Vermeer works. We passed a lot of beautiful work on the way to the Mona Lisa, but we had a sense of purpose. The Louvre has renovated since the last time I was there, and the Mona Lisa is much more protected and has a room basically to herself.

I found the scrum around to view her as interesting as the painting itself.

My favorite picture, perhaps of the entire trip, is the picture Tomo took. Kudos to Tomo for this great photo.

Similarly, the scramble around the Venus was interesting.

Unfortunately, Tomo found out his favorite Vermeer was on loan for an exhibition in … Japan!

Our required pieces checked off, we were able to reset and start browsing the galleries.

While we were wandering around, a group of performance artists entered the gallery we were in and began a performance. I’m not sure what sweet nothings were getting whispered.

As always, I gravitate towards the sculptures. They are great portrait subjects because I don’t have to pose them at all. Just frame them or shoot.

I guess two of them got bored standing around alone for centuries and got together to gossip about the others in the gallery,

While another was enraptured by his own anatomy,

In context, he and his colleagues are supposed to be supporting a fountain on their backs.

Dramatic lighting and a rich background can make a typical black and white shot also interesting in color,

As we were leaving, we noticed the entry has a much different feel at night than during the day. The staircase to the exit was very interesting at night.

We had saturated on French food by this point, and decided that Thai would be refreshing. It was, although it could have been spicier.

 
Thursday, 24 September

If you have read this far, you probably need a rest. We probably should have scheduled in a rest day as well, as we were getting mighty tired. There was a lot of seeing and doing on a daily basis, and although our pace was reasonable, a spa day might have been nice. But nope, we had things to see. Thursday morning was our day to go to Notre Dame, but Thursday morning kind of slid to Thursday late morning, early afternoon. The day was overcast compared to other days, and a little cooler. As always, we walked through the Louvre to get to the Pont des Arts to cross over to the left bank and work our way back to the Île de la Cité. On they way, we saw a more industrial side of the Louvre,

On the Pont des Arts,

Notre Dame’s face was clear, for the most part, of scaffolding

And the inside was dark and crowded,

Of course, we climbed all the stars to the top to appreciate the view and get a glimpse of the gargoyles. As I’ve mentioned before in this entry, I have even more pictures posted here, so please visit this additional site for larger, higher resolution pictures. The roof was surrounded by a large wire mesh netting, so once on top there was no way out. No jumping, no climbing, and no easy way to take pictures without poking your camera between the wires. It very much limited what I could take.

We stayed up on top for a bit and enjoyed the view and the detail the gargoyles have to offer. We crossed over to the Quartier Latin and had a nice Lebanese lunch. We caught a Seine river cruise and had another couple in the middle of drama behind us. We tried our best to stay awake on the boat, but I did, maybe, nap a little bit. I managed to wake up long enough to get a view of Notre Dame from the back and from the water.

In the evening, we were going to Montmartre and Sacré Cœur. We asked our waiter for a recommendation where we could get good galettes. He didn’t have high praise for restaurants near Montmartre, and the only place he could suggest was booked. Instead, he sent us to another restaurant that, although I thought was on Montmartre, was really on the base almost along Blvd de Clichy (actually rue Cavalotti). We walked through Place Vendôme first for a picture on the way to the Metro. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I went back to the hotel to pick it up while Tomo checked out the Ritz and the Park Hyatt.

We actually had another nice, but heavy dinner at Le Bouclard. We made our way up the hill again, on our way to Sacré Cœur.

I took us some roundabout way, and what should have been fairly bright and full of restaurants ended up residential and quiet. We did eventually end up at Sacré Cœur and the basilica looked white and shiny and pretty.

Unfortunately, the place was loud, boisterous, and felt a little more dangerous than it had in the past. Lots of drunk teenagers, and lots of drunk foreign teenagers. Never a good combination. What should be a really nice view of the city just felt dirty and creepy, so we left pretty quickly. Of course, below Montmartre is Pigalle, which has its own dirty and creepy feel. Like most seedy places, it has gems amongst the ick, but I don’t know where the gems are. The Moulin Rouge, or the current incarnation of it, has certainly benefited from the movie of the same name.

And so ended our last full day in Paris.

 
Friday, 25 September

We had a late evening flight out of Paris, so we basically had another half day to wander about. We were able to arrange late checkout, so we could come back to the hotel and shower before heading off to the airport. We walked some more, and somehow on the last day I developed blisters. We window shopped along Faubourg St-Honoré and also Avenue Montagne. I saw some street kid get in a fight with a woman at Rond Pont Champs-Elysées Marcel Dassault and he spit at her. I’m not sure what was happening there. We ate a light lunch at a deli, and also FINALLY walked down the Champs—Elysées. Our trek to the airport took longer than expected, but since we had given ourselves plenty of time, we had no difficulties. We realized that we had a 4 hour layover at the Seoul airport, so we decided that it was a good time to get a massage. After a 12 hour flight, a massage is a very, very good idea and we felt invigorated as we headed to Nagoya and Tokyo. At the Nagoya airport, I had some drunk American get in my face and make some glasses remark, but whatever.

The vacation was fantastic, and recounting it on the blog was fun. There are so many pictures I have not posted, and some stories I’ve missed. Hopefully though this will be somewhat enjoyable for you too. This entry has taken over 5 hours so far, and that’s just the writing. I’ve spent countless hours editing photos, and still need to get this from a written document to a post. More work ahead!

It has taken way, way, too long to get these posts up. Sometimes life conspires to keep you really busy, or really tired. After I returned home from Europe, I had a very busy week with two nomikais, a Japanese class, and really heavy jetlag. Then I had to take a business trip to the States. I arrived in the States, and I was prepared to write but jetlag won the battle, and what energy I had was spent at dinner with friends / colleagues. When I returned to Japan, I didn’t know what time it was, and fought to establish normal sleep patterns. Today (or at least the day I first starting writing) is really the first day that I feel sort of normal, whatever that means. So I shall try to accomplish the first post.

I’ve added a gallery using Apple’s MobileMe gallery. Check it out here.

This idea for this trip started out in a strange way. Tomo has worked with and become friends with the band White Lies and their management team / crew. Earlier this year, they invited Tomo to come to the UK and see them open for Coldplay at Wembley Stadium. That seemed like too much of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I used some frequent flier miles and we had reservations for London. We eventually realized there was a Japanese national holiday in there as well, so we lengthened our vacation and added Paris to the mix. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit London and Paris many times, but it was the first time in Europe for Tomo.

Tomo amazed at Paddington Station

Paddington Station

And of course we had the very familiar notice to mind the gap.

Tomo flew from Tokyo, I flew from Nagoya, and we met in Seoul for the continuation to London. That’s right, Korean Air. It was a fine flight, always made better by business class.

In Seoul, ready for the trip ahead.

We stayed at the Grosvenor House JW Marriott near Hyde Park in Mayfair. Yes, that sounds very decadent. The hotel was very nice. It is a far cry from the first place I stayed on Montague Street near the British Museum. I walked down Montague Street this trip and noticed the two hostels I stayed at 20 years ago were still there and still hostels. I could see through the open windows that it looked like they still had the same bunk beds. That was the first place I ever stayed outside of the US. Who knew that in the 20 years following I would have had the opportunity to live in Australia, Europe, and Japan as well as travel around the world. I was grateful at the time to have a fantastic experience and highly recommend hostels to younger folks. However, I grew out of them, I am afraid to say. Tomo seems to have quickly graduated from the youth hostel experience and now prefers the Ritz-Carlton. Where did he get those tastes? He has stayed at more Ritz-Carlton’s than I have.

I chose the Marriott for a couple of reasons – we’ve had good look at JWs before. Because I am an Elite member to their rewards program, we get a free upgrade to the Executive Floor, which also includes the very convenient Executive Lounge. Also, they had an incredibly good deal running which made it one of the cheapest stays I could find. It made sense.

 
Thursday, September 17

We had blocked out a plan for our visit already. Nothing firm, but we obviously wanted an idea what to see and do so we could be efficient. When we went to Bangkok either in the year, we arrived there and said, “Now what?” We decided that if we felt OK and the weather was good, we’d go to the London Eye. Originally I had no intent on riding the thing and was reluctantly being a trouper and going along. I’m not a big Ferris wheel fan, and I actually kind of dreaded it. We arrived, got checked in, had fine weather, looked at our watches, and said, “Let’s go!” and made plans to eat on the way back. Fortunately we were right by the Jubilee Line which took us to Waterloo Station which was close to the Eye. London now uses a pass like the Suica called Oyster. It is very convenient. However, it took a long time to buy our card. Still we made it to the Eye was time to spare and boarded for our flight.

I will say the ride was pretty spectacular. The ride did not scare me nearly as much as I thought it would, most likely because the car was fully enclosed. What struck me though as we were rotating, is that the car is attached to the OUTSIDE of the ring, so the car is basically rolling around the rotating ring so that it always maintains the same orientation. You would not want the people to have to continually readjust like gerbils on a wheel. Tomo actually found the ride a little scary at one point.

The views were breathtaking, and I was able to snap a few pictures.

From the car looking into the exoskeleton,

The view from the Eye,

The view from top, looking back. You can see the structure of the car behind us.

The Eye is on the South Bank side of the Thames, so we walked along the river for a bit and crossed the Westminster bridge for a terrific view of parliament and Big Ben. We also managed to see a guy with some of the worst looking saggers you have ever seen. Wide-butt people should not wear skinny jeans saggers. Only really thin emos can pull that off. He couldn’t. It was Fashion Week in London, but somehow I don’t think he was involved.

Tomo, tired along side the Thames

The Eye from the north side of the Thames,

Tragic saggers,

 
 
Friday, September 18

Both Tomo and I are Ben Sherman fans. Although I think I introduced the brand to Tomo, it is appropriate to say that he has embraced it fully. Since Friday was our day at Wembley Stadium to see White Lies / Coldplay and we needed to get there plenty early to figure out just what the arrangements were, we thought it would be a good idea to hit the shopping early. That would allow us to rethink purchases, make one last run later, etc. What better place to start than Carnaby Street, the heart of the Mod scene in the 60s and 70s?

On my first visit, I had gone to Carnaby Street, knowing that it had been a fashion center. When I went though, I was thoroughly unimpressed as most of the shops had left and it really wasn’t anything special. Now, however, it seems that in the last 10 years, the area has been renovated and flagship stores have opened. Ben Sherman is there, Merc is there, Fred Perry is there, and other spiffy brands. We beelined to the Ben Sherman shop like kids on Christmas morning.

Tomo as we were heading towards Carnaby Street, excited as a kid on Christmas morning.

We stopped by Top Shop on the way there, as we were up very early due to jetlag. There were some Ben Sherman clothes there too, but nothing as good as we supposed would be at the flagship store. As we entered the shop, it seemed to me to be about the same size as the LA shop in the Beverly Center. There was some construction going on in the store as well, and that gave the shopping experience an odd feeling. Sometimes the anticipation of something great can lead to some disappointment, and Tomo quickly learned that the UK shops do not carry XS size (nor do they carry kids sizes but anyway Tomo refuses to wear large kids clothes). In spite of the lack of clothes his size, I do believe that we touched every article in the store. I had no trouble finding clothes my size, and left with two sweaters and a shirt. I could have bought a LOT more, but with the weakness of the dollar against the pound, I had to be careful. Yes, although I live in Japan, I earn dollars, so shopping can be a bit harrowing abroad. Tomo did not leave empty handed, and is now the proud owner of 8 pairs of Ben Sherman socks.

We walked across the street to Merc, and fortunately, Tomo was able to find some nice (and expensive) clothes there. Merc carries on the Mod tradition as well, with the Union Jack buttons.

It is interesting to note that almost every shop we went to in Carnaby Street and seemingly London had a picture of The Jam or Paul Weller. The man is a mod icon. We were lucky enough to see him in a small venue in LA two nights in a row, doing Jam, Style Council, and Paul Weller material.

Ben Sherman is moving in to the custom suit market and we learned a brand new shop on Savile Row had opened that day. We went, found the salesman speaking way to quickly using custom suit lingo we didn’t understand, and the prices higher than we desired. We left.

We also visited Paul Smith somewhere - I’ve forgotten where. I love Paul Smith, but cannot quite understand their pricing. In London, they were priced in a range that I was unwilling to visit. Without getting too personal, I have a pair of Paul Smith underwear that I bought in Japan. Basic short boxer brief with traditional Paul Smith stripes. I don’t think I paid more than 2500 yen in Japan, about $25 when I bought them. In London, they sell for 30 pound. 30 quid!!! That’s about $48. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever found anything to be cheaper in Japan than elsewhere in the world.

We wandered through Picadilly, and we got a picture of Eros.

We must have had an uninspiring lunch, because I have no recollection of what we ate (Tomo reminded me – it was nothing). London food is much better than when I first went, but a quick lunch is still a quick lunch.

The big event of course, was the concert. And this is when we threw our planned itinerary out the window. The Coldplay lineup got bigger and bigger, so the show was now White Lies, Girls Aloud (who?), Jay-Z, and Coldplay. Since White Lies was going on so early (about 5:00 pm), they booked ANOTHER gig for the same night in Brighton. It was going to be impossible to get from Wembley to Brighton by ground transportation, so they were taking two helicopters from Wembley to Brighton and asked Tomo to go along. Tomo only. No space for me. I found this out just before our trip and it did not go over that well with me because I knew that since Tomo was missing the Coldplay show, he would want to go to the show again on Saturday night. I really didn’t want all my time in London to be dictated by Chris Martin and friends, and I really didn’t feel like paying for the show that I had already seen three times. After a lot of proposals and negotiating, we determined that we’d go together to Wembley on Friday, and maybe Tomo ran the risk of getting bumped from the helicopter anyway. Saturday night we’d each be on our own and Tomo would go to the concert without me.

We were both pretty excited to be going to Wembley for a show, and even more excited that we were comp’d. We were not quite sure of what that meant though. We followed the steady crowd up to Wembley Stadium, and then began our search for ticket windows. We found the sign for guest list people and figured that was us. We went to the counter, said we were on the White Lies guest list and, sure enough, we got an envelope that said Tomo + 1. Tomo opened up the envelope and I expected to see a couple of tickets or maybe a pass. No tickets in the envelope, just two stickers with the tour logo, the access (working), the venue and date (Wem 1 18/9) and the band, (WL – White Lies). This looked promising.

Besides the times I played trumpet supporting a band back in my youth, I had only ever had one all access pass. I knew that we needed to find the magic door that would let us in. Finally, one security guard seemed to know where we were supposed to go and directed us to the crew entrance. We found the entrance, slapped on our stickers, and we were in! Foolishly, I stuck mine on my shirt. Any good rock and roller knows that you put them on your jeans. I took them off my shirt and restuck them to my jeans, worried that the adhesive was a one shot deal and I’d have a pass that fell off sometime in the night. The pass, fortunately, remained fully adhered to my jeans.

At this point, I can best describe our general feeling as a Spinal Tap. We were deep in the functional part of Wembley Stadium, feeling like at any moment we’d be recognized as impostors and duly thrown out of the venue. Yet, we had credentials. We wandered around a bit and a few helpful people said, “Can I help you” and my heart skipped a beat. Tomo smartly asked the directions to the dressing room, we got them, and headed there as if that was exactly where were supposed to go. We got yelled at once for walking in the road, and that caused us a little panic. Somehow we found the dressing room area, walked passed the Coldplay Friends and Family pen, and found the White Lies dressing room.

The entire time we were traveling to Wembley and then in our search, we were carrying 8 boxes of white powder. We were really worried that we were going to have to go through security and they would reject us. Tomo had brought 8 boxes boxes of Pocari Sweat mix. He introduced White Lies to the sweet elixir when they were in Japan and they have declared the ultimate hangover cure. We made it in to the dressing room and “the boys” were definitely glad to see Tomo. They were shocked to see the 8 boxes of Pocari Sweat as well.

The dressing room, all to myself, after everyone left for Brighton.

We hung out in the dressing room for a while, and I was very impressed how normal the guys in the band were. They are young, just 21, and are definitely working really hard and have had a grueling touring schedule for the past year or year and a half. Hopefully they’ll continue with the success they’ve had so far. Tomo and I headed for the floor to watch “the boys” perform.

Wembley, filling up 4 hours before Coldplay would take the stage,

Tomo excited to see White Lies and Wembley.

I will say they totally killed the set. Very tight, enthusiastic to be at Wembley but still very professional. They really sounded good.

I saw the band and Tomo off at the shuttle bus to take them to their waiting helicopters. I went to the Girls Aloud gig and really didn’t get them. I learned that they were created from a reality show and have actually been hugely successful in the UK. The crowd seemed to love them. They sounded fine, and I think they were really singing, so they obviously have talent. When I was hanging out in the dressing room area prior to the Coldplay show and security was trying to wrangle the little girl friends-and-family, one of the Girls Aloud performers walked by and the little girls went screamingly crazy. Um, what about Coldplay?

Jay-Z came on next and I really found that I wasn’t interested in his show and I was getting hungry. I wandered backstage for the catering, and had a delicious Pad Thai. I soon came to realize that, in the hierarchy of passes, our pass was top dog. I hung out in the dressing room, then in the hallway just to see what celebrities may appear. Indeed, I saw Gwenyth. She’s tall. Here are a few more pictures of the backstage.

The Coldplay show was similar to what I had seen before. They are getting a little over the top. They had this X-Factor / Simon Cowell shtick during “Yellow” that was, frankly, a little embarrassing. Still, the show was good, I just think I have seen it too many times. After the end of every large event though, you have to leave the facility. People kind of trickle in, but then everyone leaves at the same time. They used horses as crowd control gates between the stadium and the train station. And interesting idea, but seemingly a little dangerous. One horse gets a little frisky and people could get injured. Plus, you have to walk through horse poop if you pick a bad path.

Horses acting as gates at Wembley Stadium,

I made it to the hotel and Tomo followed not that much later after a fun helicopter adventure to Brighton and a personal drop off after the gig by the manager. That was one heck of a first full day in London.
 

Saturday, September 19

Our Saturday plans were modified a bit because Tomo was now going out to Wembley again to see the full set. Our morning plan was to go out to Notting Hill / Portobello Road and look for Hugh Grant. I did my Hugh Grant imitation (that’s taking off my classes, squinting, and mumbling and stumbling a few words until I make an ironic point, all with a very bad Oxbridge accent) and that is the best we could find. I had never been to Portobello Road before, so it was a new experience. I had been to Camden Locks market. This didn’t feel the same, although it was just as crowded. I’m not much of a market shopper, but it did make for some interesting photos.

 
You can find higher resolution and black and white versions of these and other pictures here.
 

One thing I noticed in the UK and in Europe in general was a lot of Japanese language on clothing, but sort of incorrect. Kind of like the strange English we see on t-shirts here.

This probably is not a product from Japan, judging by the grammar on parts of the bag. But it is close, and looks cool.

Also part of the plan was a pilgrimage to Rough Trade Records, and a pub grub lunch. I had bangers and mash at a pub called, “The Cow.”

We experienced the joys of the London subway as we tried to make it from Portobello area to Sloane Square. As London ramps up for the 2012 Olympics, they are doing a lot of infrastructure work. While it will be great in 2012, it really sucks at times trying to get around. Stations are closed, lines are shutdown, and trains are delayed. It took us about an hour to get to Sloane Square and the King’s Road Kensington area, which didn’t leave us much time to wander around.

Tomo went back to Wembley and I started walking, and walking. This trip was ostensibly to find a pair of Doc Martens shoes. I was told that there was a shop on Carnaby Street, but I couldn’t find it. Then I decided I would look at the bookstores on Charing Cross and somehow ended up in a Borders. I walked from the hotel in Mayfair, back to Carnaby Street, then to Soho, over to Charing Cross, up to Tottenham Court tube station. I was shocked at Tottemham Court Road and Oxford Street. What happened to the buildings?!? A number of buildings had been torn down including the original home of the G-A-Y club – a landmark in London. I wandered to the British Museum and then to Montague Street and saw the hostel I stayed at 20 years ago. I wanted to walk to Covent Gardens but kept making bad decisions and ended up at Charing Cross Station. There I found a footbridge across the Thames that I had noticed from the Eye. Not what I was planning. It was sprinkling every so often. I was getting REALLY hungry at this point, so I went to a Pizza Express which really isn’t express. As I was sitting there, the skies opened up and drenched everything. It rained really hard, and I was without an umbrella or raincoat. It isn’t like Japan where you can always get an umbrella for 5 bucks at a convenience store. I thought I was in trouble. But I took my time eating and then the rain stopped. That was it. I wandered around Leicester Square a little bit, was wiped out, and went back to the hotel without Doc Martens or a book. I did take some pictures. Here are some typical London photos.

 
 
Sunday, September 20

Another full day planned, this time starting the morning at The British Museum. Tomo hasn’t had a chance to go to Greece, but he doesn’t need to because it is all in the British Museum for safekeeping.

I have mixed thoughts about the scope of the Greek collection. Perhaps it once made sense to have them at the British Museum, but the world is different now than it was when many of the important artifacts were taken by the British. Anyway, it is an interesting story.

Of course we saw the Rosetta Stone as well. I seem to think that the first time I saw it was in the reading rooms, and the display was pretty simple. I could have touched it. Now it is protected. I didn’t realize that it was originally discovered by the French but then turned over to the English through a treaty. I didn’t take a picture of the stone itself. Odd.

The British Museum has a new Great Court. At least new to me, but apparently built in 2000. I have no recollection what was there before. It must have been a courtyard of some sort, but I cannot remember. I’ll have to check some older pictures. The space is nice though, it definitely shines in its whiteness.

We went through parts of the museum. There’s just so much to see and you can’t begin to think you can see it all in a day. Plus, it is easy to saturate. We picked a few places and checked them out. Still even with an abbreviated itinerary, we were still there for a while. I was able to get a good picture of a status of Hadrian’s beau Antonious.

We walked through room after room of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian artifacts. I don’t like mummies – shouldn’t they not be on public display? We also checked out the Japanese exhibition area. We found the old reading rooms of the library to be a recreation of reading rooms of the past. Hmmmm. Apparently the British Library has moved and now the British Museum is using that space as a time capsule!

Tomo’s guide book had recommended The Fryer’s Delight for good fish and chips. I was thrilled, because 20 years ago my guide book recommended the same restaurant. I knew it was authentic so I was glad he wanted to go. We wandered down from the British Museum, arrived at the shop, and discovered it was closed on Sunday. Very authentic! The guide book told us that, had we bothered to read the details. We headed to Covent Garden to do some shopping (again). We decided for pub grub fish and chips, and the place we chose had fish and chips on the menu but when we ordered they told us they didn’t actually have any. Strange. So we left. We ate at the Prince of Wales and had OK fish and chips. We went on to Covent Garden and did some shopping – more Fred Perry, Doc Martins, Paul Smith, and Penguin. Why did I buy a Penguin hoodie in London? Why not.

We walked back up through Chinatown and had coffee in Soho.

We tried to make Sunday a traditional British food day so we planned on Indian for dinner. We realized we hadn’t had good Indian yet, and to me that was always a London requirement. Tomo’s book recommended a restaurant on Brick Lane in London’s Shoreditch area. Shoreditch seems to be up and coming, My TimeOut London described Brick Lane as, “may be world famous for its curries, but the rise in reputation has been mirrored by a decline in quality.” I can agree to that, and the restaurant we went to did not really impress me much. Also maybe because the restaurant doubled the tip amount I put on my credit card.
 

Monday, September 21

Our last day in London. Ostensibly a travel day, but through the wonders of late checkout and the Eurostar we were able to make quite a day of Monday as well. No self respecting Japanese would visit London without a visit to department stores. We went to Selfridges and saw many nice things, and then both got lost in HMV for a while. I had forgotten what record and DVD shops were like. I was able to get Season 1 and 2 of The Inbetweeners. Very funny show, but definitely not safe for work.

Of course, we had a visit to Harrods to pick up おみやげ for friends and colleagues. I was able to pick up some afternoon tea for my translator. Harrods was pretty impressive, although I was scared by the wax figure of Mohamed Fayed. We shopped around a little bit in the food court and walked through the men’s store (where we found Mohamed) but finally we were saturated with shopping.

Outside Harrods,

Inside the food shops at Harrods,

High on the food list was a restaurant called Gourmet Burger Kitchen. There was one sort of near Harrods, so we hightailed it there for lunch and had a delicious and expensive burger. I do recommend it, but not if you are traveling on a budget. We went to the hotel, finished packing, and then went to St Pancras International Terminal to catch the Euostar to Paris!

St. Pancras is the new home of the Eurostar and has been renovated beautifully. Previously I took it out of Victoria Station. I learned that booking ahead of time would have been smarter – I guess I have gotten too accustomed to Japanese trains. Japanese trains cost what they cost, no special deals. Well, I got no special deal on the Eurostar either! I also think I have been spoiled by the trains in Japan because I found the Eurostar to be incredibly cramped. However, I can’t complain because we safely crossed the channel underground, emerged in France, and eventually arrived in Paris.

And so ends my first report from vacation. I hope you made it through it.

Remember, you can find higher resolution and black and white versions of some of my pictures here.

On the 28th and 29th, Tomo and I climbed Mount Fuji along with 16 others and 2 guides. Well, we climbed with thousands, probably, but our group was 18. The trip was organized by the Japan headquarters of my company, so it was a nice excursion for disparate organizations to mingle.

The climb was not easy but everyone made it, although not at the same pace. The elevation of Mt. Fuji is 3776 meters, and I thought that was the highest I had ever been (other than an airplane), but then I looked up the l’Auguille du Midi near Mont Blanc and realized I actually had been higher. But I had gotten there by cable car, so that’s hardly fair.

We met near Tokyo Station at 8:00 am and boarded a chartered bus just for our group. We got to the 5th station on the Kawaguchiko side of the mountain about 11:30 pm for a 1:00 pm start. Our plan was to hike up to the 8th station, spend the night, and then summit in the morning.

We arrived at the Gogome rest house (5th station rest house) at around Noon, and planned on eating lunch there before our assault.

It was pretty crowded, and inside we saw some very zombie-esque people absolutely passed out around the restaurant. It had much of a ski lodge feel, with people tired after a long day of skiing. Except it was Noon. We had a very nice bowl of udon, and I bought walking sticks for Tomo and me. I have never really been a walking stick guy, but people had recommended it and also you can get a pine walking stick and have it branded at the various stations along the way.

Figuring out the lunch vending ticket machine,

And waiting for the foreigners to figure out the lunch ticket vending machine.

Tomo managed to have an ear of corn as well … getting that last little bit of energy before the climb.

Our group set out with our guides, one in the front, one in the rear. We could not help but notice the people staggering up the path as we got started. The path was actually a little bit downhill, so we were merrily rolling along. Our start was at 2305 m. And now, our rest was over.

Here’s Tomo looking fresh and excited. We got that hat in Vegas.

The path started heading up, and by up I mean up. Our group was pretty fresh and we were setting a blistering pace. Our group ranged from 13 years old to 50+ years old, so we had a variety of speeds. One would think the 13 year old would be the slowest. However, I mistakened the 13 year old in our group to be a youngish looking college student. Yikes! He was at least a foot taller than I was at 13. He was definitely the rabbit that everyone was chasing. I kept wondering about the tortoise and the hare, but he never tired the entire trip.

You will never feel alone.

We made it to the 6th station pretty easily. After all, it wasn’t that steep, the altitude, while high, wasn’t extremely high, and we were all excited to get going.

Things got a little tougher between the 6th and 7th station though. Fortunately, the path was one way, so we couldn’t see the people coming off the mountain. Either between the 6th and 7th or 7th and 8th, one of our group started falling back quite a bit. The guides were afraid she was showing the first sign of altitude sickness. She had not been feeling well in the morning, and that was carrying over. Our group slowed a little bit, but the Americans in the group were racing against themselves, so we kept splintering. One guide said he would stay back and make sure she made it up to our resting station.

The president of our Japan subsidiary and her husband. I enjoy this picture - its nice to see executives relaxed.

Getting above the clouds, part of our group is to the left.

When we started we had some clouds, but they occasionally broke and you could see to the peak. As we were hiking, we quickly rose above the clouds and were directly in the sun. I was soaking wet, and of course a backpack never helps to reduce the sweating. Pretty soon after leaving the base station, there is no natural protection from the elements. It is just you, the path, and rocks. You can see the various stations rising above you, but they seem almost toy-like in their size and they seem almost like mirages, because they seem to teasingly stay the same distance away no matter how long you’ve been hiking.

There wasn’t a lot of scenery on the climb.

Our group of 11 scrambled up the mountain, arriving at the hut at about 6:00 pm. The sun had set behind the mountain by that time and the air was just starting to get a chill to it. We were introduced to our sleeping quarters. If that’s what you want to call it. We had 2 upper bays and 2 lower bays. One set of bays was designed to sleep 8 up and 8 below, and the other set was designed to sleep 3 up and 3 below. Because we were foreigners, I guess we got a break and it was determined that 7 could use the 8 person bay. Tomo was a bit shocked, and suggested that 8 may be enough for Japanese, but certainly inadequate for the large gaijin who would soon be bedding down together. The staff was hearing none of that theory, so we guessed we needed to find a way to make it work.

At the 8th station, feeling pretty good that we had made it.

Because the hut serves many people, we were asked to eat right away. I was pretty hungry, and knew that salted sawdust probably would have tasted good. Instead, we had mystery meat curry. Don’t touch that stuff! I was so hungry, I had no problem eating the curry. Most everyone else did too. A round of beer was bought for everyone, although I worried some about beer at altitude. Still, I wasn’t going to continue until 4:30 am, so what the heck?

He’s going to regret this meal later.

Everyone got the same meal.

The sun sets quickly on the mountain, and early.

While we were eating, the remainder of our group arrived. We finished their meal together and then, because of lack of anything else to do, we went to bed. I’m not sure what time it was when we first laid down, maybe 8:00 pm. I was tired, but sleeping at 8:00 pm is not natural for me. I tossed and turned as best I could. I couldn’t really turn and there definitely was no tossing, since I was surrounded by colleagues I had never met before. I tried to sleep on my side as well, because I didn’t want some position-induced snoring to keep everyone awake. Sleeping on my side didn’t really work well though because the “mattress” was so hard that I started developing bruises on the pressure spots. I tried sleeping on my back, but I had no place to put my arms. I was able to sleep in bits though.

About midnight I woke up and thought, “I don’t feel so hot.” About the same time, Tomo woke up and said, “Drink.” Followed by, “I have a headache,” which quickly became, “Can I have an aspirin.” Uh oh. After looking at him scrunch up his face, we decided to get out of bed and get some fresh air. My stomach was dancing and I was not feeling well. I went outside to use the bathroom and was comforted by the cool, fresh air outside the building (not the bathroom). I went back in the hut and Tomo said, “I think I’m going to be sick” and headed out the door. He made it to the bathroom and indeed, he was sick. He came back, not looking any better. I walked to my bag and got the oxygen canister a colleague had given me. Tomo breathed in a little of that air, hoping it would make him feel better. It didn’t and he was sick again.

By this time, it was pretty clear that Tomo had altitude sickness, and there wasn’t going to be anything we could do to make him better other than descend. We sat outside for a while, trying to get some fresh air. Many people start late at night and do the hike in one day – hoping to arrive at the top of the mountain before sunrise so they can catch the sunrise at the very top. We watched the zombies go by – looking down the mountain revealed a steady stream of headlamped people slowly making their way. It was bumper to bumper on the climb and the view really was strange.

As we were sitting there, three Asian Americans walked by, two looking pretty healthy and one literally staggering. The guy in the UCLA sweatshirt said, “Come on, let’s keep going.” I asked the staggering girl if she had a headache and felt nauseous. She did. I told her friends they needed to be careful. We gave her a huff of oxygen and I think they rested a bit.

We both felt refreshed enough to try to go back to sleep. We crawled back into our sleeping warren and somehow we both dozed off until the staff woke us up at 4:00 am. Thankfully and somewhat mysteriously, both Tomo and I felt good enough that we thought we could continue. I felt fine but still worried about Tomo, but he was convinced he was good enough to continue. The hut had prepared a salmon and rice bento box for us as breakfast the night before. After nearly losing my curry dinner at midnight, salmon and rice just didn’t appeal to me. Somehow I managed to eat most of it. The crowd had thinned out a little bit, because we were leaving too late to see the sunrise from the summit. That was a disappointment to some in our group, but for me just succeeding to reach the top was going to be enough.

As we were waiting to leave, we saw two foreigners that we all remarked about later. One was a man with his small dog. Why was a dog on the hike with him? How do dogs do at 11,000 feet after hours of hiking? I don’t think they have the physiology for that. Maybe they do. We saw another bearded white man in a pair of shorts and a tank top making his way. At this time, I had on a t-shirt, a turtleneck, my fleece jacket, gloves, and a stocking cap. What was this guy thinking? One of my fellow hikers later suggested that he was perhaps a philosophy teacher at a third rate Japanese university. Not trying to knock philosophy professors here – maybe he was a math or English teacher.

Getting ready to head out in the morning. We were generally well equipped.

Our group stayed together for about two switchbacks and then of course, split up. The walk was very narrow and we had to scramble over more rocks than I was expecting. It was difficult to go at your own pace, unless your pace was painstakingly slow. However, I didn’t really mind the pace as it allowed me to catch my breath. I tried to pace Tomo up the mountain, so we’d walk a bit and then have a breather at a switchback. We’d pretty regularly pass folks only to be passed by them the next time we took a break.

Early in the morning on our climb.

And still a long road ahead of us.

Looking back on the single file climbing the mountain as we approached the peak.

Looking forward you could see the long line ahead, and just how far the summit was.

As we were climbing there was absolute carnage everywhere, and I actually was worried about some of the people. They seemed absolutely lost. One guy had a completely ashen face and the first time I saw him he was leaning against the wall, having dry heaves. That is always reassuring to witness. Later I saw him staggering along. Another time I saw that he had stopped, sat down, and was shaking uncontrollably. It wasn’t that cold, so I think it was fatigue, shock, altitude sickness, or a combination of all of them. The last time I saw him he was trying to negotiate a step and his leg was shaking quite severely. I hope a guide saw him and helped him. I saw many others passed out along the side of the walk, no doubt trying to get that last bit of energy to make it to the top.

Each hut served as a goal.

As we were continuing our trek the peak the sun began to rise. We stopped as a group, did three “banzai!” and raised our hands in the air, and continued our climb.

At this point, it was clear that Tomo and I would make it to the top, it was just a question of when. I was a bit ahead of Tomo and unfortunately had the oxygen with me. He wasn’t very happy when he reached me as I was waiting for him just below the summit. He finished off the oxygen and we reached the summit.

Almost to the stop. Just 400 meters, or 30 minutes without stopping.

Since I was ahead I had a few pictures snapped of me.

We are just a few steps away from the summit. Tomo still has the oxygen in hand.

I wish I had taken more pictures at the summit. Sometimes it is hard to remember to be a photographer when you are participating in the adventure. The summit though was a little shocking to us with food stands and a guy hawking drinks in English and Japanese. I did take advantage of one of the shops and had some of the best miso soup I’ve probably ever had!

Here we are truly at the summit. Look how high we are.

We walked over to the crater, looked at the big hole, and took a group picture. When I get the picture, I’ll add it to the blog.

One thing that was interesting, that I also forgot to photograph, was that prices correlated to altitude. The higher you were, the more expensive it was. It makes sense of course, but there were some precious Snickers bars found near the summit.

The descent should have been uneventful, but it is so steep and dusty that all hikers are presented with a new challenge. We were after the initial rush from the top, so it wasn’t quite so bad. However, the trail is so steep and the lava is so fine that dust is quickly kicked up. We were covered, and our noses were caked with black dust. Yeah. Many people fell as well. Once again, we managed our own pace. It was hard and frustrating, but we made it down after about four hours.

Those that did make it to the summit for sunrise can be seen traversing down the mountain as the rest of us aimed for the top. The people on the other path are going down.

The climb down the mountain was very steep.

After the climb, we went to an onsen, cleaned up, and enjoyed a relaxing meal.

We were thrilled that our entire group made it safely to the summit and back. The team, although spread across the mountain, did help each other out. It was a great experience for Tomo and I to do together, and we will always have that shared experience. Tomo declared that he was a city boy, but was quite proud of the accomplishment.

Would I do it again? Ask me a week ago and I would have said, “No way!” But now, well, time heals all wounds.

As stated before, I was coming home from the Nagoya Castle Festival and stumbled across the Gokoku Temple with a bunch of laterns burning. I had read something previously about a temple that commemorates the end of the war and lights 4800 lanterns in honor of the war dead of Aichi. I was a little bit concerned about taking pictures, but then I noticed so many others taking pictures that I decided it was OK. This, of course, was on August 16.

As for the Nagoya Castle Matsuri, here’s a bunch of random pictures.

I’ve presented a lot about odd things here in Japan, and things that are different from the US. I’ve never spent that much time talking about the mundane. Perhaps, because, well, it IS mundane. However, when it is a half world away, the everyday is a little bit different.

Today I decided to go to the Aeon Mall across from the Nagoya Dome on a quest to find a tennis bag. I want something like the bag in the picture. You know, I have to carry twelve rackets with me all the time. Not really, but when you don’t have a car to dump your stuff in and you have to take a train, it is nice to consolidate so you are not balancing a bunch of stuff on your lap. You can put shoes, change of clothes, balls, etc inside. They are harder than it sounds to find. I’m going to have to use my Japanese internet search skills to find a tennis shop in Japan. I struck out, by the way. No shops in the mall that carried what I was looking for.

I also was looking for a general sports bag that would function as an overnighter. In Japan, you need a bag for every occasion. I have my general purpose Ben Sherman flight bag, sometimes called my man purse. It is good for running around for the day. It’ll hold a couple books if I am studying, and easily my iPhone, iTouch, and BlechBerry (I know, I don’t need an iPhone AND an iTouch but for some reason I think that putting music on my iPhone will take up too much space even though it won’t). It also fits nicely in the basket of my ママチャリ, so I don’t have to worry about things rattling out of my pocket as I go down the street. But the Ben Sherman bag is too small for a weekender that requires me to take my computer. We won’t even talk about the bulky backpack I bought that holds nothing (North Face Recon “backpack”). I use it and curse it every time. Well, it works for some things. I found kind of what I was looking for at Aeon, but they didn’t have enough selection for me to decide. I think I’ll just take a bag from a sleeping high school kid in the train. That’s the kind of bag I want.

I decided that I really don’t like malls, whether it is in the US or Japan. There is so much concentrated consumption, yet still I don’t seem to find anything I want. Why is that I wonder? I did find the source for all the bright colored clothing though. Yikes! While I was at the mall, I thought I would put together a bit of a “day in the life” as I headed home from the mall to my home. There is a lot I haven’t shown in photographs, primarily because I see them every day. I need to do better documentation of my time here through “stock” photography.

Let’s start at the mall. As you can see, it is a very big mall, much like a suburban American mall. This is almost suburban. It is indeed an architectural masterpiece.

The mall is out at the Nagoya Dome, where the Chubu Dragons baseball team play. The subway entrance hallway is completely dedicated to the team.

The mascot of the team is, from their name, a dragon. I’m not sure how this equates to a dragon. It seems more like a mouse to me, but I guess the mascot had to be cute.

Arriving at the entrance, there is always the subway map with fees above the ticket vending machine. I always have a 5000 yen pass with me, so I never pay attention to the price and rarely look at the map. I should look at the map because I have taken the wrong subway a few times when I thought I knew where I was going.

Once you get your ticket, you have to pass through the entrance wickets.

You wait for the subway by the track. In some stations there are walls that keep you from being able to jump into an oncoming train, but in most cases it is like this station. The yellow strips are for blind people to make their way around the station. The ligher yellow is where the door will be when the train stops. The geek in my always looks at the center of the doors and the center of the tiles to see how good the conductor hit his marks. You can see the raised dotted yellow tile in front of the door.

Here’s my local exit for this line – the Hisaya-odori (久屋通) exit of the Meijo line (名城線). After one year, I’m discovering that this is a rather convenient subway line, and I like that it runs every 5 minutes on the weekends instead of 10 minutes like the other line closer to my house. However, it does not take me to Nagoya station. It takes me about everywhere else though. There’s abundant information on each track, including a timetable, a map of the stops and the time to each station, a plan of the station, the location of the exits, and local bus information including line a bus stop location. The time table is in white for weekdays and pink for holidays and weekends.

Before you go into the wickets, you have similar information including the general subway map, general train information including the time table (for two lines), and advertising. Also a map of the area also with advertising is available.

This subway station happens to be in the city center, and like many Japanese cities, there is an extensive underground network connecting stations to stations, and buildings to buildings. Of course, there is plenty of shopping and dining underground as well. Although I prefer to stay above ground, this can be very convenient on super hot days, cold days, and wet days.

The subway entrances are typically easy to find, and they are always marked with their icon and also generally have the same architectural look. You can always count on any number of bikes parked out in front of a subway station.

This is the biggest intersection near my house, and is the home to two subways lines and my local Starbucks. Traffic seemed to be really thin when I took these pictures.

Walking home from the subway stop, there are many things to see, including:

Tearing down another building for yet a new, unoccupied building?

A wedding center.

A typical view.

My bank, which happens to be a 7/11. It has an international ATM that allows me to withdraw from my savings account. Rare in Japan. It is not really my bank, but I use the ATM there all the time.

An import car. Odd.

A ubiquitous Yama-chan. They are everywhere in Nagoya and specialize in Tebasaki (手羽先), which is basically chicken wings.

And the Lawson’s in my apartment building. It is a convenience store where I can also pay my utility bill. One is due, so I should pay.

A view of my apartment building, and one of the bike parking areas.

I toured around my neighborhood a little bit too. The streets were very quiet, but I was able to find another Yama-chan. I told you they were ubiquitous.

And for those of you who wonder what taxis are like, here is an example of two different types. The blue one and the black one. There is a white one too, but I was unable to see one stopped to take a picture. They are actually different sizes and different prices, but I’ve never really noticed the difference. I don’t often take a taxi anyway.

Oh, and this morning, I finally got a picture of a Hate Bus. Yes, both yesterday and today I heard them.

Unfortunately, more noise is coming. I recently read this:

Official announcement of the campaign season for the Lower House general election.

It was decided that the Lower House general election is to be held on August 30, after entering the campaign period on August 18.

Please endure noise from vehicles of candidates [ed. emphasis added].

I noticed a little Engrish on my walk as well. It is a flower shop.

And finally, tonight was the last night of the Nagoya Castle Matsuri. I went for some yakisoba and a beer, and then stumbled across a lantern ceremony at a local temple. 5000 lanterns are offered for the spirits who were killed in World War II. Today is the anniversary of the end of World War II. I’ll post the pictures from the Matsuri and the lantern ceremony another day. I think this is enough for now.

I experienced my first wedding in Japan this weekend. Weddings are big business in Japan, and after going to this wedding I can see why. Wow. In Nagoya, apparently weddings are even a bigger deal. I have several wedding halls in my neighborhood. The wedding I went to though was in Tokyo.

I met my friend Kentaro in a summer University program in France a few years ago. Yes, I am far removed from University, but our companies sent us to this program, and who can turn down a summer studying in France? We had a great time together and with the rest of the J-Crew – various Japanese, Japanese Americans, and Americans who know Japanese. We certainly have stayed in touch and I was able to visit him when he lived in Hong Kong. That too was a wonderful time and he introduced to a Hong Kong native who showed me around because she had some days off.

Ken invited me to his wedding and I was honored to attend. Weddings in Japan are much more formal in terms of invitation than in the US, and you are never expected to bring a guest. It is you and you only, so you hope you know somewhere there. Fortunately, I did know someone besides Ken or else it would have been VERY lonely.

Typical Japanese weddings have a registration period, then the ceremony, then the reception, followed by the nijikai (second party). The wedding and reception have obligatory business invitees, so the nijikai is where the rest of the folks get to meet up with the bride and groom. I have been to a nijikai before and had a good time.

Of course it was very hot because it was summer time in Japan. I was afraid I was running a little bit late, so I started sweating even more in my black suit. As I was waiting after registration, I was sweating like a pig!

When I arrived, there is an area where you register, and I handed over my wedding gift. The wedding gift is always money in a special envelope, done just right. I was staying with friends and one of them helped me prepare the envelope. The bills are supposed to be brand new but I didn’t have a chance to make it to the bank. Sorry Ken and Mayumi! After I handed over my envelope, I received a smaller envelope. I pocketed it did not open it. Later when I opened it I discovered travel money, and that made my gift seem pretty insignificant.

I met my friend Uchi at the registration – thankfully he saw me immediately. However, since I was the only foreigner at the wedding it probably wasn’t that difficult. I stuck to him like glue. We were herded up to the top floor to be able to walk into the wedding hall.

I should describe the building. The exterior is very gothic and is used only for wedding ceremonies. Inside too kept to the what I’ll call gothic-ight motif with suits of armor, a few swords, and a bit of a Disneyesque sense of decoration.

We walked down the stairs into the chapel and were greeted by at least a cello, maybe a string quartet. I was too busy taking it all in. Our ushers were dressed in robes with crosses on the front. They carried candles as they escorted us to our pews. In the front of the church was stained glass with images of Christ. Hmmmm. The hall chapel was dimly lit. Also in the front was a pipe organ and an alter. Looking around I noticed multiple cameras mounted at various locations. A DVD surely would be available.

Bells rang and the lights dimmed even more. A trumpeter and a trombone player emerged at the front of the hall and along with the organ flawlessly played a piece of music to introduce the groom. Ken walked up very regally to his spot where he waited for his bride to be. The live music started again and Mayumi, in a white dress with a very long train, was escorted to Ken by her father. Together they walked to the front of the chapel to meet the officiant, who was a silvered hair foreigner.

He welcomed us to, “This Christian wedding” with a voice that, when I imitated him, prompted my American work colleague to say today, “So Sean Connery was the priest?” I’m not sure if there was really any official Christian anything in the wedding, I think it was just someone playing a role. I have been approached to perform weddings in Japan. His Japanese was understandable and clear, but his cadence just felt a little strange. Maybe it is a patriarchal sort of way of speaking.

The wedding roughly followed the format of a typical Western protestant wedding. Sorry Bob and Annie, but there wasn’t any element of an orthodox wedding (although, typical of me, I did drop something when I had a role in the reception). There were hymns that were sung, prayers that were prayed, and vows that were exchanged.

There was also fantastic music performed at various points. Songs were chosen for their melody I think. As I said, the music was flawless. The acolytes turned out to be the soloists and chorus I believe. These were no average people off the street singing a song. These were trained performers.

The bride and groom were introduced as husband and wife and then walked down the aisle into a shower of flower petals. They then doubled back and got ready to pose for pictures with their families. The guest gathered in the vestibule to prepare for another “flower shower” that I think replaces the throwing of rice. They walked through the canopy of petals (silk and not really very exciting) and exited to some special place.

The guests headed down to the reception hall. It is tradition in Japanese weddings to give the guests a gift as well. Sitting at each chair was a Tiffany & Co. bag. Oh my. I’ve never said no to Tiffany. The guests were seated and then the bride and groom arrived. There was an MC maintaining the flow of the events. Like any wedding reception, Ken and Mayumi had no time to eat. There was a speech by Ken’s boss, a speech by Mayumi’s boss, a speech by Mayumi’s teacher, and a speech by the person that introduced them, the 仲人 (nakoudo). Of course there was a cake cutting ceremony as well. The parents circulated, making their rounds to each table. We also saw the slide show of Ken, Mayumi, and Ken and Mayumi. Also, Mayumi had to change clothes in the middle of the ceremony of course.

Part of the reception was for Ken and Mayumi to circulate the tables and each person was to give them a rose that represented something and make a small speech. That was my role – to represent the table. Ken asked me to make a small speech so I worked with Tomo and my translator to write a small speech. I found out that I was going to be the LAST speech. Oh darn. My speech was in Japanese as well which completely stressed me out. Being last just allowed me to get more nervous.

As the speeches started, I was shocked by how brief they were. I had prepared a little longer speech and now the cards and roses were flashing by. Maybe though the last person is supposed to speak longer? As they approached I whispered to Ken, “Do you want me to do the whole thing?” “Yes,” he said. So I had no choice. I started reading in Japanese into a microphone. Whose voice was that anyway? I didn’t sound like me. Instead of concentrating on what I was saying, I started noticing how I was sounding. I stopped getting nervous speaking in public a long time ago, and here I was like a nervous 5th grader. I almost got done and then I froze. What was next? I made it through the final sentence of my speech and then I was done. Except I wasn’t. I was still supposed to hand the rose to Ken. So of course in shuffling the rose, the card, and the speech I dropped the rose. Uh oh. I hope that doesn’t signify bad luck. Of course, I dropped my brother’s wedding ring at his wedding so this is nothing in comparison. Still, I felt my speech was an awkward moment – but I get the gaijin free pass I hope.

Ken entertained us all in France with his guitar playing and his singing, and I hoped that he would do so again at the wedding reception. He did, this time with a band. A few years of voice lessons have worked well for him. He could sing before, but he seemed a lot more comfortable singing this time.

The reception was closed out by the bride’s letter to her family. Then a speech by the groom, and then the groom’s family speech, one more speech by the groom, and then an exit to allow the receiving line. We watched a DVD of the ceremony (a very quick edit) and that was it. The reception was about two and a half hours only.

I should note the food was superb. Everything was perfect (except for a dropped rose and Kentaro’s dad calling him Shintaro – oops). I was honored to be invited.