Pictures from the Japan Alps

I can't sleep... it's really noisy - someone's snoring, there's jazz playing on the PA system, people keep walking by... it's really not the best place to get some sleep... so here are some pictures of the last few days.

So our trip brought us from Tokyo to the small town of Takayama which is in the foothills of the mountains. We found a little place right near the train station. I didn't want to burn the place down so I didn't try to turn on the heater. Instead I just cocooned. It was quite comfortable - Ryan found this funny (I WAS COLD!)


The next morning we went to the morning market before checking out of our hotel. This is where I acquired my new hat. Later on we went walking through the small streets of Takayama and found some pretty cool little shops. This one let you taste their miso so I of course had to try it...


Our hotel in the mountains (in Kamikochi) was pretty crazy. This was our room. When we first walked in Ryan and I both searched the place for our beds and then figured that our livingroom would turn into our bedroom at night. (Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of the room).


The view from our room (again, this picture's not fantastic... I haven't been taking all that many pictures over the last week and the ones I've been taking aren't all that great apparently)


Our crazy meal of Kaiseki. This wasn't the whole thing, as we ate more dishes were brought out until I finally counted 12 different bowls containing different foods in front of me.


I remember waking up at 5am and thinking "ungh... I'm still full!"

Well, breakfast was only a measly 10 dishes...


The morning clouds started clearing out as we began our hike



This is when we decided that we should turn around. This hike was divided into 10 or 11 sections. Section 9 to 8 was about 80% covered in snow. It was warm out which made the snow nice and squishy and wet - perfect for my mesh running shoes! We turned around at this point in the hike because it was only becoming worse.


Ryan made a friend


To mix things up a little we went to Matsumoto instead of returning to Takayama. I think Ryan secretly just wanted to see another castle


It was a pretty nice castle - much more castle-looking than the one we saw in Kyoto

Roppongi

I agreed to this well before I should have. The plan was to go out yet again tonight... only that by 11pm I was struggling to keep my eyes open and the club we wanted to get into looked pretty quiet.

This left us in the middle of Roppongi (Tokyo) with no place to stay... We walked to Akasaka (I'm pretty sure that's the name of the area) looking for a capsule hotel listed in our book that would accept women... we couldn't find it - we did however find one that accepted only men... so here we are in an internet cafe, spending 6 hours sleeping at computers. I have to say, so far, my little station is pretty darn cozy. I even got a blanket out of it!

I'm still sick. It seems like going out last weekend made me more sick (probably walking in the rain at 3am with the shoes I had on didn't help) and I really don't think that going out or staying up late is exactly helping the situation. At this point all that's left of my cold is a bad cough that of course only seems to affect me in the middle of the night when I'm asleep.

In an attempt to get rid of the cold I bought a toque in Takayama (which has been quite good at hiding my horrible hair which has now turned into a full lion's mane). The hat is absolutely massive and honestly, I really just bought it because the woman selling it seemed to really want to make a sale. We were in the morning market which was actually quite good (it could have used a little more bustling but it was pretty good.) As I tried on the hat, I watched this woman who must've been in her mid-eighties smile and nod at me in approval. I think she made the hat... it looks hand-made by someone old. I'm going to go with that - she made the hat. Apparently after I bought the hat, the old woman brought the money I gave her to what Ryan thinks must've been her husband who apparently (this is really Ryan's story) made a face like "whatcha got there?" followed by an expression of "good work!"

Alrighty... the longer I stay up, the less sleep I'm getting... sleep time.

More stupid moments brought to you by...

We got on a bus yesterday, headed for a town in the Japanese Alps. What we didn't realize was that there were not going to be any ATMs anywhere... We got there with about the equivalent of 80$ on us, realizing that this would pay for one night at this weird campground we were hoping to stay at (they had cabins - possibly with blankets) and one person's bus ride back to Takayama (the nearest town with ATMs). This of course meant we had no money for food... or anything else that might come up. We headed off to the park information desk (it was a National park) and found that the only places that accepted Visa were really expensive hotels... So now came the fun of deciding - do we waste $100 and go back to Takayama by bus and come back tomorrow? Or do we splurge and get a more expensive room. (I will note here that the first park ranger essentially laughed at us because we had only brought $80 with us... this is ridiculous I take it? Is it normal that people carry around hundreds of dollars when going hiking?? When we went back to the information booth to enquire about these 'expensive' hotels, we were greeted by a girl who was much more helpful and hooked us up with a place to stay.)

Anyway, we got some expensive room at a hotel.

It was worth it. I woke up this morning, opened the doors to our balcony and was staring up at these huge mountains hidden in morning clouds. We also had our meals included - dinner was ridiculous - I ate way too much and I'm not sure what half of it was. There's a name for the type of meal... ummmm... I don't know how to spell it so I won't try but it consists of many small dishes of various types of things... yeah, I can't even explain it very well. Breakfast was more of the same. So much food!

The owner of the hotel (at least that's what Ryan and I thought) happened to be a mountaineer guide and the lead for the mountain rescue team for the region. This guy had pictures of himself climbing everywhere in the world... it was pretty crazy. There was even a climbing wall set up for him to practice on in the kitchen! He gave us some advice on where to go hiking today.

This morning we went on a couple of different hikes, alas the snow kept us from going very far up the mountains. We just didn't have the right shoes for it. I really liked the park... it was pretty cool and the hotel we stayed at was pretty crazy (it seemed like whenever we'd leave our room, we'd come back to find a new pot of warm tea waiting for us or that the room had been cleaned or rearranged for sleeping or lounging.)

We're now unsure what to do with our last 'free' day before we have to head back to Tokyo and our train pass runs out. We've been throwing around some ideas... I still want to do that fish market in Tokyo!

It seems crazy to think that this time next week I'll be back home and have to start looking for a new job.

*Edit* Ryan and I just called home for the first time in weeks... It was strange... I spoke with my sister who needs to stop house-sitting our place due to a family emergency and Ryan's parents will now take over the task of watering my plants (apparently I have flowers on my balcony! Woo!) and feeding the cats. (Thanks mom & dad for the e-mail - I called her as soon as I heard.)

food...

I ate something about 3 days ago that at the time tasted pretty good... but then after when I started thinking about it, the texture of it just threw me completely off... It wasn't that weird, it was like an egg thing with chicken and onion with some sort of sauce on top of rice. Anyway, for the last couple of days I just haven't been able to stomach much of anything... It's to the point where I've been afraid of eating anything remotely questionable - let alone eating the same thing again. This includes me not wanting to eat in places that might serve the dish in question (in fact, I can't even look at the picture of this thing without my stomach turning...)

Last night we found a place that served curry katsu chicken and at first that took a little while for me to actually swallow but then once I started eating it, it was okay. I'm hoping this will go away soon.

I'm looking forward to going home and having a regular meal that I've cooked for myself. It's been 8 weeks now that I haven't eaten anything remotely 'normal'.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon we went bouldering and it felt good to do something more like we'd do if we were at home. The gym we went to was tiny - think Rock Oasis' bouldering area and you've got this gym! It got pretty packed - I'm guessing the rain had something to do with it too. My hands are now peeling nicely and still a little red. I have no clue what kind of grading system they were using but it wasn't anything I'm used to.

And last night... well, that should be a whole post in itself but I don't think I have the time or energy to write about it. Womb was pretty good (actually, I really liked it). Only problem is that it was packed - too packed and that it got too loud (I put my earplugs in and my ears are still ringing a bit). Ritchie Hawtin was pretty good - I really liked him and had there been more room I would've tried dancing a little more (it was honestly so packed it was standing room only - no dancing). I'm not sure how much Ryan liked him - I think he prefered the DJ opening for him (was it AKR?)

That's it for now. We're off to the mountains for the next couple of days before we head back into Tokyo for the end of the week and the end of our stay in Japan.

head bag??

so... we didn't make it to the fish market. Instead we just went to Ginza and I went shopping.

I bought a couple of shirts... in the process I got to try on clothes in a changeroom and I, for some reason, thought that this was blog worthy. Okay maybe it wasn't that fun or interesting but it was kind of strange. I actually think I've been to stored in New York where they do this too...

I got to the change room, clothes in hand, and waited until someone noticed me. I was escorted to what must've been the largest change room (am i really that big? there were other rooms available! she must've just picked it because it was right next to where she was folding clothes - that way she could keep her eye on me). Next she gave me the instructions: three items, shoes off and head bag. I kind of looked at her puzzled, gave her my extra items, took off my shoes and then repeated "head bag?" At this point I noticed she was holding this cloth-like bag and she repeated 'head bag'. I must've stared at her blankly for a good three seconds before realizing what the bag was for... RIGHT... MY HEAD. So I confirmed with her that I was supposed to put the bag on my head and she quickly closed the curtain to my change room.

Head bags... why don't we use those back home? It makes a lot of sense. I don't want to buy clothes that are covered in some random girl's makeup. I have to admit, I felt pretty silly about it - I wasn't wearing any makeup or anything in my hair so there wasn't a risk of me dirtying the clothes but whatever... Made some sense. Anyway, I tried on some pretty ridiculous looking clothes and then opted for something relatively safe.

We're at an internet cafe now (they apparently have a promotion on right now for travelling to Canada! It's kind of weird - all these pictures of Vancouver and the rockies...), trying to figure out what to do this afternoon. Ryan is researching climbing gyms. It would be nice to go climbing if possible. Unfortunately directions and maps are all in Japanese at the gyms he's found so far... It's raining and kind of cool in Tokyo today - it's maybe 14 degrees. I think it would be best to stay inside if at all possible. I have a weird cold - I don't even know if it's a cold - no runny nose or coughing... just kind of a sore throat.

'Members Only'

We saw a lot of these signs last night... I suspect that by Members they really mean 'Japanese people'.

We're staying in downtown Tokyo - this way we don't have to deal with the subways closing early and being stranded. We found out after a short nap last night that there was an interesting drinking area right near our hotel - about a 5 block walk. We headed over and discovered these little alley ways full of tiny little bars that each could hold no more than maybe 6 customers. Each had cover charges of about $5 or more and most of which had signs saying 'members only'. We found a list of places that were foreigner-friendly and decided to try one. The place we found was pretty good - they were playing all of Neil Young's 'Best Of' album (I suspect that's the one because it had a bunch of songs from Decade on it, a song I didn't know and a few more recent ones that I did). I wonder if the two guys working at the bar noticed Ryan and I quietly singing along to every single song that was coming on?

Regardless, I kind of understand why they would make these places members only. I can imagine that if two foreigners who don't speak Japanese walked into a 6 person bar and sat down, it would really make things awkward for everyone sitting there... The place we chose was quite large - fitting probably 20 people in it so we just hid off in a corner and tried not to bother anyone too much.

Today we're off to ... well we were supposed to go to the fish market again but it's getting pretty late for that. I think we may go check out Ginza - a kind of snooty shopping area where they have a bunch of small galleries. I've been kind of eyeing a few photography galleries / museums so maybe we'll do one of those too and then tonight we're heading to the club (which we scoped out yesterday).

Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima

Here are more recent pictures for the last few days...

We wanted to stay in Hiroshima but unfortunately everything was booked up there. As were hotels in 3 other towns we tried after.... We kept getting on and off the train looking for hotels until we decided to just forget about sleeping and just go into Osaka and have a night out.



Club Triangle - it was Electro night. The crowd was a lot of fun (we met a few people while we were there and made some 'friends' for the evening). The mixing was horrendous though. I think there was a problem with their setup - I think I only heard one successful mix the entire night aside from the main performance which was live.








The next day we got on the train went back to Fukuoka for a nap and then went to Hiroshima






And we had sushi for dinner


Kyoto




Just stumbled upon this on our walk back to the train station


Our last night in Osaka
This is something we keep seeing everywhere. People gathered around office buildings or some landmark dancing. Most have headphones in and are practicing their routines. Some have stereos out and are dancing along... It's kind of cool. The girl in this picture was pretty good (unlike the picture)


Ryan got his castle





We're heading off to Tokyo tomorrow. We're hoping to make it into Womb for Ritchie Hawtin on Saturday night (I vaguely remember seeing him in Toronto at System Soundbar).

I really liked Osaka. It has some pretty cool night life (we went out a couple of nights and both of them ended up being pretty fun). I like the way Kyoto looks but there are a lot of tourists going around trying to see every temple and shrine. I'm looking forward to being in a place with fewer sight-seeing tourists. I think I'm finally temple and shrined out.

sick again.

I woke up this morning at about 4am feeling really horrible. My head was pounding, my sinuses were sore and I thought I was going to be sick. I finally managed to roll out of bed at about 11am after taking some sinus and cold meds. I don't know what was wrong but I felt better after the pill kicked in and am still doing okay...

We kind of kept it low key today - we're in Kyoto now (have been for the last couple of days). We went to a temple / shrine up in the hills (I kind of got carried away and thought there there were more in the hills so I started walking and walking and Ryan finally burst my bubble and told me that we'd seen all there was to see).

Anyway... time to play some picture catch-up.

Kagoshima:
It doesn't look like much but this was my favorite hotel room (it was in a ryokan) we've stayed at. The tatami mat smelled so good... and the matress was just right.


The volcanoes


Cats... there were lots of these.


And even more jelly fish


From our adventure on Sakurajima


Passion lives here


Waiting out the rain


Plastic Bag Man
Special Power: Non-combustible!


This is before I was tought how to eat this stuff...


Grass on the streetcar lanes in Kagoshima!


Miyazaki
I'm in love


Aoshima


The surfing is good... if you don't mind jelly fish




Sata San!




A robot in Hakata (Fukuoka)


Golden week dancing and singing acts we stumbled upon before heading back from Fukuoka




My personal favorite - it was much too short and somehow the music is still stuck in my head


Some more dancing