I climbed Mt. Fuji . . . in a bus.

Or so I’m told. The fog was so think that I couldn’t see the mountain at all, so the tour guide really could have taken us anywhere and we wouldn’t have known any better. I have decided to believe him though, because
(a) He seemed very nice
(b) It was 25 degrees in Tokyo, and we went somewhere high enough to have several feet of snow.

Here's the plywood proof.

The bus took us up to Mt. Fuji’s 5th station, which is as high up the mountain as you can go in a vehicle. To go any further involves hiking, which can only be done in July and August because the snow briefly melts and the expedition gets a lot less dangerous. We went up, took pictures of the shrine, shops, snow and fog, then piled back in the bus and came down again. After lunch and several hours of crap-weather and Golden Week induced traffic jams, we made it to Lake Ashi, one of Fuji’s five lakes, for our scenic boat cruise.

The view of Lake Ashi from the pier.


The view of Mt. Fuji from the boat on Lake Ashi.
C’mon. Use your imagination.

For some reason, the scenic cable car ride was cancelled (thank god), so they took us to an aquarium instead. That was nice. I do enjoy penguins.

I’ll admit it, I was pretty disappointed and annoyed. Possibly even more so when I got up the next morning in the brilliant sunshine. This did at least make for good picture taking conditions when I spotted Mt. Fuji from the bloody train on the way home.

It was actually becoming a running joke that I’ve been to Tokyo so many times and never once seen Fuji from the Shinkansen. If it was ever going to appear, this was definitely the right moment to do so. That, (plus the blocks of cheese that I dragged a freezer bag all the way to Tokyo to procure) definitely made the hellishly expensive one-day-trip and 17 hours of train travel worthwhile.

R’s and L’s

I have to explain this to English speakers a lot. In Japan, there is no difference between R and L. They are a sort of hybrid sound, and my students can’t hear the difference between “light” and “right” no matter how many times they hear it. I’ve adapted for the most part, and can usually tell what people mean even when it’s not what they said, like the kids who have lice for breakfast and pray the frute in the blassband. Sometimes it’s hard to fake comprehension, like when I’m not sure if I was asked to collect or correct the papers, but usually my confusion is minor and I’m not too troubled. Usually. “Troubled” barely starts to cover my mental state during a recent conversation with an elementary school teacher.

Teacher: Kalen-sensei, you like erection?
Me: Um, what?
Teacher: You watch erection on TV?
Me: Um, what?
Teacher: I watch Amelican erection on TV. I like Hirary Crinton.

Oh my God. The teacher miraculously remained unaware of my confusion, panic, and relief, and we went on to have a nice little chat about politics. At least I’ll be prepared for that one in the future. Just incase it pops up. ;)

Exploring other career options in Japan

If you blinked and missed the cherry blossoms, the next seasonal clue to look for in Japan is fields full of water. April and May are rice-planting months, and while this is mostly done by machines these days, I live in the real, hardcore country where it’s clearly more fun to watch people wade around in the mud and do it by hand. If you have a Taue festival at the same time, you can get people to do your farm work for free. Er, I mean invite people to celebrate with you. In your field. While they plant rice.

It was actually a lot of fun. The mud was really cold and I was on the lookout for the little black poisonous snakes that lurk in rice paddies, but I still had a good time. I went to the same festival last year, so I knew what to expect this time around. A team of old ladies jump, strip and redress you in a fashionable burlap kimono and sexy straw hat, then march you out to the field. Since it’s Japan, there was at least half an hour of speeches and a ceremony at the beginning, including shaking hands with the mayor, offering the field a bottle of sake, and watching two guys dressed as an ox be pulled around in the mud to symbolically plow the field. Then it was down to business.

.

.

Everyone walks backwards though the mud, planting row after row of rice. When we got partway across, the costumed drummers who had been playing at the side of the field got into the mud behind us and continued to drum and sing. I’m sure we’d have been done faster if they had planted rice instead, but I digress.

It’s backbreaking work, but I’ve never had this much fun playing in the mud.

The Kyoto Protocol in Action

Environmentalism my arse. If Japan is so serious about saving the environment, people should stop sending me so many faxes. Especially since this chemical-laden paper will be burned, not recycled.

Sakura Season

About a month later than scheduled, the weather suddenly picked up and I ventured out from under the table for a weekend of extremely Japanese fun. On Friday night, I wandered along a riverbank lined with cherry trees strung with lanterns, impatiently waiting for dusk to fall so that I could take the following fuzzy, poorly-lit pictures. They don’t really do the trees, lights or atmosphere justice at all.

On Saturday, some friends and I went for a drive and a picnic to indulge in Japan’s top spring obsession, Hanami, or cherry-blossom viewing. Allegedly, the purpose of cherry blossom viewing parties is to celebrate the coming of spring, and to take the time to appreciate the profound, fleeting beauty of the fragile cherry blossoms. In actuality, it’s just this season’s excuse to have a party and get drunk in public. I’m sure that some people do appreciate the blossoms for deeply spiritual and/or artistic reasons, but the rest of the nation sees the opening of the blossoms as the signal that it’s party time again. I swear this country would have a festival for just about everything if it were allowed, but I can’t help but respect a society that works and plays equally hard.

Sunday found almost everyone I know a couple of hours from home in Tsuwano, the only place at this end of the prefecture that makes it into guide books. It’s a very cute town, home to some interesting history, an Inari shrine up a mountain, some castle ruins, cute old streets lined with cute old buildings, and gutters filled with colourful carp.

Every spring, Tsuwano hosts Yabusame (horseback archery) which is what we were there to see. Basically, archers clad in tradition riding gear shoot a series of wooden targets as their cranky horses hurtle unwillingly along a track. There’s a great deal of pomp and ceremony involved in most of the proceedings, given weight by the intense, blood-chilling war cries of the archers, and undermined by uncooperative steeds and inconveniently placed horse poop.

Good times. I’m glad they shoot away from the crowd.

Spring Break – Part Two - Okinawa

My second spring break venture was a dramatic change of scenery.

Okinawa has a very different climate and culture from mainland Japan, and even Japanese people consider a trip to Okinawa to be the next best thing to actually going to a different country. Okinawa’s past relations with various Asian countries are reflected in its music, art, architecture, food, textiles, traditions, etc. This + the indigenous culture + influences from mainland Japan and America = a really strange cultural environment.

Okinawa suffered a lot of damage during World War 2, but since most of the aid and help with clean-up after the war came from the Americans, Okinawa ended up grateful to America and resentful of Japan. As a result, Okinawa is now a strange cultural mish-mash that works well for tourism. I was quite happy to revel in the old and the new, learning about the little kingdom’s history and culture while enjoying as much “American food” as possible.

I had a blast, visiting castles, seeing traditional theater, and shopping on Kokusai-dori(International Street), the biggest, brightest, most life-sized-cartoon-character infested tourist trap I have ever seen. It was warm. There were palm trees. I ate tacos and rode a monorail. Even the fact that it rained almost the whole time couldn’t spoil my fun.

In retrospect, I’m not sure that I could have visited two places within Japan that were more different. Kyoto is the center of Japanese culture, and Okinawa is the least Japanese of all the prefectures. Seeing them a week apart made the differences seem even greater, so I suppose it’s no wonder I was a bit dazed after I got back. And broke.