The Japanese Adventure, Part VII – Castle Keeps and Capsule Sleeps

(First and foremost, I apologise for this post’s title’s abysmal rhyme; I thought it was clever when I wrote it, but I’m now aware it sounds terribly twattish. Oh well, I’m a fatalist, so it’s staying.)

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The ryokan had been a nice change of scenery. Good food, good beer, good bath. Serene, and all that. As is usual with Japan, the tranquil rapidly merged into the hectic, and before we knew it, we were adventuring into a new metropolis, Nagoya.

Our main goal in Nagoya was to spend the afternoon with a Japanese schoolfriend myself and H. knew. Neither of us had seen him in over a year, so we were both excited to see if or how he had changed. S., as his name is (trust me, I hate the initials more than you do, but it’s for anonymity’s sake), is unusually tall for a Japanese. When we did meet up under the shadow of Nagoya Castle, he had grown. He’s at least 6′2″ which is obscenely big for someone of East Asian descent alone, but having said that, one thing I did notice was that the Japanese population in general have certainly sprouted. I was pretty much average height. I had sort of expected to be a giant amongst men over there as the stories my dad had told me of his colleague visiting the country had lifted my spirits – his friend had only been 5′5″ yet was the tallest one about. I suppose I should have realised that he was talking about the 1960s and not the 2000s.  In awe of his immense loftiness, we set about exploring the castle grounds.

Japanese castles are very pretty indeed, make no mistake. Although the entrance fee was a tad hefty, it was worth it to stroll about the inside.  I did have to laugh when I noticed that there was a lift inside the keep itself. It was constructed in 1612, but partially destroyed by American bombers in World War II, so presumably they thought they’d throw in some wheelchair access after it was rebuilt. The exhibits were the usual castle fare: old models of how it was all believed to have looked in the feudal ages and rows of armour, bows and swords. The top level was dedicated to a gift-shop, but with the aid of a few coin-operated telescopes, it offered a fantastic view of the city.

Nagoya Castle.

A view of the main keep from the curtain wall.

From the top level, looking out to the city.

We spent very little time in Nagoya. We had to move on to Osaka by early evening, and S. had to take a three hour bus back home. From the meagre period I spent there, the city looked to be an intriguing place, marked by a clearly defined monument to old, samurai Japan. It’s certainly on the cards for my next visit.

Osaka is by far my most favourite Japanese city. It had the busyness and vibrancy of Tokyo mixed with the culture and distinct feel of somewhere like Kyoto. A lot of the Japanese cities I visited in passing suffered from a rather tragic condition – concrete-blockitis. Many areas are just dominated by dull, grey tower blocks, lacking character or feel. They simply exist, and boringly so. Of course, I can’t blame Japan for it’s massive population, but places like Osaka certainly saved the country’s urban face.

If I thought Tokyo was bright, Osaka seemed to amplify everything by a hundred. Lights exploded everywhere (metaphorically speaking, although that does sound exciting) whilst the streets heaved with pedestrians. We met up with R. (oh, those initials) whom we all knew from university. She showed us around the main centre of the city, and we enjoyed some seriously nice battered meats and seafood in a supposedly rather famous restaurant, all for an agreeable price. After that, we hit up a big karaoke centre for another bout of singing terribly. Thankfully, on this occasion, alcohol was provided, so the two Europeans of the group managed to survive fuelled with beer and bizarre cocktails. For some reason, I thought singing as a Bee Gee was the most logical choice, so by the end of the night, I felt like my vocal cords had been lacerated by some flesh-eating laryngeal parasite.

Osaka lights.

That running dude is awesome.

Parting ways with R., we headed to our accommodation for the night. This particular accommodation was something I was dying to test – the famous (or infamous, depending on your claustrophobia) kapuseru hoteru, or capsule hotel.

A capsule hotel is, as the name suggests, a hotel full of capsules. Instead of being allocated a room, the patron is given a capsule wherein he or she (but usually he, as lots of things in Japan often exclusively cater for one sex only) sleeps. Used mostly by businessmen who miss the last train or drunks fearing the scorn of their wives as they stumble through the door at four o’clock in the morning, they are delightfully cheap, at around €20 a night. Ours was particularly good, including a very nice bath-house, free WiFi, a café, small arcade and two television rooms all bundled in the price.

A room full o' capsules.

After a quick bath, we set about preparing for bed. I will take this opportunity to caution the weary traveller not to use the disposable toothbrushes that are free to take. You’d be much better off brushing your teeth with a knife, because that would have the same effect. My brush was so wiry that I cut the inside of my mouth badly enough to warrant the three mouth ulcers that followed me back to Ireland. Lovely.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the capsules themselves were roomy. At about 6′4″ long, only the tallest Westerner would have trouble sleeping in them, but I was more than content. Clambering in, I was even more pleasantly surprised to find that the capsule came with a small television, a radio and an alarm-clock with lots of little storage pockets along the walls. It was more cosy than coffin-like, and I had a fantastic night’s sleep. Then again, I do have my best night’s sleeps in the strangest of places, such as my brother’s settee and kneeling on the floor with my head awkwardly in the corner of an armchair. Oh trust me, that was a good sleep.

See? Pretty spacious!

Lots of head-room.

Waking from a restful slumber, we checked out and toddled off to Osaka’s main train station. Our next destination was to feature Buddha, temples galore and killer deer.

Killer deer.

Come on, seriously, you’ve got to read the next part now.

The Japanese Adventure, Part VI – Like Travelling Samurai

After two consecutive days of bustling Tokyo, our next destination would be a lot quieter in comparison. On 8 September, we began our quick-stop tour of western Japan, moving from city to city with more speed than a Kenyan sprinter on…speed. Naturally, I’m not going to cover all of the exciting places I visited in one go, so stay tuned for the other four parts after this one (yes, this is a ten part ordeal, be amazed). Having spent a week in and around the buzzing centre of the country, I was beginning to think that nothing outside Tokyo or Yokohama existed.

I was filled with considerable anticipation, then, when it was announced that we would be travelling deep into the unknown hill-country of Shizuoka. Of course, it wasn’t unknown at all, but I liked to think it was, like I was some sort of intrepid Anglo-Irish explorer, conquering the terrain of some utterly alien new land. In writing that sentence, it has become clear to me that I need to start reading/playing less fantasy lest I sound like a total psychopath. Regardless, on our drive from the suburbia (I use the term suburbia very lightly, as it doesn’t seem to exist in Japan) of Kanagawa, there was plenty a beautiful sight to behold, and most of it to the soundtrack of Pokémon, as during our four hour drive to our mountain lodgings, I don’t think H.’s mix-CD was changed once. I now know the lyrics to two of the said cartoon series’ opening themes, as of course for me to have known them beforehand would have been absolutely preposterous…ahem.

Surviving miles of long-winding and often treacherous roads, we eventually arrived at our ryokan, a traditional Japanese-style inn. Nestled deep in the hills, ‘idyllic’ would have been putting it lightly. Indeed, as the title of this post suggests, I really did feel like we were some sort of travelling samurai, stepping backwards in time to a now sadly dwindling Japanese Japan, with paper walls, sliding doors, futons and the like. Aside from my unfounded nostalgia and the obvious impracticalities of using paper walls and mats for flooring in a 21st century world of skyscrapers and bullet-trains, it was fantastic nonetheless. Taking off our shoes at the entrance (as is typical in Japanese houses), we were escorted to our room. Sliding the highly ornate door aside revealed a large open space with nothing but a table and some small cushions for us to sit ourselves down on, an alcove by the window adjoined.

Up the road from the ryokan.

Setting our bags down and helping ourselves to a rather pungent, yet equally delicious sweet rice-ball thing, we decided to bathe. This particular ryokan was of the hot-spring variety (more sausage, folks!), though this time it was a  private affair, so the three of us had a bath to ourselves. For any reader that’s just joined in this epic tale, nakedness is something that the Japanese take with a pinch of salt and a degree of gusto, and rightfully so. I think it’s high-time that the Europeans and Americans got off their high-horses of prudery and realised that, well, every man has a penis and every girl has a vagina. Unless you are transsexual and therefore have the best of both worlds. Either way, big bloody whoop. Inconveniently for three heterosexual males, our outdoor grotto bath was shamefully romantic, perhaps best suited to couples, rather than rabbles of young men. The water was hot indeed, whilst the overpowering odour of sulphur made soaks of more than five minutes difficult.

More of the ryokan's scenery. No bathing men, sorry!

Returning from the bath-house to our rooms, adorning some traditional Japanese robes in the process (think tailored dressing-gowns), we were quickly ushered into an adjacent dining room where supper had been delightfully provided for us. It was the real deal – sushi, sashimi, tempura, you name it. Salmon, tuna, squid, shrimp and chicken (the cooks had angelically taken it upon themselves to rustle up some meat for the duo of European palates) accompanied by pickled vegetables, all washed down by a pint of very refreshing beer. It was a mouthgasm, and that was putting it lightly. Stomachs full, we lumbered back to our room to find that while we had been eating, the small table that had once graced the centre had now disappeared and laid down in its stead were futon, Japanese bed-rolls. Considering the handiwork of magical Japanese elves (and not the inn staff), I collapsed into…well, not sleep, actually. It took absolutely sodding ages for me to venture off into the realm of slumber because of my ridiculously hard pillow; so hard was it in fact, that when I woke up in the morning, I had more knots in my shoulder muscles than a suicide-bomber has virgins in Paradise.

A scroll in our room, supposedly to ward off evil spirits.

Sadly, we had to make a quick exit if were to get to Nagoya (our next stop) on schedule. We had a huge and hearty breakfast; traditional meals are hard to differentiate in Japan.  Breakfast has miso soup, as does supper. It has fish and meat too, not unlike supper. And of course, the ubiquitous pot of rice is on hand at any meal you care to imagine. Fresh fruit was pretty much all that defined our morning meal from the food we had eaten the night before, though it was still thoroughly delicious. If there’s one thing the Japanese have certainly mastered, it’s the culinary arts.

Breakfast.

Thus it was over; we exchanged our yukata robes for our t-shirts and shorts, our wooden sandals for our shoes, our welcoming, slightly uncomfortable futon for our travel-bags and headed for the entrance. The ryokan keeper pounced on us from the desk (in a nice way, you understand, not in some sort of angry lioness way) and demanded we take a free gift back with us. From amongst paper-fans, cloth and chopsticks, I took a  black and gold floral wash-bag, something that my father now uses to keep his Fixodent and dental-floss in. Nice.

Out into the mountain, we hit the road.

The Japanese Adventure, Part V – An Assortment of Geeks

On the sixth day of the ninth month, myself and H. made our way deep into Tokyo, to Waseta, home to one of Japan’s most prestigious universities. One of H.’s old schoolfriends gave us a tour of the campus, and it was very impressive indeed. A fascinating mix of old and new, with a most delightful street of shops for the students. Also, I noticed that the omnipresent Japanese vending-machines in the Waseta area stocked an unusually high amount of Dr. Pepper. Said drink being my favourite beverage, I was naturally delighted. Apparently, the drink is so rare in Tokyo that looking out for it is like some sort of minor sport. Everytime we spotted a can, we would shout, “O! DOKUTA PEPPA!” in an extremely inflected Japanese accent. If Tokyo had won the 2016 Olympic bid, who knows, we may have seen an international “Dr. Pepper Hunting” event. I digress majorly.

The nectar of the gods.

After our tour of Waseta, the three of us travelled to Omotesando, the Japanese equivalent of Paris’ Champs-Elysées; as the comparison suggests, every shop there catered for the mega-rich. Being penniless students, we could only stand and stare wide-eyed at glamourous Japanese heiresses pick out Gucci handbags worth a small African nation. We traipsed on from the marble-pillared shops of millionaires to Aoyama for a brief glimpse of a Buddhist temple, the first one I had seen on my tour. It had been beautifully constructed, but unfortunately, it was shut (or at least, so it appeared). Our next stop was another of Tokyo’s little curiosities…

The temple in the Aoyama district.

Any self-proclaimed Japanophile will have heard of Harajuku. Hell, even Gwen Stefani sings about it. Harajuku is famous for its ‘cosplayers’, those wacky young teenagers who dress up as their favourite anime or video-game characters and parade about a small plaza every Sunday morning, posing, singing and performing. I’m positive the more reserved Tokyo-ite (Tokyon? Man of Tokyo? Tokyopolitan?) gives the place a wide berth, but it positively teems with tourists cramming to take pictures of men dressed in demon costumes and girls in ridiculously skimpy tutus. There was a surprisingly old chap dressed up as some sort of crippled rapper who walked around in circles beat-boxing, pausing every few seconds to hack up his lungs and occasionally answer his phone. ‘Disturbing’ would have perhaps been the most appropriate adjective.

Harajuku cosplayers.

The beat-boxer. Locking up your children is advised.

We must have arrived on a particularly conservative Sunday, as there weren’t many about, but I do encourage anyone reading this to Google Image ‘Harajuku cosplay’ and see what I mean. My photos don’t really do the best ones any justice.

The following day, the original trio was reunited, plus another of H.’s schoolfriends, a self-confessed otaku (geek). Fitting, then, that we were to make our way into my version of Heaven on Earth, the embodiment of man’s technological might – Akihabara. I consider myself a geek. I’d just like to get that off my chest. Any readers who will never return because of this announcement, know that I still love you, despite your decision. I love games. I’ve been playing them since I was 4 years old; I blame my Granddad for that, plus, all the other indirect consequences, such as lessened respect, inability to play sports with any real prowess and controller-related arthritis that will probably hit me when I’m 30. Apart from the video-games aspect of my geekery comes married a love for all things fantastical and obscure. Who’s that elf in The Lord of the Rings? Legolas, son of Thranduil, you petty mortal. Where does that minor alien species in Star Wars come from? Byss, you imbecile!

Akihabara is known as ‘Electric Town’ – any gadget you care to name exists there, and is for sale at (usually) an extremely fair price. Blu-ray player? Sure. Talking washing-machine? Probably. Any DVD that has ever been made ever!? Assuredly. Simply being there – in its aura – nearly turned this godless heathen religious.

Oh yes.

Apart from an undeniable love for flat-screen televisions, netbooks and cutesy game characters, one thing the Japanese seem to have virtually no scruples about is porn. There is lots of it. We’re not talking EE-cup, stiletto heels, peroxide blonde porn, either. Comic book porn or hentai (literally meaning ‘pervert’ or ‘perversion’ in the lingo) is the standard fare. One particularly massive comic store we visited had seven floors, five of which – I kid you not – were dedicated to all sorts of erotica. I mean,  there’s having a good time, and there’s going too far. Regardless, I’m sure Kleenex makes a killing in Japan.

There was plenty more where that came from.

Undoubtedly, the best part of our visit to Akihabara was the ‘maid cafe’. If I had been 15 years of age on my visit to Tokyo, it would have been akin to non-physical sex. The males that stumble upon this post will no doubt share my enthusiasm. And who wouldn’t? What honest, virile man would turn down the opportunity to have drinks poured for him by a beautiful Japanese waitress, dressed in a ridiculously suggestive French-maid outfit? Despite feeling a little sleazy for having gone (and with three other men), it was a fun experience. Of course, there was nothing remotely sexual about it. There were families there (though this, to me, defeats the purpose) and even getting a damn photo with the girls cost the upwards of €5, so unfortunately, I have none to share.

Ordering a drink was a double-edged sword, really. On the one had, we got to ogle an attractive Japanese woman and feel less predatory, whilst on the other, we were made to meow (yes, meow) to indicate when we wanted her to stop pouring out the milk for our iced-coffees. As I’ve said before, the Japanese just take it in their stride. H.’s friend meowed complete with appropriate gesturing, whilst myself and D. mumbled a half-hearted ‘meuh…’ and trailed off into silence. We all felt rather special, until we saw the same maid repeat the process with an equally as enamoured table of young adults. With hearts momentarily broken, we asked for the bill and were given custom plastic membership cards. Unfortunately, the maid misheard my name rather tragically, and so forevermore I will be ‘Duck-sama’, upon a hypothetical second visit. Should I return for the 2000th time, I shall be in receipt of a Black Card, with, as the pamphlet said, ‘unknown’ privileges. No prizes, ladies and gentlemen, no prizes.

More Akihabara cityscape.

And so, Akihabara came to a close. I reluctantly left the beeping gizmos behind, but I was about to experience something slightly more profound: traditional Japan.

The Japanese Adventure, Part IV – Sausages & Shins

The summit of Mt. Fuji.

Having completed our trek up and down Mt. Fuji, with my leg in a degree of controlled agony, my eyes almost cemented together through lack of sleep and my underarms more malodorous than twelve-hour roadkill, getting naked in a Japanese hot-spring (onsen, in the native tongue) was not my idea of relaxation. I couldn’t have been more mistaken.

The onsen was basically a public bath-house. With my prudish English streak in overload, I felt bloody uncomfortable about climbing into some massive communal bath with my Crown Jewels exposed for the entire orient to see. This, of course, highlights the typical male ego; no one really wanted to look at my member, for they were of course washing themselves and not rampantly drunk homosexuals bent on assailing my genitalia (though I’m positive an old fellow kept eyeing me from the jacuzzi…). After a somewhat timid first soak, it was relatively easy to feel, well, at ease, though I’m sure it would have been a lot worse if the bath-houses hadn’t been gender divided. Oh, that would have been dreamily awkward…

Me big European man…

I do apologise, I was…fantasising…

Ahem.

There were several hot baths (some incredibly hot) and one extremely icy cold bath that I suppose had some sort of cleansing, homeopathic healing thing that my increasingly hippie mum would probably buy in for. I lasted about twenty seconds in the sauna before I felt like my body would implode. How can anyone breathe in those damn things? I thought I was experiencing some sort of mild heart-attack. The outdoor bath was certainly the best, despite the view of several Japanese men sunning themselves on the loungers. With such fine Japanese weather, the cooling breeze and the warm water would’ve easily put me to sleep. Regardless, it was an experience I wouldn’t forget, and one that become twice more familiar in the coming week.

We left the onsen at around two o’clock in the afternoon and got back to Tokyo at about four, arriving at H.’s an hour and a half or so later. As I lay down in my room, I was aware that my leg ache was still very much there; trying to ignore it, I closed my eyes in a vain effort to sleep, but to no avail.  The pain was too overpowering. Considering my options, I knew I would have to act. Realising a trip to the doctor would be in order, I told H. and was whisked off to the local hospital.

Early comments from the hospital receptionist said that any sort of x-ray or scan would cost upwards in the region of €500. With only about €350 left, ‘concerned’ would have been putting it lightly. A young chap saw to me; he was extremely polite (with truly awesome hair) and H. did all the translating for me. The doctor was left rather puzzled – he gave no ultimate diagnosis, as I seemed to have no pain in the areas he expected me to have any, and pain in the areas he didn’t. After climbing Mt. Fuji, it was also pretty difficult to pinpoint exactly where the ache was coming from. He said I had a 1% chance of having developed DVT (in my hypochondria, I had linked my dead-leg incident on the plane to my shin) but considered it very unlikely at my age; eventually, he said it may have been the side-effect of some sort of flu as I appeared to have a mild fever. Bizarrely, he overlooked the glaring yellow bruise complete with matching lump on my lower leg, instead prescribing aspirin and heat-wraps. Being a startling delightful fellow (or more likely thinking, “Haha, you dumb fuck, get travel insurance next time!”), he charged nothing for the consultation.

Considering my mind had been put at ease, I immediately felt better. A little internet research in the evening revealed that my ache had probably been caused by a bone bruise. The bruise itself would disappear in days, but the lump could remain for months or more. Indeed, it’s only been this month – the start of November –  that I have noted its more-or-less complete absence. Funnily enough, I still get the odd pain there, depending on the weather. Frightfully unspiffing of it. Still, I rather preferred that over an aneurysm or tissue-eating necrosis.

The weekend passed lazily. D., disappeared off for a few hours to meet some of his work-camp friends in Tokyo (he had been in Japan a month prior to my arrival), and H. and I traipsed about the local vicinity, checking out the large, sprawling malls and arcades. My gods, do the Japanese know how to shop. And play arcade games. And drift RC cars.

Arcades in Europe *seriously* need to catch up.

Frightfully moreish Japanese snacks.

A Nakagawa mall, with its own RC racing track. Oh yes.

My leg was recovering well and I felt spritelier than I had before. We spent our idle hours planning the next week’s agenda – Nagoya, Nara, Osaka and Kyoto were all on the cards. It was going to be very busy, indeed.

The Japanese Adventure, Part III – Climbing Mount Improbable

The morning of September 3rd was the start of a long, arduous trek, but it was most certainly the highlight of my Japan trip – the Mt. Fuji climb. We ‘woke up’ at the very unholy hour of four o’clock, adorned all sorts of pseudo-hiking gear, packed our bags and headed off to the central Yokohama station where we were to get on a coach that would take us deep into Japanese hill country. It took about two and a half hours to get there, but the scenery was unique enough to compel me to stay awake for an otherwise uneventful journey. We arrived at the visitor’s centre at around eight o’clock and we started our ascent half an hour later. Led by a rather grizzled mountaineer, little did we know what we had coming.

Mt. Fuji's visitor-centre.

Mountain cloudscape.

The first stretch is always the easiest and Mt. Fuji was no exception. Even though I was happy that we only had to climb 1.5km (the bus had taken us most of the way up the mountain), I couldn’t help but feel a little concerned that the old volcano would suddenly become very difficult to traverse – it did. Soon, we were forced to take steep zig-zagging paths up the mountainside and every so often, Fuji-san would throw an almost sheer rock face at us that reduced the entire group to a snail-paced crawl as everyone was obliged to fall to their hands and knees looking for any available foothold. Fuji was rapidly becoming Everest.

It was – rather inconveniently – around this time that my left leg began to ache; it had been rather painful the day before, but I had shrugged it off like the hard, focused SAS type that I am. Thankfully, it seemed like most of the group was in similar discomfort, so the shuffling pace we had been reduced to allowed me to nurse my pain and worry about what sort of horrendous bone-eating cancer I had probably developed. As if my leg was bad enough, my lungs decided to express their tenderness. (I was actually a little surprised that they hadn’t already given me a Purple Heart for my ailments.) At around 3,300m, the air was naturally very thin; many of the older climbers took to using oxygen canisters that were available (at an extortionately high price) at the stop-off points that dotted the trail. Long, deep breaths were necessary to extract the most O2 from the air.

On the way up - air...thinning...

As time dragged on, it seemed like the summit would be some unattainable dream or that Mt. Fuji was actually some bizarre fantasy that never existed and was simply a figment from a catatonic state I had lapsed into some days prior. Finally, my prayers (to atheist god) were answered, and at around five thirty in the afternoon, we made it to ‘Fuji-san Hotel’, three hundred metres from the summit. As far as I was concerned, it was Buckingham Palace.

Our guide. Ended a lot of his sentences with 'ne'.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t Buckingham Palace; the entrance led into a large dining room (and what you’re picturing now is not what it was like, I can assure you) where we were brushed off rather hurriedly by a few of the staff and then shown to our rooms. Sorry, room.  Pardon me, dormitory. Excuse me – I actually meant stable. Well, okay, it wasn’t that bad, but even D. agreed that it was like being at the bottom of a famine ship, minus the chains and impending death. Our dormitory consisted of two sides, both having one top ‘bunk’ (it was really just a large plank of wood connected to the wall) which could sleep seven, all sharing one massive pillow and duvet. The bottom ‘bunk’ was the same, except the builders had thought the light bulb they had provided those the top with was enough, and that the unfortunate sods on the bottom could get stuffed and find their way about by fumbling around in darkness.

The Japanese have this strange ability to fall asleep in the most unlikely scenarios. After we had been given a small meal, those who returned to the dormitory seemed to fall asleep almost instantly. H. and his sister A. slept solidly until one o’clock in the morning when we were to begin our climb again, but D. and I were not so fortunate. As if the incredibly thick duvet wasn’t enough (and I hate to think of the bacterial population it housed), my fellow German produced two cans of vile lemon-flavoured alcohol that was either supposed to keep us going through the long night or knock us out sufficiently so that we wouldn’t have to worry about our rather squalid sleeping conditions. Alas, the only thing that our cans of Suturongu (‘strong’ in phonetic Japanese) succeeded in doing was to cause two toilet breaks (into the freezing air outside) and the loss of several hundred brain cells as I whacked my head so hard off the wood of the top bunk coming out from underneath, that I bled a few drops of my own blood. I don’t like bleeding my own blood.

When we did finally settle down to sleep, it was far from uninterrupted. I recall waking up twice for twenty to thirty minutes in my five or six hour slumber, and when I woke up again at midnight, I gave up and lay in darkness waiting for the others to rouse.

Fear my night-time photography skills.

After what seemed like eight millennia, our group set off into the night at around quarter-to-two. It was a desperately slow climb and the paths became steeper and steeper. From the light that our guide’s torch gave off, it looked as if we were climbing up Mt. Doom or another one of the Mordor mountains. I had managed to work my way through six bottles of water since the bottom, and I was running precariously low. Just when I thought I’d never see it, we arrived at the summit of Mt. Fuji, 3,776m above sea-level. With some hot food in us, we waited until around five-fifteen for the sun to rise; the light allowed for some pretty spectacular views and everyone seemed to be suitably amazed.

Sunrise on Fuji's summit.

The sun - it riseth.

Although I wasn’t truly flabbergasted by seeing a ball of burning hydrogen and helium float above the horizon, it was still quite the vista. Scouting around the volcanic crater, at six o’clock, we made our descent. Thankfully, it was nowhere near as difficult as the ascent, but it still took us close to three hours to make it back to the visitor’s centre. At this stage, my entire body felt as if it had received a serious beating from a heavyweight boxer – my back ached, my arse throbbed and perhaps worst of all, my accursed left shin was constantly reminding me that it was in a serious degree of pain. Finally making it back to the coach alive, we all fell asleep instantly as the tour-guide jawed about something in Japanese and waking up to him an hour or so later continuing his apparently rather long-winded speech.

Fuji's volcano crater.

On the way back down.

I was about to experience another Japanese curiosity – the onsen. Sausage-fest, meet your king.

The Japanese Adventure, Part II – On the First Day of Tokyo…

On Monday, 31 August, we took our first trip into Tokyo. Getting there was easy, simply because the Japanese train-service was absolutely stupendous. H.’s house was about fifty minutes outside the capital’s city centre by car. The train we needed to take could do it in about twenty-five, and it arrived on the turn of the minute without fail. Not once was any train I took in Japan ever late and not even by thirty seconds. Even if a train is ten minutes late, the conductors will give the passengers on board notes that they can show to their superiors to prove that their delay was not their fault, but that is probably only likely to happen every few years.

Taking a train in Tokyo can be a little daunting for the unknowing gaijin - although all of the signposts are in English, the plethora of different lines, the extremely busy turnstiles and often unbearable heat can be a tad off-putting. Despite all that, it was still great fun. JR (Japan Rail) conducts itself more like a military than a train-service; the express train we took into the city-centre was apparently being tested as it ran, so on a few of the main stops, conductors on the platforms would shout instructions at the drivers, wave their arms about, blow whistles, write important things on clip-boards and finish with a salute to the carriages before marching off, presumably to scare small children. That sort of efficiency can only be described as Japanese. It really should be an adjective to describe the punctual and ergonomic. In Ireland, it wouldn’t really surprise me if a train-driver decided to stop in the middle of nowhere, prop his legs up onto the dashboard, light a fag and read the Daily Star (not that I’m implying that Irish train-drivers, or indeed, the Irish rail-service are lazy or ineffective, though last weekend’s track-repairs at Dublin’s Heuston station forced me to take a bus with the unwashed proletariat).

See what I mean?

Central Shibuya - a lot of people.

When we arrived in Shibuya – arguably the hub of Tokyo – to describe it as bustling would have be an understatement. It swarmed, throbbed and pulsated with people, and Japan has a lot of them. 127,590,000, in fact, crammed into a landmass only a little bigger than Britain. Unfortunately, the typhoon was still ongoing so it limited what we could do out and about. (Not that I minded of course, as I was simply happy to be there).

We ended up doing completely random activities like bowling and table-tennis (the Japanese youth are seemingly very occupied), and we made a brief visit to a karaoke centre where we (or rather, H.) sang a few songs. Karaoke is something that will never catch on in Europe. Ever. In Japan, it’s been bred into them; it’s a fun activity you can do with your friends and family. Nobody bats an eyelid, even if your singing prowess matches the gurgling of an asthmatic bulldog. But for an Anglo-Irishman and a pure-bred German, a night of karaoke (without alcohol!) is perhaps akin to musical Hell, so with about as much enthusiasm as a dog might have going to a vet, we cautiously exercised our gullets for a few songs, only to feel frightfully embarrassed and sadly sober. Oh well, at least Melon Fanta was on tap…

A very rainy Shibuya.

A very cheap, surprisingly good meal in Tokyo.

When night falls naturally in Tokyo, an artificial day seems to replace it. Lights flick on absolutely everywhere. Barely a single building goes unlit – I really hate to think of the electricity bill the mayor of Tokyo has to oversee every year. Every building talked, too, bombarding passers-by with advertisements. Don’t the Japanese see that when the Robot Uprising occurs, the machines will use these deafening loudspeakers to broadcast their mind-control messages? Sigh. Fears of mechanical rebellion aside, we wandered around rather aimlessly, making a brief trip to an extremely quiet Harajuku (we would return next week), salivating as we passed by the curiously large amount of crêpe stalls.  However, without any set objective, we headed off back to H.’s.

The next day was taken up by a trip to a beach in Zushi, about an hour’s drive from home-base; it was a rather scorching day, but our swim cancelled out the worst of it. The water was gorgeous, but as with most tropical seas, all manner of unpleasant marine organisms patrolled the currents, so the three of us were stung (very lightly, mind) by some sort of jelly or shell fish. Terrors from the deep aside, it was a lazy day in comparison to the previous, but it was still bloody enjoyable.

Tokyo at night.

Zushi beach

I couldn’t get over it – I was still in Japan.

The Japanese Adventure, Part I – “Welcome aboard this ANA flight to Tokyo…”

“A wizard is never late, he arrives precisely when he means to!”, Gandalf

Unfortunately, I am not a wizard, so I can’t really use that excuse. My lack of input has been down to college and me being extremely lazy. Plus, it’s a little disheartening writing all this stuff when no one actually reads it, but I’m Anglo-Irish (therefore, inherently awesome and godly) so I’ll get by and stick to my imperial guns. If there’s anyone out there (I sound like Robert Neville from I Am Legend), please stay tuned for the other parts, as writing this will probably motivate me to write all the others.

Japan is still surprisingly fresh in my mind, even though I came back nearly two months ago; it’s almost impossible to believe. At least it brings me one step closer to my next outing, whenever that may be.

Also, I give serious kudos to the chap that stumbled upon this blog by searching for ‘touronaut’ – you, sir/madam, are the cream of society.

Enjoy the first part of the Adventure.

*  *  *

After having been reassured twice by the Aer Lingus employee at Dublin airport that I would not be seeing my baggage again until Tokyo’s Narita airport, I set off on my trip to London. Landing in England, strolling past the luggage carousels with only mild amusement that my fellow fliers would have to wait several years for their suitcases to be transferred one hundred metres from plane to arrivals, I continued my onward journey in a vain effort to find Heathrow’s Terminal 3.

After about twenty minutes of traipsing through underground tunnels and taking the wrong elevators, I turned up in the airport’s third terminal, not unlike a glorified concrete shed, a very far cry from the cosy and familiar interior of Terminal 1. Everyone seemed to be dressed either like some Afghani goat-herder or Jamaican Rastafarian. Despite feeling somewhat out-of-place, after much ado in attempting to find why Virgin Atlantic’s flight to Japan had already left, I finally got to the right check-in desk (operated by ANA, a completely different airline no less – turns out they share flights with VA) and was told rather apologetically that my luggage may or may not have been delivered to the plane because some sticker or other bit of arbitrarily meaningless paper hadn’t been stuck to my passport indicating that said bag would have to be driven from one plane to another, no doubt a frightfully difficult process. Thankfully, I received my boarding-pass without too much hassle and continuing the theme of sheds and goat-herding, I passed through security like a timid bullock in a huge cattle auction and walked nearly half-an-hour (I kid you not) to my departure gate.  Suddenly, I was surrounded by a lot of Japanese people.

ANA's Boeing 777 to Tokyo - my home for twelve hours.

I had images of my time on the Boeing 777 that would fly me half-way around the planet being some sort of moving paradise. I would sit next to a lecherous Japanese schoolgirl, have a butler constantly on call and that I would have the same amount of leg-room that I had enjoyed on my flight from Dublin to London. I was rather mistaken. Instead of an attractive Japanese woman, I was stuck beside an Anglo-Japanese man that I took an instant dislike to (for no real reason, really) and a middle-aged Japanese woman that spent most of the flight seemingly in some sort of stable coma. Despite having my legs doubled-up upon themselves, I couldn’t  exactly complain about the service that the ANA staff provided – drinks, snacks and meals were constantly supplied and I watched one of Liam Neeson’s new films, Taken,  and some subtitled Japanese film about mountain-climbers charting a conveniently uncharted mountain. Both were brilliant and provided suitable entertainment until I fell asleep somewhere above Moscow and woke up just above Vladivostok with a terrifically bad dead-leg that induced a degree of hypochondria for the remaining three hours it would take for the plane to touch down in Tokyo (and pretty much for the rest of my stay in the East).

Welcome to Japan - ah, good ol' global commercialism.

When I finally landed in Tokyo after what seemed like six months of aimlessly flying around the globe, I was greeted with gloriously torrential rain – Kanto (Japan’s eastern province, home to the capital and Yokohama) was experiencing one of several of its summer typhoons. Of course, me being me, I would never be allowed to leave the plane without some other tragic mishap occurring – within moving five paces from flying vehicle to skybridge, a small notice indicated that I had been paged by ANA staff. ‘Sod’, I thought. When I finally came to the luggage carousels, I was informed that my bag ‘may have not been on the flight’. Being a mild-mannered person, I apologetically filled out their missing-bags form and probably complimented them on their excellent service, perhaps advising them on how to lose other people’s baggage in the future. I was left clutching little else but the hope that my suitcase would turn up within the next two days.

It was 3:30pm and I was starting to smell rather like a lone sports sock found at the bottom of a kit-bag. The one drink I hesitantly bought was cold rice tea. My host, H., was an hour late. Even my stiff upper-lip was beginning to crease. Thankfully, the Fates decided to smile upon me and H. arrived; he had an extremely delightful and accommodating family indeed, and on the way back, I was treated to a view of Tokyo’s night lights which were most impressive. After a brief trip to collect our German friend, D., from my host’s local train-station and we arrived at what would be base-camp for the next fortnight. Sleep was only too welcome.

My host's neighbour's place - what a fantastic building!

I had finally done it. I was in Japan.