Here I finally uploaded some sight seeing shots from Himeji, which boasts the most popular preserved castle in Japan. I put it in slideshow format so its a bit easier to view. I am to lazy to write up a trip report for it, pictures work better anyways. Next I'll post some Kyoto pictures and maybe some partying pictures. (click on the slideshow for bigger images)
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Rando pics
Got a bit of time to post a few things.Just some random pics of shit I found funny, I'll try and upload some more sight seey touristy stuff tomorrow.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Mt. Fuji report
Ok well I just got back to Eubies and have time to update this fail of a blog. I have lots of pictures and videos to post and I'm to tired to post everything so I thought I would do one thing at a time. We have done alot of shit this week, including going to Tokyo, going to the zoo and ridiculous clubs, and Osaka and a huge music festival, but this post I'll focus on climbing Mt.Fuji.
So we caught a 8 hour night bus to Tokyo then another bus to Kawaguchiko which is based around Mt. Fuji. We spent the night in a hostel then spent the day checking out the city and catching a cable car up to a close by mountain to get a side view of Fuji... but it was clouded over and we couldn't see the slow rolling son of a bitch. The pics are kinda jumbled sorry Im to lazy to make this thing more presentable.
So after the day, we caught a bus to Station 5 of Fuji to start our hike. Station 5 is where most people start, there are 8... or 8.5 stations plus a summit, each one about 2 hours apart. We started around 9 PM so that we could make it to the top to see the sunrise. The hike started out pretty easy, pretty mellow to station 6, most of us bought these walking sticks, which they stamp with a iron with all different designs for each station you reach, they were pretty cool and helped for the climb alot. Around station 7 is where shit started to get pretty ugly. It was about 4 hours in and it was started to get cold and much more steep. They sold little bottles of oxygen at the bottom, came in kinda handy when you got higher, but you had to use them sparingly, some people were hitting them right away haha, and that why we saw some grown men crying on the side of the path on the way up. All in all the hike was tough, but not to bad, the main problem is that it was very stormy and windy near the top that day, much more then usual. By the time we got to station 8, it was about 2 hours to the summit and it was just a traffic jam of people and the wind was so bad that it was well below zero and the wind was smashing you with sand and ash, so you had to cover your face and eyes every time there was a gust, made it pretty intense.
Once we finally made it to the summit, we got to see the sunset and it was pretty amazing, its hard to explain cause its so bright up there you cant take a good picture but it was something. I uploaded a pretty shitty video, but you can see how windy it was up there, and the problem was usually you can hang out up top and go around the crater, but the weather was getting much worse and they told us all to head down and thats when it got even worse. The wind was twice as bad for the path down, and it was blowing sizable rocks down onto the path below and we saw one guy get nailed in the hip by a rock the size of a volleyball. He was ok but they wind kept up and we pretty much had to rush down, after being up for well over 24 hours. The wind was throwing so much dirt into your eyes it was insane, some people were ready and brought goggles... we didnt think of that haha. I saw a lady put her backpack down on the edge of the trail to take a drink and the wind tossed it off the side instantly, it was sad but hilarious cause she spat energy drink everywhere. But eventually we all made it to the bottom, I think it was about 9 hours or so up, 4 down, im really not sure once we got back down to the bus I was wreck, one of the hardest things Ive done, my knee didnt give me any problems with my blown ACL luckily, but Im still sore 4 days later haha. I swear like everytime you would get to a rest station you would look up and think you could see the top, but nope you get there and theres 2 hours more haha.
Basically it was hell, but worth it for sure and I'm glad I did it, but mainly my thoughts on Mt>fuji are...
Video clip
So we caught a 8 hour night bus to Tokyo then another bus to Kawaguchiko which is based around Mt. Fuji. We spent the night in a hostel then spent the day checking out the city and catching a cable car up to a close by mountain to get a side view of Fuji... but it was clouded over and we couldn't see the slow rolling son of a bitch. The pics are kinda jumbled sorry Im to lazy to make this thing more presentable.
So after the day, we caught a bus to Station 5 of Fuji to start our hike. Station 5 is where most people start, there are 8... or 8.5 stations plus a summit, each one about 2 hours apart. We started around 9 PM so that we could make it to the top to see the sunrise. The hike started out pretty easy, pretty mellow to station 6, most of us bought these walking sticks, which they stamp with a iron with all different designs for each station you reach, they were pretty cool and helped for the climb alot. Around station 7 is where shit started to get pretty ugly. It was about 4 hours in and it was started to get cold and much more steep. They sold little bottles of oxygen at the bottom, came in kinda handy when you got higher, but you had to use them sparingly, some people were hitting them right away haha, and that why we saw some grown men crying on the side of the path on the way up. All in all the hike was tough, but not to bad, the main problem is that it was very stormy and windy near the top that day, much more then usual. By the time we got to station 8, it was about 2 hours to the summit and it was just a traffic jam of people and the wind was so bad that it was well below zero and the wind was smashing you with sand and ash, so you had to cover your face and eyes every time there was a gust, made it pretty intense.
Once we finally made it to the summit, we got to see the sunset and it was pretty amazing, its hard to explain cause its so bright up there you cant take a good picture but it was something. I uploaded a pretty shitty video, but you can see how windy it was up there, and the problem was usually you can hang out up top and go around the crater, but the weather was getting much worse and they told us all to head down and thats when it got even worse. The wind was twice as bad for the path down, and it was blowing sizable rocks down onto the path below and we saw one guy get nailed in the hip by a rock the size of a volleyball. He was ok but they wind kept up and we pretty much had to rush down, after being up for well over 24 hours. The wind was throwing so much dirt into your eyes it was insane, some people were ready and brought goggles... we didnt think of that haha. I saw a lady put her backpack down on the edge of the trail to take a drink and the wind tossed it off the side instantly, it was sad but hilarious cause she spat energy drink everywhere. But eventually we all made it to the bottom, I think it was about 9 hours or so up, 4 down, im really not sure once we got back down to the bus I was wreck, one of the hardest things Ive done, my knee didnt give me any problems with my blown ACL luckily, but Im still sore 4 days later haha. I swear like everytime you would get to a rest station you would look up and think you could see the top, but nope you get there and theres 2 hours more haha.
Basically it was hell, but worth it for sure and I'm glad I did it, but mainly my thoughts on Mt>fuji are...
Video clip
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Shit got japanese/I survived a Japanese rock concert
Sorry for no updates, things have been crazy and I've been way to busy/confused/tired as shit to have a chance to touch a computer. Well Ive been here for about 4 days now and theres way to much to cover but I thought I would post a little update.
The flight over was pretty good, free booze and episodes of curb your enthusiasm on the plane definetly helped things.
I had a few problems, namely breaking both zippers in my bag at the last minute and having to close it by wrapping it like a wrapped ham with air Canada tape (pics soon). When we landed everything went smooth until we got outside and I realized we weren't underneath a cooking oven it actually was 40+ degrees out at all times with like 80% humidity. I will post alot of pics soon, its just really hard cause were just getting settled in and Ive ran into a few snags so far but I'm having alot of fun. We went to a music festival in Osaka for instance and I ended up throwing Japanese people into the crowd with Tyler and they loved us for it... More on all of that later. For now I will say there are 3 things I already love about this country.
1: Everything is so clean, its insane. Like not even like gum on the sidewalks, no garbage, its really awesome.
2: The culture is so polite its almost hilarious. Everyone is so shy, but will go way out of their way to help you if you ask. For instance we were looking for a karoke joint (dont worry pics and video will come soon) and these 2 guys and 2 girls said they would show us, walked with us for 25 minutes to the place and then said goodbye and walked back the opposite way where they were heading like it was so standard to go way out of their way. Our freind Jason who is also teaching English here with Eubie bought a T shirt for instance and forgot it in a super busy crowded festival and there was no way it would be taken, it was right there when he went back, Im 100% serious you could leave a 10000 yen note on a table and walk away and no one will touch it, no one steals, no one even dares its amazing.
3: Alot of staples are so cheap. In this pic I am holding a 4 liter bottles of whiskey and vodka (about 5 26's) for about 34 dollars... doesnt even make sense.
Food can be so cheap if you know where to look, and also being able to buy beer or cigarettes out of the 1000s of vending machines at all times is awesome. Plus the beers are 2 dollars for a tall can, its amazing. Also being able to drink and smoke anywhere you want with no one giving you a bad look is very stress free makes shit alot more fun.
Anyways this is a pretty piss poor attempt to show you some of the awesome shit Ive seen or experienced so far but we are on our way to Tokyo tomorrow morning for 3 days , then mt Fugi for 2 days after that so I wouldn't be able to post till after that... So this will have to do for now. Ill go into detail about some of the hilarious shit that has happened later on and post tons of more pics and maybe even some more videos.
The flight over was pretty good, free booze and episodes of curb your enthusiasm on the plane definetly helped things.
I had a few problems, namely breaking both zippers in my bag at the last minute and having to close it by wrapping it like a wrapped ham with air Canada tape (pics soon). When we landed everything went smooth until we got outside and I realized we weren't underneath a cooking oven it actually was 40+ degrees out at all times with like 80% humidity. I will post alot of pics soon, its just really hard cause were just getting settled in and Ive ran into a few snags so far but I'm having alot of fun. We went to a music festival in Osaka for instance and I ended up throwing Japanese people into the crowd with Tyler and they loved us for it... More on all of that later. For now I will say there are 3 things I already love about this country.
1: Everything is so clean, its insane. Like not even like gum on the sidewalks, no garbage, its really awesome.
2: The culture is so polite its almost hilarious. Everyone is so shy, but will go way out of their way to help you if you ask. For instance we were looking for a karoke joint (dont worry pics and video will come soon) and these 2 guys and 2 girls said they would show us, walked with us for 25 minutes to the place and then said goodbye and walked back the opposite way where they were heading like it was so standard to go way out of their way. Our freind Jason who is also teaching English here with Eubie bought a T shirt for instance and forgot it in a super busy crowded festival and there was no way it would be taken, it was right there when he went back, Im 100% serious you could leave a 10000 yen note on a table and walk away and no one will touch it, no one steals, no one even dares its amazing.
3: Alot of staples are so cheap. In this pic I am holding a 4 liter bottles of whiskey and vodka (about 5 26's) for about 34 dollars... doesnt even make sense.
Food can be so cheap if you know where to look, and also being able to buy beer or cigarettes out of the 1000s of vending machines at all times is awesome. Plus the beers are 2 dollars for a tall can, its amazing. Also being able to drink and smoke anywhere you want with no one giving you a bad look is very stress free makes shit alot more fun.
Anyways this is a pretty piss poor attempt to show you some of the awesome shit Ive seen or experienced so far but we are on our way to Tokyo tomorrow morning for 3 days , then mt Fugi for 2 days after that so I wouldn't be able to post till after that... So this will have to do for now. Ill go into detail about some of the hilarious shit that has happened later on and post tons of more pics and maybe even some more videos.
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