Baseball game

Generally I don't go to sporting events but going to a baseball game in Japan is all about crowd watching.  Hiroshima have a professional team called the Hiroshima Carp (pronounced car-pooh, which cracked me up all night).  They are one of the most fun teams to go see because they have a special chant and clap for each player that they sing every time the go up to bat and several chants that happen at other times throughout the game.  I'm going to try and insert video for the first time.  Fingers crossed.

The excitement of the crowd made baseball so much more interesting that it is in the states.  There is a section that is called "performance seating" it is up high and contains several trumpet players, drummers, people with large flags and it is the section of the crowd in which everyone knows the chant and the motions that go with it.  There is even a crowd director that conducts the crowd the same way that someone would conduct an orchestra.

Every one has these mini plastic bats that the clap together for noise and also use as part of the chanting.  Most people also wore team jerseys and colors.  Jeff and I had on red shirts so we felt like we fit in a little better.

The best part is in the 7th inning everyone blows up these huge red (slightly phallic looking) balloons.  Some people sitting near Jeff and I gave us balloons so we were not left out.  The balloons have a special plastic nozzle on the end where you blow them up that makes it easier to blow up and I think it helps them fly better. There is then a song and you wave your balloon back and forth and then you let the balloons go.

You can see the total enthusiasm that the crowd participated in the song.

It was a surprisingly short game, it was only about 2.5 hours long.  The carp won the game 4 to 3 and everyone left happy.

The seven bridge ride

Jeff and I took another amazing bike ride today.  We drove to the coast and rode for about 10 miles then hit our first bridge. 

Jeff on the bridge.

This was the longest bridge of the day.

After riding along the coastline of the island we hit bridge number two.

This bridge wasn't as pretty.

But the view when crossing it was nice.

The next island was the biggest one.

This photo of bridge three looks a little crooked - lol!  It looked straighter in person.

Bridge number four.

Then we hit the mini islands and bridges.

Bridge number five.

Pretty island view.

Bridge six.

Bridge seven.

The island on the far side of bridge seven is as far as you can go without taking a ferry.  We stopped and had lunch.  Near the wharf for the ferry was a small food stand that had amazingly fresh fish.  Jeff had sashimi and I had mine fried.  It was probably the best fried fish I have ever eaten.  Both meals came with rice and fish soup as well.

After lunch it was back on the bikes, back the way we came. 

Look closely in this one and you can see 3 bridges.  2 arches and a cable. 

Random island prettiness.

I love the island at the bottom that has the tree growing out of the top of it.

It was a beautiful day.  I'm so glad we decided to take bikes with us to Japan.  I'm pretty tired.  The 65 miles really wore me out.  Time for food!  :-)

Shiraito Waterfalls

After hiking Fuji, we woke up feeling surprisingly good.  We had a great breakfast at the hotel and headed off to the train station.  Fuji was still not being very cooperative and this is the only picture I was able to get of the mountain.  The rest of the time it was completely hidden in the clouds.

Yep, that's the tip of Mt. Fuji peaking through the clouds.  It showed up for a very brief moment and then disappeared again for the rest of the day.

 We were able to stash our luggage at the tourist information center and then took a bus to the Shiraito Waterfalls.  This turned out to be really pretty.  There were two waterfalls, Shiraito and Otodome. 

Otodome falls

Otodome falls.

It was a shame that we were unable to hike to the bottom of Otodome falls but we at lunch at the very top of the falls which was great.  We had yakisoba for lunch which is a local specialty (pan fried noodles) and finished with some ice cream. 

Jeff at the top of Otodome at lunch.

Japanese like their soft serve ice cream and Jeff and I are not complaining.  The thing they do that is interesting is they put a scoop of corn flakes in the tip of the cone.  It's actually pretty good.  Jeff had chocolate with oreo and chocolate syrup and I had chocolate, walnut and caramel.

The Shirato falls was spectacular.  We were able to walk down to the bottom of the fall.  It was really cool.

The whole right wall was a series of little waterfalls, it was really cool.

Pink flowers blooming down the wall of the path to the falls.

A bee in the flowers.

The river flowing from the falls.

Pretty!

 The water from the falls comes from the snow melt on Fuji.  Its apparently best in late spring when the snow melt is greater. 

We had some good people watching as well.  These guys were my favorite.

Yep, that is an attempt to pose 4 striped sweater wearing poodles in front of the falls for a photo.  Really funny to watch.  We also saw several people with dachshunds trying to take photos but these guys were the best.

We took the bullet train home last night and today I'm just trying to get caught up on laundry and start planning the next adventure.  It was a great trip!

Fuji-san Summit

We woke up early to a drizzly rain yesterday in Fujinomiya.  We ate a quick breakfast of things purchased from the near by conbini (convenience store, they are both prolific and handy in Japan and have more/better/fresher food than in the US) yogurt, pancakes and orange juice, since nothing in Japan seems to open before 9:00 AM which makes an early breakfast tough.  We grabbed our packs and headed off to the train station.  A 20 minute train ride took us to the bus station and a 1.5 hour bus ride got us to the fifth station (the highest reachable by car and the standard starting point) of the Fujinomiya trail up Mt. Fuji.

Here is the trail map with the stations so that you have a better idea what I'm talking about.

Happy hikers before we started on our way up.

You have to pass through the fifth station to get to the trail.  It was a little crazy with people all over the place, but a good warm up for future stations.  The only trees were between the 5th and 6th stations.  The rest of the hike was only small scrubby plants or just rock.  

Scrubby trees in the lava rocks.

It was a short and relatively easy hike to the 6th and 7th stations.  It got steeper, rockier and more difficult after the old 7th station.   The rain was pretty steady up to the old 7th station.  By this point it was getting cooler so we stopped and pulled on some more layers.  Despite wearing rain jackets, we were both soaked.  For me, it was 3 problems.  First, my jacket doesn't fit tight enough at the wrists to create a seal and since i was using hiking poles, the water was dripping down my hands and wrists and pooling in my elbows.  Second, sweat, nuff said.  Third, condensation.  When you have warm bodies in a car and its cold outside the windows fog, right?  The same thing happens when hiking in a rain jacket when its chilly.  The extra layers helped and the gloves I put on kept the water from running down my sleeves which was nice.  

Hikers in the fog just after the 7.5 station

Here is a station from above.  it is not showing all the chaos that is on the other side of the buildings where it is packed with people and smelled of food, cigarettes and diesel.  Jeff was just saying again that he was glad we did not sleep on the mountain.

Up to the 8th station the trail was much narrower and steeper.  Bottle necks became more frequent and we occasionally had to stop and wait for slower people.  We kept a good pace and a steady rhythm when possible.  

At the 9th station the rain finally stopped which was really nice.  I was feeling pretty good but the altitude was starting to get to Jeff a little.  He started getting a bit of a headache and became a little short of breath.  The trail just kept getting steeper.

Here the rain and fog thinned a little.  You can see how steep the trail is.

After the 9.5 station the fog cleared a little and we got occasional glimpses up the trail at the line of neon, waterproof people up ahead.

If you look really close you can see the zig zag of people on the trail up to the top.

We were pretty happy to get to the top.  At that point Jeff was really feeling the altitude.  A rest and some food helped restore him.  

Here are our top of Fuji pictures.

Happy Jeff at the summit.

Me at the summit

And some crater pics.

Snow at the bottom of the crater

Yep, it's huge!

There is a trail that goes all the way around the crater.  With Jeff feeling the altitude and me starting to feel it and the lack of visibility, we decided to skip it.  We walked a little of it to get to the highest peak and called it good and the found some ramen.  

Above the clouds.

If you look closely above the clouds there is a dark thing.  That is actually a peninsula out in to the ocean.

Yep, there was a ramen shop at the top of Fuji with bowls of hot noodles.  It was delicious!

Yum, noodles!

By the time we were done with noodles Jeff was feeling a little better and I was feeling quite a bit worse.  Time to go down.

As we hiked back down we re entered the clouds and the heavy fog.  There was almost a wall of it. 

This was really cool to watch, the fog was flowing down the slope in the distance.

The fog below us.

Near station 7 everyone coming up the trail below us simultaneously stopped and grabbed their cameras.  We turned and looked and the clouds parted and we had a good view up Fuji. 

Looking up the slope to the top of Fuji.  The buildings are the stations.

It was quickly swallowed by fog again and by the end of the hike the fog was so dense it would drip off my hat and visibility was reduced to just a few feet.  

We had a miserable wait in the wet for the bus but had a nice nap on the way back down.  Neither of us felt all that great so we had a simple dinner.  We woke up this morning feeling great with no ill effects of our high altitude adventures the day before.

You can see from the pictures that the trail is roped off in places and has painted arrows in others it would be very hard to get lost.  The trail had a huge amount of trafic, probable about 1,000 people a day on the Fujinomiya trail alone, yet there was no trash on the mountain and there were no trash cans.  You had to carry out all your trash.  In the US there would be a litter problem.  People also paid the 200 yen (roughly $2) to use the camp bathrooms to keep the mountain clean.  People were always polite and patient when the trail was crowded and you had to wait.  There are some nice things about hiking in Japan.

Yes, the weather was less than ideal, but we had the right clothing for it so no big deal.  Yes, it was stupidly steep and loose but we had gaitors to keep rocks out of our shoes and the hiking poles were a huge help.  I did have two little falls but neither were bad and I think neither would have happened if It wasn't for the altitude sickness.  The altitude sickness sucked but not much we could have done to avoid it with our limited time budget and living close to sea level.  I was concerned about it before the hike and got the closest/highest hotel I could which was unfortunately, only about 500 ft above sea level.  

Favorite people watching moments:

- the guy at station 9 alternately taking hits from a cigarette and a can of oxygen

- diversity in ages.  From little kids around 5 to people well in to their 80's

- hiking fashion.  Jeans and cotton flannel to full on plastic pants and jackets

- hiking abilities.  We saw full on mountain goats running down the trail to people weezingly taking 3 steps, stopping mid narrow trail, sitting taking a hit of oxygen before slowly starting all over again

- the chaos and spectacle of the stations, unfortunately they were so chaotic i don't have a good picture of it

- the endless konichi wa from other hikers

It was wet, steep and altitude sickness was not awesome but Jeff and I feel that the challenges were worth the experience, it was a great adventure, and something we will enjoy telling stories about for years!

Happy hiker.

Happy hiker.

What the Fuji?

Jeff and I are going to hike Mt. Fuji tomorrow.  I thought I'd take today to give a little bit about the logistics of the process out of the way today since I think it is rather interesting.

First of all, Mt, Fuji is a big dormant volcano (last erupted in 1708) and it is a of a symbol of Japan.  It tops out at 12,388 ft.  I'm currently living at essentially sea level so I'm sure I'll notice the altitude and lack of oxygen.  There are 4 trails that lead to the top and a fifth trail that goes around the rim of the caldera.  Approximately 311,00 people climbed Mt. Fuji in 2013 so we will not be alone.  There is an official climbing season from July 1st to September 14th (but many of the bus services stop running September 1st.).  Fuji is usually covered with snow in the time periods outside of hiking season and can be very dangerous if you do not have some mountaineering experience.  Jeff and I are hiking the Fujinomiya trail.  It is one of the steeper trails but shorter and geographically the most convenient from the direction we are traveling.

The hike up on all 4 trails in divided in to 9 stations.  Each station has shops where water and snacks can be purchased, camp composting toilets and the upper stations have huts.  Most people start hiking at the 5th station as this is the highest buses can go for all 4 routes.  For the route we are taking, the road is closed to cars and we have to take the bus.  The huts are small rooms where people squash together at night like sardines in a can and pretend to sleep, and at least stay warm.  Why would you do this, you ask?  Well, most people either hike all night or hike up to the 8th station, sleep in a hut until 4:00 AM and then hike to the top to see the sun rise from the top of Mt. Fuji.  This is "the thing" to do. 

Jeff and I have opted not to do this. We are hiking up and down in a day.  We don't have the gear in Japan to do an overnight trip, waiting for the dawn can be extremely cold (well below freezing) and unless you have clear skies you really can't see much anyway (our forecast is rain so our sunrise would probably be nothing but clouds and we freezing miserableness, and if you know me, you know I'm not a fan of cold and wet.) 

The thing that makes this a smudge challenging is that all of the buses are set up for these crazy sunrise people so that means Jeff and I need to keep a brisk pace in order to catch the last bus back down after the hike.  I don't see this as a problem, but it's something we need to keep in mind.

In talking with people and reading about hiking Fuji, it seems like there are 2 common mistakes.  People forget how much colder it is at the top (hypothermia is amazingly common for people who decide to hike the whole thing in shorts and a t-shirt and then want to watch the sunrise).  Jeff and I have plenty of water proof, wind proof warm when wet stuff for the cooler temperatures and somewhat less than ideal weather forecast.  The second common mistake is people don't take it seriously since so many people hike it, they assume it is easy.  Jeff and I are assuming it will be difficult and hope to be pleasantly surprised if it's not as bad as we thought.  In the mornings we've been hiking laps up and down the 10 flights of stairs in our apartment to get ready for the hike (just in case our neighbors didn't think we were strange enough - hahaha).

Well, wish us good weather (it will make the hike more pleasant for us and the pictures better for you).  I'll post in a couple days.  :-)

Cycling Shimanami Kaido

We found a treasure in our back yard yesterday.  I was looking for fun places to ride bikes and there is a series of islands connected by bridges, that starts about an hour away from us by car, that has separate bike lanes across the bridges.  It sounded pretty cool and it was a bonus that you can get there without using the toll roads.

We drove down yesterday morning and took a short ferry to the first island (maybe 5 minutes on the ferry and it only cost a dollar each).  You can get a free English map specifically for cycling in this area.  The main bike route is 75km (46.6 miles) each way and is marked on the roads, all turns are marked and there is a mileage marker every kilometer.  There are several alternative routes and the end of the marked bike route also has lots of good additional cycling.  It would be easy to spend a week riding all over the area if someone wanted to make a bike tour out of it.  It was a road biker's paradise!  Ever couple of kilometers there was a rest area specifically for cyclists with clean free bathrooms, bike pumps and places to refill your water bottle.  There were also vending machines that had cold beverages if you wanted something besides water.  Many of the restaurants and cafe's along the way catered to cyclists and had bike racks and pumps.  There were areas that had a little bit of car traffic but the speed limit was slow, 30 MPH in most places and cars are extremely polite to cyclists.  Oh yeah, did I mention it was beautiful? 

This is where Jeff and I stopped for lunch.

Jeff on the bike only path after crossing the bridge behind him.

Pretty bridge.

Proof I was there.  Nice that there happens to be a cycling team with my name, isn't is?

Another bridge.

We stopped a couple miles from the end of our ride to enjoy the clouds, the light and watch the herons fish.

Got this guy in mid flight.

Heron looking for dinner.

Jeff and I rode about 50 miles.  We only made it slightly more than half way and then turned around.  Plenty of time to explore the rest of the trail in the upcoming months.  It was a fantastic day and we had a wonderful time.  Jeff said that this was one of his favorite places he's ever ridden a road bike.  We will definitely take people here if the come out to visit and and Jeff mentioned taking some of the other expats from work since they have bikes.  It was lovely.  Expect to see/hear more about this area again in the future.