Fuji!

So after leaving Nagoya last saturday we (Olivia, James and Myself) met up with some friends, Zac, Jon and Tom from Tokyo, and together, with the power of the first and third largest incorporated cities in Japan, climbed Fuji!!

Theres lots to be read about climbing fuji. We did much the same as everyone else. Starting in the late evening, after taking the bus from the surprisingly dingy fujinomiya station, we climbed up the Fujinomiya trail.  Since we were climbing up at night, we took headlamps along with us. Its supposed to be more dangerous this way, and people have warned me about slipping and falling. But I slipped way more during the day coming down the mountain than up. 

Boarding our last train to Fuji. You'll need that energy, Olivia! 

Looking fabulous at the bottomn after exiting the bus.

I didn't take a whole lot of photos coming up the mountain, since It was so dark. Basically we climbed up rock in a long trail of people for  many hours. Along the way we had fun together, complaining and making ridiculous jokes, as well as laughing all of our thin oxygen away.  The mountain is very  cold after living in Japan for  the whole summer, and I was even shivering in my ski jacket and several layers. 

After a mad rush at the top and alot of waiting in line, we got up there about 20 minutes before the first rays crept over the horizon. It definitely was a sunrise to remember, and I see why so many people make the climb. Still it is a long way to go up for a sunrise. To be honest my favorite part was the views and the clean air during the day.  At the top its hard to appreciate the sunrise, when you're so cold and deprived of sleep and oxygen. 

Zac and James look terribly dejected. Spirits were still high, but we all wanted to get to the bottomn.

There really isn't a more breathtaking view to be had in this country. Forget the damn tall buildings. There is a reason fuji is such a famous mountain. climbing so far above the clouds is such an incredible experience

I had to get one photo of me on top of the world.

And Thats it! After hours and hours of climbing down the mountain, knees a knocking, dust a flying, wind a blowing, we got to the bottom. Its still a pretty cool place above the clouds, even at the foot of the mountain. I wanted to sit and watch them for a while longer, but I was already sunburnt and tired enough. Plus we still had a four hour journey back to our beds in Tokyo.

James and I both got pretty well prepared for the climb, and despite all the anxiety of climbing a mountain that so many people have a miserable time climbing, Fuji was alot easier and funner than I expected. Climbing well prepared, and with good company, It was actually a pretty great experience. No doubt tiring, but really something anyone can do if they have the gumption. Its definitely a wonderful way to cap off a trip to Japan, and the views from the top are so breathtaking,  I couldn't help but enjoy myself immensely coming down the mountain in the late august sun, which is much nicer with the cold mountain air than the humidity of urban Japan.
Thanks Fuji, and see you again sometime!

Sumo!

 

So, a couple weeks ago, we planned to go to see sumo with Michelle and Heather, two volunteers from another part of Japan. We expected to go really early one morning to line up and grab cheap seats before they sold out. We happened to mention to the director of our hospital our plans for the weekend, and he said he would ask a friend of his.

As it turns out, the friend of his was the commissioner of Sumo for Nagoya, Mr. Taichi Matsumoto! So what would have been an early line up for crappy seats, turned in to use getting chauffeured around and given ringside seats right up close. We weren't even able to express our gratitude in japanese! You can see from the picture above, just how close we actually were.

For those reading not familiar with sumo, the basic premise is two muscly, heavy wrestlers to try and get eachother to step out of the ring, or to stumble to their feet. Sounds simple, but the actually wrestling usually involes bestial clashing of men, and wrestlers getting tossed out of the ring! There's a whole lot of ceremony inbetween, bouts, but this is all just as captivating! Inside the ring, everything but the lights feels like it's straight out of Edo-era Japan.

These two grapples for a full two minutes before one just nudged the other out of the ring.

After matches, this guy and his co-workers would come on to read the results in the chant-like song that one should expect from any japanese ceremony, or performing art.

One of the most regal aspects of the wrestling are the gaudily dressed referees.

 Most of the time the Wrestlers are on the mound, they are strutting around making noises and psyching themselves up, or throwing rice or chalk or something around. Or balancing on one leg, and doing whatever this guy is doing. It makes for a suspenseful performance.

 When a new class of wrestlers come on, they parade around the ring with their ta bards on full display. The design is often related to their home town, or prefecture. In the typical Japanese way of mixing old with new, some actually had anime characters emblazoned on theirs! Foreign wrestlers will wear their national flags or heraldry.

 Sumo is a huge commercial spot in Japan, and companies pay big money to the winning fighters to display their ads! As much as 60 000 yen or 600 dollars for one banner! To preserve the traditional aesthetic, the ads are embroidered on banners and paraded by boys in kimono.

In all this was probably one of the most incredible and lucky experiences in Japan. The spectacle of sumo, seen from so close, really transports you back to the past in Japan. Its a shining example of the dualistic nature of Japan's culture. A century old tradition preserved almost completely intact, but still existing somehow in the modern world.

If you have the chance, and the money, to get close seats to a sumo match, do take it. Its definitely one of the coolest things you can do in Japan, and anyone can enjoy it from the 90 year olds to the 5 years in the audience, Japanese, or Canadian. What a day!

Calligraphy

 This weekend, we practiced some Japanese calligraphy!  Our coordinator at work, Ms. Yamada, and her family graciously invited us into their home so that we could learn from her grandfather. He has been doing calligraphy for over 50 years, and his work is quite beautiful. So we spent a nice few hours learning that calligraphy is a rather difficult art form, and having lunch with our hosts.

Here I am standing over my first attempt, and probably the most successful of the days work. We started out with the simpler japanese writing system of hiragana, in which is much easier to achieve a pleasing result. It's not by any means easy, but because these characters are so few, (only 42) and they form the building blocks of written Japanese, I have much more practice in forming the shapes.

This stands in contrast with the other "half" of Japanese writing, kanji, literally Chinese characters imported from the continent along with buddism and much else. If you're familiar with Chinese writing, you'll know it to be a rather intimidating and complex collection of vaguely pictographic characters.

After studying them for a number of years now, and using them in everyday communication, they are no longer strange nor meaningless, but writing them beautifully even with a pencil is no mean task. Calligraphy was an exceptional challenge, and one which I have not yet surmounted.

Our sensei blots the ink from our work. Japanese people are surprisingly sprightly in old age.

Our teacher attempts to guide Simeon's clumsy hands. Well, we all were pretty clumsy.

 If you're unfamiliar with japanese, you might be vaguely impressed with my attempts. But I assure you, my calligraphy captures none of the grace and beauty of our teacher's.

Me signing my name in the third type of Japanese script reserved primarily for words of foreign origin.

I manged to grab some of the blotting papers before our teacher used them. He may think them garbage, but they are the everyday exercises of a master and I find them rather beautiful.

 After our vain attempts at calligraphy, we had a wonderful homemade lunch by Yamada-san's mother.
I really felt spoilt today, as I often do, by the kindness of everyone we meet. The Meal was delicious, and our teacher, though his Japanese to me was unfamiliar and archaic, was wonderful company. And of course with Simeon, there's never a dull moment, his command of the Japanese language always seems to lend it self to wonderful jokes.

 

A wonderful afternoon spent with the Yamada family! I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to try out some calligraphy in Japan, and to top it off, realizing my particular affinity and interest in painting, Yamada-sans grandfather made me the wonderful and generous gift of the few necessary tools for calligraphy, including brushes, ink stone and even a few hundred sheets of (washi?) paper.