Meg and Doug's Adventure: July 2006

Fuji Five Lakes

We travel to Fuji go-ko (five lakes) with Megan's officemates for a long "Marine Day" weekend. (We are not really sure what Marine day is suppose to celebrate and neither is Wikipedia.) We stayed the first night overlooking Lake Yamanaka. We had great views of Mount Fuji at dusk and daybreak when the clouds subsided.

Our first view of Fuji-san came after sundown. As it got darker, we could see a little stream of light from the thousands of hiker heading up the north face of the mountain in order to catch the sun raise. We had a better view just before dawn.

Fuji-san is about 3700 meters tall. What makes it so powerful is that it is a high peak among foothills. The perfect volcano shape is actually a result of three separate volcanoes.

We hiked the first half of the of the volcano from the Sengen Shrine to the fifth station. The Sengen Shrine was the traditional starting place for the ascent up Fuji-san. The first half of the hike was in beautiful woodlands and through many sacred places. It was also virtually devoid of people which is strange since the top half of the hike is one of the most popular hikes in the world.

It was nice having a 3-day weekend, but traveling during Japanese holidays is not so enjoyable. The lesson that we learned is to take the train if possible. We got stuck in a four hour traffic jam on the way home.

Sumo in Nagoya

This past weekend we headed to Nagoya to see a Sumo tournament. We traveled on Japan's fastest train, a Nozomi Shinkansen, and made the trip from Tokyo in about 90 minutes. On Saturday, we head North to Inuyama and visited the oldest castle in Japan. While it was pretty modest compared with castles in Britain or Europe, the commanding view and the river access must have made it a mighty fortress.

Megan sits and looks out of a fourth floor window of Inuyama Castle.

Doug poses on the roof of the castle.

We headed to Inuyama to see cormorant fishing. The fishermen light a fire that hangs over the side of their boat. The fish are then attracted to the flame and the ten trained cormorants catch the fish. The fisherman control the birds using leashes that prevents them from swallowing the fish. The bird is plucked from the river and the fish is removed from the bird's mouth.

The fisherman and his team of cormorants are looking for some not-so-tasty river fish.

The main event in Nagoya was the annual Sumo tournament (Honbasho). There are six such tournaments nationwide throughout the year. We went on the opening day. Early in the afternoon, we were able to sit in the front row and watch the wrestlers up close and personal. We didn't have anyone with us to explain what exactly was going on, but the rules seemed kind of simple. If you fell down or touch the ground outside of the ring, you lost. It would have been nice to have some explanation of all the ceremonial happenings, but I guess that is why we have wikipedia. To this end, I am afraid that our descriptions below might not be all that accurate.

Here are a couple of pictures and videos from our experience.

The sum wrestlers are introduced before the fighting begins.

The sumo wrestlers are called to the ring by some aspiring
male vocalists .

As the day moved on, there were more and more 'pre-fight hype' for lack of a better expression. The most common movement was the leg lift.

The sumo wrestlers prepare for the "go" command from the referee. When the command is issued, they explode at one another. This sometimes resembles a slapping fight, but usually involves a hold or a push until one gets pushed out of ring or turned onto the ground.

There is nothing quite like two giants sumo wrestlers falling off the stage.

Nikko National Park

On our second full weekend in Japan, we head to Nikko where there are a number of temples that some say rival those found in Kyoto. We spent Saturday in the world heritage village where there are five magnificent sites, including the ornate Toshu-gu shrine and the Rinnoji Temple. Megan's favorite part was seeing the original "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys.

Washing hands before entering Tosho Gu temple.

Reading about all the World Heritage Sites in front of the Five Story Pagoda.

We travel north to Yumoto Onsen ( onsen means `hot-spring') and got our first Japanese bathing experience. The sulfur baths were extremely refreshing, especially after a day of hiking.

We arrive in Yumoto Onsen about an hour later than expected due to a mix-up in the bus schedule. When we showed up the temple where we had made reservations, the attendant at the door pretty much told us to leave. So we did. Luckily the town is a ski resort town so their were plenty of other places to stay.

Unluckily, there were not places to eat since all of the inns had already served their guests dinner. Instead, our healthy dinner was put together at the one and only convenient store minutes before it closed.

We spent Sunday hiking in the Nikko national park. Our goal was to climb Nikko-Shirane-san , the highest peak in the park, but the looming clouds made us adjust our plans. We did climb about 1000 meters of elevation and saw a beautiful high altitude lake.

Looking down at Goshiki Numa after a long slog up the mountain.

We were caught in a refreshing rain storm while descending. The tropical vegetation and deep muddy ruts made going down much harder than going up.

Living in Tsukuba

On the top floor of Ninomiya House, our apartment building for foreign researchers, there is a beautiful tea room. We got the chance to participate in the ceremony. It was very hard to sit like the Japanese do for more than 30 seconds.

Here our teachers show us how it is done.

Megan enjoys here matcha. I don't know if we felt the wa (harmony), the kei (respect), the sei (purity), or the jaku (tranquility), but the tea was good to the last drop.

Megan got a chance to `shake' her own cup tea.

This is from the hike up Mount Tsukuba (a.k.a., Tsukuba-san). We went with two other students, Juliana and Elias, living in Ninomiya House. Juliana is JSPS summer fellow from UC Santa Cruz and is studying Earthquakes in Japan (very important work). Elias is a post-doc from Vienna who is working with Doug and Doug's advisor, Dr. Goto, on music analysis and computer audition.

Tsukuba-san is a holy mountain in the Shinto and Buddhist religions. The forest is very old and full of big and beautiful trees.

The t-shirts in this country are great. This is a passionate boy looking out from the top of Mt. Tsukuba.

Tsukuba Apartment

Here are some photos of our apartment in Tsukuba which is located about an hour North of Tokyo. You can also check out a
video tour of our apartment as well.

A simple shot of our simple apartment. Megan loves the rice paper walls.

Meg meditating in our small, but perfect, sunroom overlooking Tsukuba.

Hayama Homestay

During our homestay in Hayama, Megan stayed with the Sunahara family while Doug and our friend Maseo stayed with Chimomo-san right up the hill.

Megan in her kimono overlooking the summer palace in Hayama. The kimono was a generous birthday gift from Chimomo-san.

Maseo trying tuna eye in a Tsukiji Fish Market district of Tokyo. Notice the slime coming off the eyeball.

The fish is so fresh in Tsukiji that the fish still seem to be alive.