Niijima

Last Mon, Tues, and Wed were public holidays in Japan. We took advantage of the long break to head down to Niijima, an island about 100 miles South of Tokyo to go camping. Our trip was delayed by several days because of a typhoon that was coming close to the island, so instead of arriving on Friday, we got there on Monday. Our original intention was also to take the hydrofoil ferry, and enjoy its 2.5 hour travel time. Due to high surf kicked up by the passing typhoon though, the hydrofoil service was canceled. In its place we took the normal passenger ferry, an adventure in itself.

We left Tokyo at 23:30 on Sunday evening and arrived at Niijima around 8:00 the next morning. There are very few seats on the ferry. Instead, you are issued a small tarp to lay down on the deck. Becase we were camping anyhow, we didn't bother w/ our small tarps and just lay down the ground cover for our tent. Here's a view from our boat-deck campsite:



You can see Robbie snoozing in his stroller; he spent about 1/2 the night there, then decided to come join us on our tarp. There were also blankets available to rent for about a dollar, so we got a couple of those and spread them out for extra padding.

All in all, we got a pretty good night's sleep and woke up rested and refreshed the next morning:



We eventually arrived, disembarked, and made our way across the island to the campground. The campground is a real gem. It's a few hundred yards from the ocean, has a field kitchen with running water and electricity, rudimentary shower facilities, proper bathrooms, and did I mention it's free? Yeah Niijima!



Some of the campsites had picnic tables, but they were taken. We ended up next to a patch of trees for some shade, and a bunch of guys on a surf holiday from Australia. It is a large campground as you can see from the pic, but it was mostly empty when we were there, relatively quiet and peaceful. After setting up camp we found a bicycle rental place down the road, procured bikes for $10 / day, and hit the beach.

Robbie and I went straight down and got in the surf. The water was beautifully clear, azure blue, and a bit chilly, but not painfully so. The surf was high, so our fun consisted mostly of standing ankle-deep in the water until a wave came in. Then, at the last instant I would lift Robert up so he wouldn't be submerged. I'd laugh, he'd squeal; rinse and repeat.

If I'd remembered to take the camera out of my pocket before hand, we might actually have some pictures from the rest of of our trip, but alas, I did not.

There are 5 major beaches on the island, and we hit 2 of them. I guess we'll have to go back. There is also a Greco-Roman themed onsen (public bath) with 6 or 7 pools of varying degrees of scalding. This place also has proper shower facilities; an ideal place to take an evening dip after spending your day slathering yourself with sunscreen and getting covered in sand and salt. Did I mention that it's free too? Go Niijima!

One personal highlight from this trip for me was Sarah finding a Japanese fisherman's glass float washed up on shore. I've quite literally been beachcombing for an authentic one of these my entire life (whenever I go to the beach, anyhow). So now I guess I really can't get rid of her -- she'd probably take her float with her! ;-)

On Wednesday morning we broke camp and trekked back to the ferry. We caught it just after 11 am and were back in Tokyo around 6:30. Robert spent most of his time on the top deck, hanging on the railing and looking out at the passing islands, other ships, gulls, sea foam, jellyfish, etc. When we docked in Tokyo, he was not ready to be done with his boat ride and asked if we could sleep on the boat again.

Climbing Mt Fuji

Last Friday I skipped out of work after lunch w/ several friends of mine from BGI. We hopped the Chuo line limited express train from Shinjuku to Otsuki, and got from there to Kawaguchiko on the Fujikyu line. We then transferred to a bus that took us to Mt Fuji's 5th station, and after a bit of time spent looking at the souvenir shops, we began our ascent:

Here's a view from fairly early in our hike (when we still had a bit of light):


Here's a spot along the trail where folks deposit the bear bells & ribbons from the hiking poles they'd purchased at 5th station, and a few people also added some traditional offerings to the mountain:


Sunset:


During the first evening we hiked for several hours, from about 4:45 until about 7:30. I booked us spots at a hut called "Tori Iso" between 7th and 8th station. Somehow my reservations got lost, but as luck would have it, we added a native Japanese speaker to our group about a week before heading up, and she re-reserved our spots for us. Our lodgings included an all you can eat curry dinner, and a warm, dry, 5.5 ft long plank to lay on and try to sleep, just under the eaves on the hut's 3rd (and highest) tier of bunks.

We ate and drank from about 8 until 9, then passed out until about 11pm at which point I was awakened by heavy rain lashing the roof mere inches from my head, and high winds howling through the eaves. The storm eventually passed, and I flirted with sleep until about 1am. Our group's alarms started going off then, and we got up prepared to resume our ascent. The hut's supervisor, however, told us that it was too windy and cold to make an ascent to the summit, but when we poked our heads out the door of our hut, we saw a constant stream of headlamps heading up the mountain. So after some debate, we disregarded his advice, pulled on our thermal underwear, and gave it a go. Just over 4 hours later, we'd reached the summit:



Here are Glen, Jim and I at the top:



After this picture was taken we found a warming hut, grabbed a round of coffees, downed steaming bowls of ramen, and wandered around for a little bit before meeting back up and beginning our descent.

Turns out we took a wrong turn around 8th station (or, to be more accurate, we failed to take the correct turn) and we ended up at the Gotemba 5th station about 1/3 of the way around the mountain from where we expected to be! Unfazed (at 10:30 am), we ordered a round of beers to celebrate our conquering of the mountain and let Glen sort out how to get us back to Tokyo.

Long story short, it took a different bus and train combo to get us back to Tokyo, but to Tokyo we returned, and a mighty good adventure we'd had too, all things considered.

I've got some video footage that I will be splicing together over the new few days; I'll post it later in the week once I've had some time to get it all worked out.

Dry Ice

During summer in Tokyo, if you buy frozen things at the supermarket, they put a bag of dry ice in amongst the frozen stuff to keep it cool on the way home. A nice touch, and as a bonus, there is dry ice to play with when you get home:

Distaster!

Sorry for not updating in so long. I've discovered Facebook, and it is good.

Perhaps disaster is a bit melodramatic -- tragedy, anyhow. Yesterday on my way to work I missed a shift on my bike... or rather my bike missed a shift, as I'm not entirely sure I should be taking the blame here... anyhow, my derailleur hanger (didn't even know what the heck a derailleur hanger was until yesterday) sheared off of my frame, sending the rear derailleur through the cassette. Of course the rear derailleur can not possibly fit through the cassette, but it deserves an A for its efforts in trying.

Final tally: one broken derailleur hanger, one mangled rear derailleur pulley, one bent chain, one flat tire, and one frustrated bicycle commuter who was late for work!

Here's a pic of the bicycle (yes, that is a plastic bag tied around the derailleur to keep it from bouncing on the pavement as I tried to coast along) and as I alluded to earlier, I got a flat tire too, so after a few blocks I couldn't even coast along the downhills. *sigh*



However, I did get a great picture of Robert this morning while I was taking stock of the situation. A future bicycle mechanic?



I stopped by a bike shop yesterday, shortly after the mishap. The gentleman behind the counter told me he could not fix the bike because it's a Bianchi-specific derailleur hanger, and he can not order them since he's not a Bianchi dealer. *sigh* so I went to the Bianchi shop in Naka-Meguro this morning to see about ordering the part. I got there at 10:51 am. Too bad they don't open till noon! I guess they spend their mornings riding their bikes or something? So my trusty companion and I went to the neighborhood park and discovered that summer is waning; the cicadas are starting to die off:



After playing at the park, we returned to the Bianchi store at noon, only to discover that they don't think they can order my part because my bike, a Bianchi Axis, is not a model that is sold in Japan *sigh*, so I've spent this afternoon searching for derailleur hangers on the Internet with some amount of luck. However, I am going to have to pay $20 shipping for a $20 part. *sigh*. And that's just the hanger... I guess I'll be commuting on my shopping bike for the next few weeks while gathering all of the necessary components to effect the repairs.

Rainy Season

If you talk to a Japanese person, they'll tell you that June is Tokyo's rainy season. During our first two Junes in Tokyo, it didn't seem to rain appreciably more in June than during other times of the year, so we'd begun thinking that "June rainy seaosn" was a bit of a myth. Not this year.

June came a bit early; it started raining during the last week of May, but since then, it's rained almost every day. It is pouring as I write this.

Undaunted by the threat of rain, we went out last weekend to see Star Trek (without Robbie) and thoroughly enjoyed the film. It's well cast, and the plot does an excellent job of resetting the franchise, paving the way for the coming stream of new Star Trek movies. I can hardly wait!

We went to the Shinagawa Outback for dinner (I wanted to go to a Singaporian restaurant but Sarah twisted my arm -- on my birthday, can you imagime?) and of course we took our umbrella because it was threatening rain. Unfortunately, because it wasn't actually raining when we left, we forgot about the umbrella. So on Sunday afternoon, I figured I'd take Robbie back with me to Shinagawa to pick up the umbrella.

We went by bicycle, and I took a wrong turn but did not realize it for quite some time... I just kept pedaling, thinking "Shinagawa station has got to be just a little bit further up this road". But I'd actually turned onto the road just past the station, so as I continued to pedal I was getting further away from my intended destination. What should have been an hour's ride ended up being more like an hour and a half and Robert gave up on me at some point during the ride and fell asleep around 5pm for the dreaded late-afternoon nap. Epic fail.

Anyhow, I wish I had some pictures to post, but for some reason we haven't been taking any. I'll remedy that over the coming week and post some soon.

Back in Tokyo

It appears that we returned from Thailand just in time to observe Tokyo's weather rise toward its steamy summer temperatures. Right now things are still relatively pleasant, but it's starting to get sticky, and I know it's just a matter of time until I'm wishing I were back in the US for the summer. We still have not settled on dates for a summer holiday though, nor even if we are going to head back at all. We may wait until the winter, and come back for a bit longer.

While in Thailand, one afternoon we decided to beat the heat by heading to a "Children's Discovery Museum" that was actually a lot of fun for adults too. There were interactive displays dealing with muscles & bones, experiments that explored the nature of sound and air pressure, drums to bang on, and even a section dealing with other cultures including a kid-sized model of a traditional Japanese house, and a Native American teepee. Robbie's favorite though was a device that allowed you to be inside a bloody great soap bubble:



He made us trap him in many bubbles. They would inevitably pop, and he would quickly ask us for another. We also took a river boat tour and visited Wat Arun:



One of the interesting things about this temple is that it was decorated mostly using broken porcelain that came to Thailand as ballast in Chinese ships. Here's a detail:



But like I said, we're back in Tokyo. Now we are getting excited for Star Trek. It comes out on the 29th here, so we've hired a sitter for the 30th and are going to have a date night. Yeah!

Follow Up

Two things I meant to mention in my previous post:

1) The elephant on the left hand side of the video really liked bananas, but not in the traditional "peel them and eat the fruit" sense.

When the elephant was given a banana, he would peel it using his tusk, then eat the peel and throw the banana on his head. Not wanting to let food go to waste, the elephant on the right would then generally pick the banana up off of the ground and eat it.

2) Robbie has his "yours" and "mine" confused at the moment. It's really cute when you're trying to take something from him and he runs away saying "No, it's yours. It's YOURS!" :-D