When camping goes bad

So that's set the idyllic scene, now for the reality...
Greg said that between 5 and 6 the flies start to come out, it gets a bit unpleasant so it's best to get out of there way for an hour. So 6.30 arrives and there is still only a few flies about. Then a few more arrive, then a few more etc etc x 100000. Now before I convey the true horror, 'Abou' as I believe they are called are around 15 to 20mm in length, look more like bees and when they bite, it feels like ... well it bloody hurts. To start with we probably looked like a bunch of Germans practicing whatever that slapping thing they do is (minus the leather shorts), then as they started to swarm it went from mildly amusing, through annoying to an bearable in the spacce of about 30 mins. We all sought refuge in the car to watch them in their 1000's crawl over the cars, the tents everywhere.
We waited and waited but they didn't go. It wasn't until the sun had completely gone down were they dosile enough to venture out of the car. We had a couple of gas laps that we left burning and each contained about 50 bodies of horse flies.

Some catching up to do!

So, we have established that Obon is hot, and what better way to enjoy the weather than by going camping. Greg has asked us a while back to join him and some other friends at the mountains at a spot about 45 mins away that had been recommended to him. After a few wrong turns we arrived at a picturesque river side. But by this time it was really hot and Shizuka and I were really uncomfortable and not enjoying ourselves at all. So we went for supplies in the welcome refuge of an air conditioned car - even let shizuka drive my Subaru.

It was about 5 when we returned and the heat had turned down a notch or two. So we decided to go for a little paddle. The water was a little cold but very refreshing and so clear.

BBQ at the beach

Obon week is also renowned for it's temperatures. It sounds idyllic that it's regularly in the mid 30's but if you're not a sun person life becomes dodging from one shady spot to another - not that that really helps because it's still really sticky hot in the shade. But, lets face it, I'm white - (Dulux brilliant white number 001) and I don't like being the typical English man on the beach - complete with knotted hanky. So to get a bit more colour to my skin in a slightly more natural way than a sun bed, I chose to bare nearly all during a BBQ with some of Shizuka's siblings - her sisters Arika and Hiami, their partners Hiro and Satoru and all their children and Shizuka's brothers Hiro and Mitsu. (think I got that right). It's the first time I have met some of them and to be honest I was a bit worried about properly meeting her younger brothers - so to break the ice , we jumped into the water and played Frisbee. That did the job.

Had a really nice time. Got a little pink, but just right - which is unusual for me! I have now moved a few shades up the chart - well my top half has, my legs refuse to tan.

Obon, feastival for commemoration of the ancestors

The Obon holiday is very important in Japan, and so two days National holiday are dedicated to it. http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2286.html

On top of this, Twinbird (the company I am working in) give their employees a further 2 days off (but they have to make one up on the two consecutive Saturdays)

So I get a total of six days off including the weekend to do a few things. But first I want to dinner with Justine and Lindsey for a quieter farewell party.

The end of the festival

The end of all the festivities was a 2 hour firework display on the banks for the river. Literally the whole of Niigata it seems lines each bank from about 7 o'clock and has BBQs and a few sociable drinks. That's the whole of Niiagta except Shizuka who had to work which was a bit of as waste of time as they had no customers at all during the fireworks.

So I found the rest of the gang - no mean feat amongst all the people (what did we do before mobile phones?) The fireworks were cool. They are sponsered by companies from Niigata and as the barrage is released the company name is anounced over the loud speaker - though you can't hear it over the sound of the fireworks. Unfortunately my pictures of fireworks leave a little to be desired, but they were pretty spectacular for the whole 2 hours.

Afterwards went to Immigrants cafe to see how Shizuka was doing. As part of the feastival she too was wearing a Ukata, and pretty lovely she looked too!

So what's it all about then?

Aparently this technique of erecting a ladder was originally done by the village fire warden to look over the roof tops for the direction of a fire. This goes back 100's of years. Later it was used to entertain the Shoguns.

There are about 48 groups in Japan that still do it but only the Niigata group has women - so only Shizuka and her sisters in all of japan do this!

She is going to perform it again soon, so this time I might go and watch - but I'll be terrified!

This picture is of Shizuka's 15 year old brother.

You think you know someone then WHAM - OMG!

So amoung the festivities there a few other traditional Japanese street displays. In particular a Japanese tradition of ladder acrobatics. Basically as you see from the pictures, a team of people hold a 6m, 20ft bamboo ladder vertical using poles with hooks on. No safey harness, no safety net.

Now look closely at the pictures, any one you recognise?

Some sad farewells...

On Saturday night there was a party to say farewell to 3 lovely ladies who are leaving Niigata for pastures new - or old if they're going home. A good send off though as more than 60 turned up for yet another Noddy Holder (must check spelling) at Immigrants Cafe. All the best to Lindsey, Justine and Kat for their futures - especially Lindsey as she is taking my parents round Tokyo!

Also a really nice picture of Shizuka and Greg, her boss and our good friend.

Niigata Festival

This weekend marked the beginning of the Festival of Niigata. Friday night they closed all the main street from Bandii to Funamachi for a 'parade' - not really a parade as the masses of people participating don't actually travel very far out of their allotted space. I'd estimate there to be around 40000 people either in the parade or watching.

Basically local companies get a space and the employees dress up in Ukata's - similar to Kimonos, and dance to traditional Japanese music. A great atmosphere. Eric and I just wandered up an down trying to get free beer ;-)

Also pictured are two of Shizuka's friends we bumped into wearing their Ukata's. In some ways this weekend probably fits most peoples stereotypes of what Japan is like - So many women wearing their traditional clothes. I wish they did more often, they look so nice.

Well I remembered my camera...

Now I have actually got to start taking some decent pictures. Last weekend was Immigrants Cafe's 7th Anniversary. A good one to stick in the diary as it tends to be pretty busy and with a 3000 yen nomiholdai (forgive the spelling) for as much food and drink as you can consume in an evening. Problem is that Immi's is a little difficult to manoeuvre when it's a bit packed and on top of that, the main walk way is mainly metal grating - not great for high heals. The fact of the matter is though, once you've taken a few picture of random people strutting their stuff, every party pretty much looks the same! Took a few that are good for facebook, but I'm struggling for a blog photo (let alone a turbo blog pose.. well Glen will understand that)
So what else did I do this weekend.... Friday night went out, had a few drinks as per usual. Recovered Saturday as per usual. Went to the party on Saturday night, had a few drinks, there's a pattern emerging here isn't there?
Sunday though I did something really different. Sunday I fitted the front brake pads to Shizuka Honda Cube - a job that should take 20 mins but actually took nearly sweaty 3 hours. Still, saved her about £100. The rest of the day was spent trying to clean myself up. I went to pick her up after work and thought I'd just give her a gentle demonstration of how much better they were now. Unfortunately we both ended up nearly licking the wind screen, but it proved the point!
Just saved my self £XX,XXX by delaying so long over buying a car that it has been sold. Partly because I didn't have enough money and partly because I was just too chicken to spend £xx,xxx on a car - even if it is half the UK price. Ah well, lets take a look at some RX7's......

Busy weekend

This was a great weekend, well from Saturday night inwards anyway. Saturday started badly, up late, went to attend a beginners Salsa lesson - I'll let you digest that for a second....two...three and you're back in the room. However, we parked at the centre only to be told that we couldn't park there and ended up driving around for so long that the lesson was almost over.
Shizuka went to work as usual and I decided to have a night in until she called later and said they were going to the beach for a little fire work party. So I headed in to town and caught up with them. We drove to this picnic area by the beach and let off little rockets and sparklers - quite a popular thing to do as it turns out because there were plenty of other people doing the same. We finished at 4 am and when home.

Sunday we went to a beach house owned by a friend of mine. As we got there you could smell the food, crabs, lots of different fish, stake and huge oysters (huge yuk!), plus beer on tap! Had a great day chillin' by the beach, even learned how to throw an American football.
About 6 we all split, but a few of us decided to go to Round 1. Round 1 is a big games centre where for most activities you buy a ticket for about £8 and you have unlimited access to tennis, basket ball, volleyball, badminton, archery, baseball etc and unlimited credits on the arcades (including House of the Dead) . Had a right laugh, and this time I managed to get some home runs in the batting cages - though my archery and my pitching sucked! Like an idiot though I didn't take my camera!

The BBQ

I called the folks back home just in case there was any news back in the UK about the quake and to be honest, we didn't really think much more about it. Apparently there was a mild aftershock while we were playing football, but that had nothing to do with me despite some wild accusations. Playing football against your average Japanese guys is a bit like playing against kids when you weigh 30 or 40 kilos more. When you go into a 50/50 tackle there is only going to be one outcome. The other team we quite happy that 'Godzilla' was on their side. The reason I have no top on is purely because in order to recognise my team members, it seemed like a good idea at the time!

One of the great things about knowing people in the resaurant business is that when they have an out of work event, you're pretty much guarranteed that the catering is going to be pretty damn good. This was no exception! So much food!

It wasn't really until I got back to work that the magnitude of the earthquake became more apparent - world news in fact and I had a number of e-mails from friends enquiring as to whether I was buried under rubble.

Ok, now the earthquake part

The 16th of July was a national holiday. For weeks the staff at Immigrants Med restaurant had been planning a big BBQ on beach. Fortunately the weather looked like it might hold out, unfortunately as we were carrying the stuff to the beach to set everything up, the ground started to do unexpected things. I have felt a light tremor before but this one was different. Rather than being a small amplitude, high frequency shake, this one was more of a big gentle sway backwards and forwards.

It's an unnerving experience, probably because your senses base everything around the fact that the ground should be a reliable thing to make balance assumptions about.

Then the coast guard sirens started wailing and broadcasting a Tsunami warning. We all cleared off of the beach and waited for about 40 minutes (pictured) for the warnings to stop before heading inland to have the party in the local stadium grounds.

Lobsters and Earthquakes

This weekend was a bit of an odd one. Went out on Friday night as per usually and got a bit squiffy. The problem is when you’re a bit worse for wear is that your memory gets a bit hazy. (well my memory does) Hence on Saturday I got a little bit of a surprise that we were going shopping for bikini’s, otherwise I might have brought money or means of getting money to the shops with me. One was not popular when we got to the till. On top of this, Shizuka and I went to a Tanning shop (salon thing). I am ghostly pale at the best of times and I thought it would be a good idea to get to colour to my skin so I don’t scare the natives. Shizuka had been before and used a machine for 30 minutes. So I thought that 20mins would be safe for me. But, the guy in the salon showed us to some different machines, more powerful machines as it turns out, and 20 mins later my back and bum were already lobster red. Shizuka came off even worse as she was under for 30mins. Needless to say over the next two days things didn’t improve and we spend many an hour covering ourselves in various products (direct from the fridge) in an attempt to ease the pain – brave Shizuka still went to work though.
No pictures!

The decent and afters

The decent from the summit for a short part is in fact the same route from which you came, although in the sunlight the path seems so much less difficult than you imagined on the way up. Although you have to be careful because there is a lot of loose shail, going down was so much easier despite the protesting muscles. After getting back to the Hot Cocoa station, the decent route splits from the ascent route and becomes a steep zig zag path which is a boring as it was arduous, particularly as cloud or fog descended on the slopes and we could see nothing after 30m in any direction. Because of this, the decent seemed to take so long and was not helped by the fact that the sign posts; on the rare occasion that a distance was sign posted; were either inaccurate or there was some kind of Bermuda triangle effect going on. i.e the sign post would say 8km to base camp, then you'd walk for a hour and the next sign would say 7.9km. Really soul destroying at that point! But the worst part of all is when you get right to the bottom and have to walk back up a big long hill to get to the car park. I'd kept promising my body that the car park was round the next corner - that's what my brain obviously believed, but after the 7th or 8th corner with no car park in sight, I was about to have a mutiny on my hands. Fortunately we got back to the coach before anything untoward happened, 3 and a half hours after leaving the summit.

When all bar one person had returned from the mountain - there's always one person who can't follow the simplest of instructions - we went to a Japanese hot spring or Onsen. We sat outside in the rain in the 42 degree spring relaxing. It was heaven - except for the naked men, but I'm sure it did the aching limbs the world of good.

Would I do it again? Yes I probably would, but I would do a lot more preparation before hand. If anybody reading this is contemplating climbing Mt Fuji, and I do recommend you do, respect the mountain more that I did and do the training before hand. Alternatively, for those less athletic, do the climb in stages. Book a place in one of the lodges and rest for a few hours before making the final stages to see the sun rise. This will also help your body get used to the thinning oxygen levels. Good luck!