4-Play-Hike-Club

In our quest to conquer Japan, the boys and I had agreed to climb the mighty mount Fuji or Fuji-San as the Japanese call it. We have tentatively scheduled the climb for the middle or end of July. You may wonder why we would want to climb Fuji in the middle of the humid Japan summer, but you can only climb Fuji safely during July and August. It also gets pretty cold as you approach the top of Fuji. During the other months, Fuji is covered in sleet and snow which makes the climb treacherous for novice climbers.


So in an attempt to prepare our bodies for the tough climb we needed to get some training and smaller hiking trips under our belts. Luckily for us, Ashikaga is surrounded by mountains ... heck my school is situated in the mountains. So finding some mountains to train on was not a difficult thing. Plus, Mike loves doing things that don't cost any money. Don't ask me why, but he gets the same amount of money as us, but is forever living like his in poverty.


Anyway, during Golden week, we set out to do two climbs. The first climb we did included myself, Clarence and Mike. Not having hiked mountains in a long time ... needless to say I was struggling through our 3 hour climb. As most of you will know, I'm not one for walking or climbing or any sort. And even thought climbing Fuji was my idea, training for it was not.


The hike itself, simply wasn't straight up the side of the mountain, then down ... no, no, no. It was up and down about 3-4 mountains, over a mountain range. I have to admit, I was doing a lot of complaining and wanted to give up on a number of occasions. Maybe it was the fact that we underestimated the length of the climb and didn't bring enough liquids. The dehydration must have been making me delirious.


At the end of this climb, all we wanted was one of Japan's most wonderful invention a vending machine! We had to walk for another 20mins before we found one, it was bliss! And the end of this particular climb, we found a map, which showed other hiking tracks. So in a moment of delirium, Mike suggested we do a 4 hour hike two days later. I was going to throw him off the side of the mountain.


Anyway, we reconvened two days later in preparation for our 4 hour hike and picnic. John was to join us on this occasion and we promptly named our hiking group, "The 4Play Hike Club". This time we were smarter and came prepared with plenty of water. However, John being a novice didn't bring a backpack and had to drag a plastic bag around for almost four hours.


We came to the map point and off on our second hike we went.

The boys, prepared for a big day ... ready and willing!

Looked how pumped they are.

Some of nature against modern Japan.

This particular hike was similar to our previous one in that we were not just hiking one big mountain, but several smaller ones over a range. Going up was difficult, and going down should be joyous but everytime we went down, we knew that we only had to go up again.

Mike at one of our many rest points. Looking cool behind his master, The Sun!

Looking over the city of Ashikaga ... or is that Sano????

I did way better on this climb. Not so much complaining as I knew what was to lie ahead. The problem with the last climb was that, everytime we reached the top, I thought it was the end, only to find that there were several more kilometers to go. I was much wiser second time around. The same couldn't be said for John. He did a fair amount of struggling through this climb. A moment of ponder for me, before we were off again.

Mike thinking that this was actually a model shot.

The local wildlife were in abundance.

One of the many signs that tried to help us on our way. Ofcourse, all in Japanese and Kanji at that. We managed to not get lost though. The first mountain that we were meant to rise upon had the Kanji for "Little" and "Big" and then "Mountain" ... so it was "Little Big Mountain". From the ground there are actually letters on side of the mountain, like the Hollywood sign. Anyway, its actual name is Mt Daiso.

Clarence going bush, and showing that he too can climb mountains.

More mountains, with a nice perspective of the deal tree branch.

We could all be advertising for a Colarado ad right here.

Maybe one of the wrong paths that we might have taken. I'm saying that because we crossed many old Japanese people hiking and there was no way, they'd be able to get up and down a rock face. But Clarence is hanging on for dear life.

In case you got severely injured on the climb, there was a hospital close to these here mountains. No kidding!

And if you were simply tired of climbing, maybe a spot of golf!

On this climb, we must have trekked over atleast 5-6 mountains, up and down. This was the mountain range that we had climbed over. Pretty impressive to see what we had just achieved.

More mountains.

You can see on this picture a little path leading to the top. This was our final climb, just a little more and we were done.

One last look over the city!

A final sign to help us out ... only 0.4km more ... almost there.

Yatta! We made it to the top of Mt Daibo, 285m above sea level. This wasn't actually the highest point we had gotten to on this day. We actually reached just above 300m at one point. After 4 hours of exhaustion, we were ready to just lie down and die.

Well on to the next climb then!

A Japanese BBQ and Ashikaga Frower Park

Spring has fully arrived in Ashikaga and the heat is certainly being turned up. in Japan. After surviving through the winter months, its now time to deal with the summer's oppressive heat and humidity. It's also been raining a lot more, we'll have about 4 great days, then about 2 days of non-stop rain. Anyway, no complaints here ... its certainly better than the winter, especially riding around. Although, summer does bring its share of dangers ... like low flying bats and giant mutant-like insects, that crash into your face while riding. Anyway, the following are a few shots of the spring bloom.

You guys must be sick of seeing flowers right!!! Well, brace yourselves, there's a lot more in this post.

Another one here.

This was a cool tree, initially I thought it was one tree that produced both pink and white blossoms, but on closer inspection it was actually two trees. Still the effect is cool.

April was also the celebration of John's birthday, hot on the heels of Mike's birthday about 2 weeks previous. Being sad and believing that people wouldn't come to his party after Mike's, we decided to organise a surprise BBQ for John. I had to let him in on the secret the night before as John tends to sleep through daylight hours. So, I had to ensure that he would rock up. Everyone loves a BBQ and we'd hadn't really had one during our time in Japan. I mean, being an Aussie and not having a BBQ for almost a year is unheard of.




Mike and Clarence dutifully bought a little BBQ and the guests supplied the food. John was certainly surprised by the BBQ and had a great time. Even suggesting that we should do it more often.

Mike was in charge of making sure the food was cooked and not burnt.

Look at all the little delectable things that we had ... hamburgers, sausages, chicken, even vegetables and beef. It was dericious!

We picked a little park near Mike's place to hold this magnificent event.

Some of the ladies enjoying their time.

The weather god's were shining on us this day ... perfecto!

Mike and Catherine on a quick spin in the peddling vehicle.

And then the Birthday boy received his cake.

Look how chuffed he is. The cake was good and a great time was had by all! Good times!

Ashikaga is also home to Ashikaga Flower Park (or as the Japanese would say "Ashikaga Frower Park"), where each year during Golden week, hundreds of people from all over flock to see their giant Wisteria trees in bloom. Ashikaga is apparently home to the biggest wisteria trees in all of Japan. It's such a big that, the national papers even write stories about it.




Waiting on the train stations during the Golden week days were crazy, I never seen so many people in Ashikaga before. Me and the boys decided to visit it one Wednesday afternoon on our half day, not a real manly thing to do ... but hey, its something to do. Plus we managed to avoid some of the massive crowds visiting. It would normally cost about 300yen ($3) to get into the Flower Park any other time of the year, however, during the Wisteria season, it would cost you 1600yen ($16) for admission ... Wow, that's quite a hike. Anyway, the pictures follow and there's not much story, so sit back and enjoy.

Ashikaga Flower Park.

The pyramid of flowers

One of the giant wisteria trees ... there's about 3 of them in this park.

Apparently, your not meant to touch the blossoms but I'm not Japanese ... so suck!

All around the wisteria flowers were these giant bumble bees ... probably about the side of our 50 cent coin. Needless to say, I didn't want to use my own hand to give you guys perspective on how big the bees were.

Of course, the park also had many other flowers in bloom.

I was really trying to hide!

Some yellow wisteria.

A white wisteria tree.

The park was also meant to be pretty spectacular in the evening under lights. However, we couldn't be bothered sticking around.

After a long day, went to a ramen place that my teachers had taken me to once. They make all the ingredients fresh on site. So what better to finish off the day than some freshly made ramen and gyoza.

Khiembo roaming Japan

As most you know, Khiem came to Japan about a month ago now and thoroughly enjoyed his time here. Eventhough it was his second time in Japan, this was bound to be different from the last time he was here. Here's my recounting of what happened for the three weekends I spent with Khiembo.

Khiembo arrived in the land of the rising sun bright eyed and busy tailed on April 11th. I headed out to Tokyo from Ashikaga after my teaching duties were done for the day and arrived in the evening. Khiem decided to stay in a location that was a fair distance from the centre of Tokyo, almost at the end of one of the train lines called Takashimadaira. He liked this place the last time he stayed in Japan, but being far away from the nightlife, would costs us a bit to get back by taxi. Anyway, the first night was pretty quiet, mostly catching up on what was happening back home. Took him to an Izakaya for a meal and rested for our big day following.

First stop the following morning was Tokyo's center of used book stores, Jinbocho (or Jimbocho). Khiem's knowledge of most things Japan is based on his extensive manga/anime viewing. So, it was no surprise when he mentioned to me that he learned about Jimbocho through an anime series. After checking out a few old book stores ... most of the books being in Japanese, and the English ones were just dictionaries ... Khiem remarked that these book store's weren't quite the same as in the anime cartoons. Hmm Khiem ... I could've told you that anime is only a make believe and not really real. He also wondered if there was some secret underground bookstore just like he had seen in manga. Needless to say, we didn't attempt that one.

While in Jimbocho, we stumbled onto this glasses shop. It seemed to be dedicated to the late John Lennon, so as you can see, all of the glasses were of the circular variety that John Lennon used to wear.

One of those old book stores.

Khiem, also came at a time that the last cherry blossoms were falling. Here's one of the very few remaining in Tokyo.

After stopping at another place Khiem had heard from his manga viewing, we headed to Ginza (no, not for the really expensive shopping) to used the Apple store's free internet and a bite to eat. We also checked out the Sony store. Khiem fell in love, no not with a girl, but a $2000 portable DVD player. Sony has also recently released their new portable speaker named Rolly. It's basically a little robot, that spins, lights up and plays your music, pretty cool!

While in Ginza we found a hotted up car! Not like cars from The Fast and the Furious, aye!

A flower display outside the Sony building.

My Ashikaga boys had decided to join me on Khiem's adventure at this point and we went to check out Japan's artificial island of Odaiba. Odaiba was basically built from Japan's garbage in the 1800's for defensive purposes. It has developed since the 1990's into a major commercial, residential and leisure area. You need to take a monorail over the Rainbow bridge to get to Odaiba and is home to Japan's Fiji Television studios, Japan's answer to the London eye (ferris wheel), an exhibition hall for Toyota - where you can test drive their latest cars and the themed entertaining complex of Joypolis. Joypolis is basically a virtual amusement park, with many games and virtual rides. Very cool place indeed.

Oh, I nearly forgot that it's also home to the second statue of liberty made in France. I also just read that Hanoi, Vietnam was also home to a statue of liberty from 1887 to 1945 when France was in charge of Indochina. The Vietnamese called it Tuong Ba dam xoe (Statue of the Open-Dress Dame). However, the statue was torn down in 1945 after France lost control over Indochina. You learn something everyday. Anyway, the picture also shows the rainbow bridge in the background.

She's not quite as big as the one in New York.

On this day, Odaiba seemed to be hosting some of rave ... similar to the Big day out, I guess. We wanted to check it out, but it costs about 4000yen ($40) to get in. And anyway, we could hear the music from the outside. You can also see the Ferris wheel in the background there.

Some of you may know the Manga series called "Initial D", its basically based on a kids driving a white car (looks like an old Datsun) drifting all over the place. There are many of the Initial D driving games in arcades all over Japan, but in Joypolis, you can actually play by getting into a real live car. You had the choice of the original white initial D car (in the middle), a subaru WRX (blue one to the left) or a mazda RX7 (yellow one). I really wanted to have a go, but couldn't be bothered waiting.

In the evening, we found a bar that sold extraordinarily expensive but rare beers. I mean it would costs you $20 for a bottle. However, some of them did contain up to 12% alcohol. I settled with Monty Python's Holy Ail.

After meeting up with our Japanese friend, we headed to Shibuya and hit a Techno-house-trance club called Womb! After all this time, I still don't really get the techno/house/trance music scene, but the light show they had in the club was pretty cool. Khiem, being extraordinarily tired and not much for clubbing, deciding to take a nap on a seat. He woke up next to a little filo/Jap lady and they had a nice little conversation. I was to later find out that he declined an invitation to join her at another club ... wwhhaaaaat! He chose to stay with his friends instead ... I would have understood Khiem ... really! It's a good trick actually, might try it myself next time, fall asleep in a club and hope someone hot is sitting next to me when I wake up!!! We left the club around 3.30am and staying in woop woop, costs us just over $100 to get back to the apartment ... ouch!

The Sunday was Khiem actually showing me where all the best manga and toy places were located in Tokyo. I have to admit some of the places were cool! Just before I left him to go back to Ashikaga, we checked out the Senso-ji temple in Asakusa (an old district of Tokyo). I left him on his trip to reconvene in Ashikaga the following weekend.

The main gate of the Senso-ji temple.

One if the pagoda's in this temple complex.

Khiem arrived in Ashikaga the following weekend, travelled wearied from his trips and hoping for a quiet night before partying big on Saturday night. Alas, it wasn't to be ... it was actually Mike's birthday, so no rest was possible. After a quick shower, we headed to Clarence's place for some dinner and then off to our fav little yakitori bar (Yakitori-kun) for Mike's party. There, beers were drunk, people were met and a party to be had. Not wanting to let Khiem down from his drunken high, I kept the beer coming to him, with the odd sochu here and there.

It was about midnight when we finally left and it was pouring rain outside. With our only mode of transport in Ashikaga, our trusty bicycles, we headed off in the rain for all night Karaoke at Shidax. Riding there turned out to be more treacherous than I thought ... for Khiem that is. Not only was he trying to get used to riding a bike again, but he had to do it while drunk and in puring pain ... not the best set of conditions to be in I guess. After he missed the path to get onto the footpath of the bridge, Khiem rode on the road. Suddenly a car came up behind him and Khiem decided to jump the curb to get on the footpath. Evil Khiem Knivel wasn't so successful. He topple over, but was luckily not too injured. Onward we forged to karaoke, nothing would stop us now!

After arriving, Khiem wasn't feeling so great at this point. After making a mess of the bathroom, Khiem returned to the giant karaoke room they had given us and went to sleep. This time he wasn't awoken by a girl, rather a big Hawaiian, Ray! Ray did not like Khiem's attitude towards a party and proceeded to yell "Khiem, wake the f$%k up!" repeatedly, until Khiem dragged himself up. He would learn not to sleep again, especially with Ray around.

Khiem having seen better days!

Khiem trying to get back into the groove of things between Holly and Ray.

Khiem perking up a little!

This at about 3am ...

This at about 4am ... things getting just a little too comfortable!

Throughout the night, Khiem was constantly worried about being pulled over by the police (technically, we're not allowed to ride our bikes when we're drunk) and whether I had ever fallen off my bike drunk. I can say that I haven't, the times I have fallen off I have been completely sober, once in the rain, once in the snow and once turning a tight corner. I also told him not to worry about the police, as long we weren't serving all over the road, plus we look Japanese and the law doesn't apply to the locals. Mike and Clarence haven't fared so well, being pulled over on a few occasions.

We did finally leave karaoke at about 4.30 in the morning. After a few hours sleep, it was time to take Khiem exploring around the great city of Ashikaga. First, it was the Ashikaga Gakko - the oldest school in the whole of Japan. However, many of the building have been burnt down so many times over the years, that very little is original. Whatever, it was cool to visit ... this was my third time at the Gakko. The Gakko also holds Confucius classes every year for all the Junior High Schools.

Here's the main Ashikaga Gate. You'll find little hello kitty keyrings and phone danglers with Ashikaga Gakko's gate on them.

Statue of the great Confucius.

One of the buildings, housing historical artifacts and the original sign to Ashikaga Gakko.

Later in the afternoon, we went to neighbouring Ota to check out the Mall. While in the mall, I accidentally put my money in a token dispenser machine instead of a coin dispenser. Rueing my mistakes, I tried to make the best of my situation by playing these token machines. Its not actually Pachinko, but its not that far away from it. The aim is the same as a pokies or pachinko machine ... put in little metal objects in hope of getting more little metal objects. I had no idea how this machine worked and how you could win, so I quickly lost all my tokens ... there's goes $10.

I had to take Khiem to a Kaiten Sushi place (sushi train). This one in Ashikaga was pretty big and you could order from those little touch screens in front of you. So if your favourite sushi wasn't coming around, you could always order it. They even had fries that you could order.

Mmmm, maguro (tuna).

Mmmm, ebi furai (fried shrimp).

And hey, you could even get some chocolate cake! Sushi is only 100yen ($1) a plate ... very cheap meal. Our quiet nite turned out to be Saturday night.

The Sunday, I took Khiem to see Orihime Shrine, perched on top of a mountain, able to see over the whole of Ashikaga.

Afterwards, I took him to have the food that Ashikaga is famous for, Soba! Soba is a buckwheat noodle served cold with a soy dipping sauce or in a soup. We went the tempura and cold soba option. I'm really liking soba these days ... and its really healthy.

I also took Khiem to Sano's outlet mall where for the first time, in a long time he bought a pair of Nike's instead of converse! Yaki-niku (bbq meats) was on the evening menu and then Khiem was off on his adventures again.

I met up with Khiem the following Saturday for his last few days in Japan. The rigors of travel had caught up with Khiem, and he was trying to shake a cold that he had caught (no doubt, riding in pouring rain in Ashikaga that night wouldn't have helped). He decided he wanted to show me a little more of Akihabara, or was that just for himself ... hmmm.

Wow, Colonel Sanders in a maid outfit ... hehehe!

A few weeks later when I visited Akihabara, Colonel Sanders was now a samurai.

Here's a car that was drawing a lot of attention.

We then hit the Anime centre. John, she's not real, you should really move on. Plus she's too young for you!

Give me 5, Astro boy!

We sort of crashed a party in the evening. But happy that we did as we went to this really cool entertainment complex called Level one. You could basically pay by the hour and use anything in there as many times as you wanted. We paid about $17 for three hours. There were arcade games that when you died could just press start of continue again. There was a mechanical bull, roller rink, table tennis tables, billiards/pool. Then on the roof, there was a badminton court, volleyball court, little indoor soccer field, mini golf and little driving range, batting cage (picture above) and mini basketball court, enough for 3 on 3. Me and Khiem were raring to kick any japanese butt ... but we spared them the embarrasment. It was a really cool place and would definitely go back sometime.

We headed to another club in evening in Shibuya. But first I need to tell you the story of Hachiko the Shibuya dog remembered for his loyalty to his master. In 1924 Hachiko was brought to Tokyo by his owner, Hidesamuro Ueno, a professor at Tokyo University. Hachiko would see the his owner off from the front door and greeted him at the end of each day at the nearby Shibuya station. Even after Ueno's death in May 1925, Hachiko retuned everyday to the station to wait for him. Hachiko's devotion to his lost master moved those around him, and they nicknamed him "faithful dog". This continued for 10 years, with Hachiko appearing only in the evening time, precisely when the train was due at the station. A nice little story.

Well, we hit an RnB club, where they were having a "Pink Panties Party"! The club was pretty small, but soon enough, three ladies in their underwear appeared (only 1 was in a pink panty) and danced around. Oh, there was also a wet T-shirt event with these ladies later in the evening. Interesting on the whole.

The next day was more walking around Akihabara, I actually ended up buying more things than Khiem that day. It was helpful though as I bought a DS and we found a games shop that sells game in English ... excellent!

And just like that, as quickly as it had begun, it was all over. Khiem left Japan, his liver worse for ware, his head pounding with club music, his arm scared from riding drunk and in pouring rain but his head and heart filled with many great memories.