November wrap-up and Christmas as a workday

It has been a while, but I warned you in October that November would be crazy, and December wasn't too laid back either!

Here are the details for November:

I wrote 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month.  Supposedly that makes me a novelist, but honestly what I chucked on the page really doesn't have the flow of a nice cohesive piece of work.  When I can stand to look at it again, I will try to edit it into something readable.

My year 7 students also took part in the challenge, and set their own goals for the young writer's program.  A couple of them almost made it to their personal goals, two kids wrote over 10,000 words.  For a 12 year old, I think that's amazing.  They did fundraising during November and early December towards their goal, and I'm happy to say they were able to raise ￥20,000 which they will donate to Save the Children in the new year.

Also in November, we had a guest appearance on the Arwen and Jason sitcom.....

Emma!

After a couple of days of sightseeing we let her loose on the city, and I think it managed to survive after the initial impact of awesome.  Thanks for coming on the show!

Then there was a long stretch of work work work for the both of us until suddenly it was a week before Christmas and I realised that I hadn't made a Christmas pudding (this is usually something that sits in the pantry for a month and a half prior to Christmas becoming amazing).  Spent some time decorating the apartment to look vaguely Christmassy, got the makings together for a pudding.

Christmas isn't really celebrated in Japan, not in the same way as back home at all.  At home Christmas is all about family, New Year's is about friends.  Here Christmas is for friends and/or couples - Christmas night is a big date night apparently.  When it comes to New Years here - it's all about family, in a huge way.  People travel home to their families, everything shuts down for a few days - restaurants and ATMs included.  Something that Japan does well however, is Christmas lights.

The Sunday before Christmas we went to Odaiba and checked out the giant Gundam which was lit up all pretty for Christmas.

Afterwards we had a pretty average dinner at a Mexican restaurant and played around with the games in an arcade.

Christmas Day and Boxing Day are both working days for Jason and me.  Most of the people in my office took the days off, but Jason wasn't able to, and I wasn't about to hang out at home on Christmas Day by myself.  So...Christmas Eve became our Christmas Day.  The 24th of December was a holiday because of the Emperor's birthday, so we did all our present opening and feasting on Monday.

Our stack of presents to each other from the 100 yen shop and elsewhere....including:

Creepy Christmas masks.

The haul from Kris Kringle in Melbourne.

We had a chat with Jason's folks over Skype before lunch, and it was lovely to catch up with what everyone's doing.  Time is passing so quickly.

Here's the damage: LUNCH

I roasted some pork ribs in a red wine/garlicy oniony type marinade, roasted some parmesan potatoes too, bought a rotisserie chicken which I chucked in the oven, as well as some steamed brocolli and carrots on the side.  We had some of the Christmas pudding when we had digested enough to move off the couch

Breakfast and dinner was divided between this care package from Jason's folks:

and leftovers from lunch.

On Christmas Day, we both went to work.  No classes meant that I had a chance to tidy up things I don't get a chance to look at during the term.  I also got a chance to Skype with folks back in Melbourne, which was lovely.  On Christmas night we took part in the time-honoured Japanese tradition of having KFC for dinner over Christmas.  To get the special package, I had to pre-order at the end of November.  I picked up my package and we had a second go at a Christmas feast.

No pics this time, it was just KFC, you're not missing much.

That brings us to today.  I'm off work from the 27th until Jan 7th, Jason gets fewer days off than me.  Nonetheless, we're going to make the most of our time.  We'll be in Nagoya over New Year, and the next update will be a post-New Year Nagoya extravaganza!

Until then, click on some photos!!

Yay!!

Halloween and music mishmash

This is a pretty random mess of content, all the things that didn't fit in previous updates.

In late September we went and saw a band called Limited Express (has gone?), who we'd seen in Brisbane before, and they were great, very high energy.  Here's some pics:

More, much more blurry photos, but a couple of pretty good videos: HERE

We also, more recently (Oct 20), went to the last ever (so far) Blip Festival, which was held in Tokyo.  Blip Festival is a night where a series of bands/musicians do their thing with chiptunes, music made from the tones of video game consoles.  I listened to much more dubstep than I ever had before (not sure if that's a good thing), and again, here's a couple of photos:

Bud Melvin plays the banjo over game boy tones and dulcet tones.

Nullsleep takes himself really seriously I think.  "This one is for everyone who is filled with a sense of existential dread" - a real thing that he really said....derp

Covox is a guy that does some of the doofy doof.

Nnnnnnnn was great fun, not my style, but high energy and I guess it was pretty good for dubstep.  Unfortunately I have no good still shots, only video, and you can find that, plus other blurry photos HERE.

Okay and the real highlight.  Jason works near Yoyogi, and we both have our Japanese lessons at his work, as they do both English and Japanese lessons there.  Halloween isn't such a big thing over here, compared to America, but Halloween near Jason's work was pretty cute this year.  Seeing the potential may mean I actually go to a bit of effort next year.  Here is Halloween Yoyogi-style:

Not going to link to the others, trust me, this is the best of a bad and blurry lot.  There were kids running around everywhere in costume, we saw a Mario and Luigi duo in very accurate outfits, and numerous witches, princesses and pumpkins.  If the kids over here could get any cuter, it would be illegal.

In terms of the everyday stuff, I went to a workshop for the IB in mid-October in Kuala Lumpur.  The workshop was great, non-stop contact with a lot of motivated teachers.  No time for sightseeing, but I brought home a pile of things that are hard to find/expensive over here - good toothbrushes and deodorant mainly.

We both had a recent bout of flu - mainly gross and not worth repeating, but I think we're doing better now.

Last of all, tomorrow I start NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month, something I have roped my year 7 students into as well.  Over the course of November I'll be writing 50,000 words, so I will be limited in my blogging for a wee while.  I may do a mid-November update with a guest appearance, but things will be quiet for a while.

All the best to you and yours!

Birthday black eggs and pirate ships

So, it's time for an update.  This will be all a bit me-me-me, apologies in advance.  A lot of it is birthday stuff.

The 2nd of October was my birthday, and a mid-week birthday is a bit of a bummer when you and your partner have vastly different schedules and get a couple of hours of time a night together...but I digress.  To combat this, we started the celebrations the weekend before.  Yayyyyy!!!!

I bought a gigantic boneless leg of lamb from an online meat merchant, and on the Sunday I roasted it with a buttload of garlic, lemon and a spice rub of cumin, cinnamon and nutmeg.  I roasted some potatoes, steamed broccoli and carrots, and made some gravy from the pan juices.  It sounds like a lot of work, but I can be a control freak when it comes to roasts, and this was my birthday roast dinner dammit, and I knew what I wanted.  I don't have any pictures because I was too busy singing in the kitchen and drinking a lot of red wine before and during, and afterward I was too busy drinking a lot of red wine and eating lamb and potatoes.  It was amazing, trust me.

On Sunday morning before all of the cooking, Jason bought a couple of cute mini sponge cakes, one chocolate and one vanilla.  After dinner, he came in with them covered in blazing candles, including a novelty one singing happy birthday.

 

It was cuter than cute.

Post dinner and cake, out came the cards posted from my two amazing aunties - thanks Annie and Joan!  I also opened up my presents from Jason - a dress, killer heels and a belt.  Here I am wearing my birthday dress and heels next to a robot:

On the night of my actual birthday, we went on a date to Machida, not too far from where we live.  We had dinner at Village Vanguard, which has the best burgers I've eaten in Japan, and probably close to the best burgers EVER.  Then we had a crepe from a crepe van, and played taiko drum master at a game arcade.  It was awesome, and yet again, cute.

The weekend after my birthday happened to be a long weekend, and I had taken the opportunity back in late August to book a hotel room in Hakone for that weekend.  Yeah, that's right, the birthday celebrations kept on rolling.

Hakone is maybe 2 hours from Shinjuku by train, and is a really popular tourist destination for both Japanese people and for international visitors.  The drawcard for Hakone is the hot springs borne from volcanic activity and the scenic mountains.  Seriously, Hakone is gorgeous.

The hotel we stayed in is a 45 minute bus trip from Hakone-Yumoto train station, along winding mountain roads.  It had some old-school charm, and the staff were great.  We never stay in ritzy places, so being greeted at the entrance and having our bags carried inside for us was an enormous novelty.  On a clear morning we realised just how incredible the scenery was, with Mount Fuji in plain sight behind a nearby mountain range.

I had three things on my to-do list for Hakone.  The Hakone ropeway and cable car; the pirate ship lake cruise; and the life-extending black eggs boiled in a mineral-rich volcanic hot spring (EAT THE EGGS.)  We managed to get the first one done the afternoon we arrived, and decided to keep the other two for the next morning.

The ropeway terminus - Togendai - was a ten minute bus ride from the hotel.  The ropeway has four stations - Togendai, Ubako (apparently 20 minutes walk from our hotel), Owakudani (the station for the black eggs), and Sounzan, the transfer point for the cable car down to Gora.  It was mid-afternoon when we started our journey, and the views from the ropeway car were unbeatable.

This is steam rising near Owakudani station from vents in the ground.

The view from the cable car was not quite as unbeatable.

To avoid a repeat performance of the cable car, we took the bus back to the hotel and ordered room service so that we could eat in our PJs.

The second day was FOGGY.

It all looked very dramatic, and there were showers and drizzle throughout the morning.  We got started pretty erly and made our way by bus back to Togendai, which is not just the ropeway terminus, but also the starting point of the pirate ship lake cruise.  We got there in time for the first cruise of the day at 9.30.  The morning showers and fog seemed to have kept a lot of people away, so the boat wasn't too crowded and we had many opportunities for awkward photos with fake tacky pirates.

We got off the cruise at Hakonemachi-ko, found a place selling umbrellas, and strolled around town for a bit.  Town wasn't very exciting, so we jumped on a bus bound for Motohakone-ko, a few minutes away.  Motohakone is charming and lacks the tourist trap feel you get near Hakone-Yumoto train station.

We found a ham and sausage restaurant (YES) and shared a bratwurst roll and a pot of coffee.  Before we left, I bought some salami from the deli at the restaurant to take home.

Next up, we jumped on the cruise back to Togendai, to get back on the ropeway for the Owakudani eggs.  The weather had cleared up by this pint, and people had started coming out into the sun.  The crowd on the ship coming into port at Motohakone looked unbearable.

When you get to Owakudani, one of the first things you notice is the smell of sulfur in the air.  The volcanic rock formations are stained with the minerals that come out with the water and steam, the same water and steam responsible for the heavy eggy smell.  It's a bit of a walk from the ropeway to the pool where the eggs are cooked, but we were ready.

At the top, the steam was RIPE, oh God was it ripe.

We returned down the hill a little and bought THE BLACK EGGS.

The deal with the eggs is, each egg eaten (supposedly) extends your lifespan by 7 years.  That is, as long as you only eat up to two and a half eggs.  If you eat three or more, all bets are off.  The minerals in the hot spring turn the shells black, and it's these same minerals that are said to extend your lifespan.

We ate some eggs.

They tasted...like egg.

Then we ate fried snacks and ice cream that undoubtedly eroded some of those hard-earned egg years.

The next morning we were due to leave, but were fortunate enough to get an amazingly clear day perfect for taking photos of the surrounding mountains.

We went back to Hakone-Yumoto station on the bus, put our bags in a locker, bought a train ticket home and did a bit of souvenir/snack shopping.  We got some Neon Genesis Evangelion flavoured ice-cream.

 What flavour is that....? I don't know.

Then we returned home.

Things that made our lives easier on this trip:

• The Hakone free pass, which gave you free use of any public transport including buses, the ropeway and cable car, the pirate cruise ship and the return train journey from your starting point.
• The Odakyu romance car, an express train with space for luggage, reserved seats, and a vending machine.
• The fact that English was spoken EVERYWHERE in Hakone, seriously this spun me out.  We had more interactions in English two hours from Tokyo in three days than we have in the past three months 20 minutes away from Shinjuku.

By the way, more photos are RIGHT HERE.

Hakone was gorgeous, my birthday week (okay, 10 days) was AWESOME, and Jason's birthday falls on a weekend next year, so we'd better start our planning soon.

Until next time.

Yomiuriland, Ozenji shrine and Mount Kumotori

Hello!

Well it has been an eventful four weeks or so, my holidays are almost at an end.  This is going to be a very "me" focused update because I've been finding things to fill the time while Jason's been working.

Yomiuri Land

Who likes rollercoasters?  I do!  I went on some rollercoasters and they were pretty good.  I also went on a ferris wheel that promised views of Mount Fuji; it didn't deliver.  Here are some pictures anyway!

Ozenji Temple

We live in a suburb that's named because of its proximity to this temple, and so I decided I'd go for an exploratory walk/jog.  Ozenji shrine is probably 25 minutes walk away, less if you jog, more if you jog and you have a terrible sense of direction like I do.

The main temple building is beautiful, as are all of the surrounding buildings and shrines in the temple grounds.  I walked around the temple grounds and the park that they back onto, and think I have found a nice spot for future walks/jogs.  More photos HERE.

Mount Kumotori climb

This brings me to the most recent update, and probably the last thing I'll do outside of Tokyo for the summer holidays.  I decided to climb a mountain.  I made the decision a couple of weeks ago, and narrowed down my criteria by having a look through the Lonely Planet guide to Hiking in Japan that I picked up off Amazon.

Jason and I visited a couple of outdoors shops to pick up supplies like a torch, a backpack with water bottle built in, a compass and a bell to attach to my pack.  The bell was to warn bears I was coming so I didn't surprise them.  This is something that was a huge novelty to me, and I bought it more for the "just in case" factor than anything else.

Just below the summit of Mount Kumotori is a mountain hut which accepts reservations by email.  I got together my meagre Japanese, and with the help of google translate and very short sentences, sent an email that made sure I had a private room at the hut for the night after my first day's hiking.

Lonely Planet rated this hike "easy-moderate" and a hiking blog gave it a 2 out of 5.  I think moderate would be accurate, and 2 out of 5 doesn't come close.  This was a 2 day, 31 km hike, and I was kind of sure I was ready for it.

To get to the starting point, I caught a limited express train from Ikebukuro to Seibuchichibu, and caught a bus out to Mitsumine Shrine.  The bus from Seibuchichibu was 75 minutes and cost 900 yen.  The bus had a suica/pasmo card reader, so it was all very easy and civilised.  The timetable for the bus can be found here:  http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~kumotori/jikoku.htm.

The day was beautiful, it was clear, sunny and warm.  This was a shot taken from the bus on the way up to the shrine.

I filled up my water bottles, walked around the shrine for a little while, snapped some pics, and then thought I'd better get onto the climbing thing to get to the hut before dark.  I started up the trail at about 10.50.

Okay, not gonna lie, the first day was ROUGH.  Day 1 was a 950m ascent, around 13 km (if I trust Lonely Planet) or 11 km (if I trust the trail markers) and I managed it in just under 5 hours.  Around one hour in I was met with sections of the track that had me scoffing "Hah, don't be ridiculous, that's not the track, that doesn't even...oh"

That being said, I got there, and I even saw a deer!

Ten minutes after I spotted the deer there was a crash out in the nearby forest.....I got out my bear bell and jangled the rest of the way up.  I figured it would be a bummer to get so far and then get mauled half an hour from the end.


I stayed the night at Kumotori Sanso, the mountain hut, and decided to leave the summit climb for the morning.

By this stage, I was absolutely drenched in sweat, coping with a pounding headache that was bordering on a migraine and dying to get my shoes off.  Checking in was pretty simple because I emailed ahead, and I was able to pick up enough of what the hut owner told me to find my room, the toilet, the water station and figure out the schedule for dinner, lights out and breakfast.  Despite reviews to the contrary, the lady running the show was just lovely and really helpful.  7500 yen got me a private room (it was a weekday at the end of summer), and two meals.

I found my room, tried to figure out how to nap on the futon without sweating on everything and prayed the headache would go away before dinner.  It didn't, and by the time 6.00 rolled around, I had the rising nausea of a proper migraine.  Awesome.  Had a few mouthfuls of rice, some miso and a couple of cups of green tea, stalled for time and left the rest of the tray untouched, going back up to bed.

The next morning was much better, the headache had receded to a dull throb, I'd kept my fluids up through the night.  I got up at 4.30, in time to catch the sunrise and then have breakfast, where I ate everything on the tray.

I plotted the route for the day, deciding if I felt up to it that I would follow the Lonely Planet course of 18 km rather than take the shortcut listed on my Japanese map to a bus stop that would take me to Okutama station.  I say shortcut, but it still would have been 4-5 hours of solid hiking.  Then, I made the climb up to the summit!

I look awesome.

Riding on the high of reaching the summit, and with my headache basically gone, I figured I could handle the 18 km, and you know, the first three and a half hours were great.  Mostly downhill, great scenery, cool temperatures.  

I reached what I thought was the halfway point, filled up my water bottles and had a snack.  I realised after another three hours that the halfway point was actually the 3/8th point...doesn't seem like much, but it sure made a difference.

I reached this point and had a mini celebration.  Yeah, I must be almost at the train station!!....the signs on the concrete road soon diverted back down a steep track for another hour and twenty minutes, but I finally reached civilisation, 8 hours after I began the hike.

4 trains and 2 hours later, I was home, where I had the best shower ever.  

If I were to do this again, I would not follow the Lonely Planet trek, it seems like the extra distance tacked on didn't really add to the experience, and the trek didn't give details of where to fill up water either.  Following the Japanese map would have been a better bet, even with barely any kanji knowledge under my belt, as the trails had water stations marked, and gave details of how many buses per day ran from trailheads.

Now I'm at home, walking around with legs that are so stiff and sore they make me walk like Frankenstein's monster, but I'm happy in the knowledge that I did it and got home in one piece.

More (many more) pictures are here: CLICK CLICK