A Most Unusual Happening

When I got on the subway yesterday, everyone in the car I went into got off at my station, and I had the car to myself until the next stop. Crazy! I normally don't want to whip out my camera on the subway, but since no one was there to think me weird for doing so, I took the chance to snap a pic. Just in case you care to see my most usual form of transportation (I prefer the train to the subway, but most of the time the subway is more convenient for me).

Speaking of work, I am back to it this week. It was hard to go back on Tuesday because I was still in the I-want-to-relax vacation mindset, but once I got back into the swing of things, it was okay. Week went by as fast as it usually does and now it's hard to believe it's already Friday night! Only one more day of work before the weekend!

My Humble Abode

It's my last day of vacation! No! How did it go by so quickly?! No big plans today; there were a few things that almost happened, but now nothing's going on. Never got around to that book-shopping and relaxing plan I had the other day - ended up taking a nap and doing a movie and dinner instead - so maybe that'll happen. And maybe dinner somewhere later. And a crepe and bubble tea - I've had to resort to the conbini the past couple days, but I've kept it up. Can't break the cycle on the last day! I'm pretty sure I'm not going to eat a crepe for a long while after this week (they're not a normal part of my diet, but I've enjoyed them for this week), but I am not remotely sick of bubble tea.

Please enjoy some pictures of my apartment. And a video tour. Realize now that I neglected my bath/shower room in both the tour and the picture-taking. You're not really missing much, but I'll maybe take a pic of it another time.

Yo, Yoyogi! Ha, Harajuku! Ta, Takao-san!

On Friday, I went to Meiji Jingu - I visited during Golden Week, so I didn't really take pictures there. But we hung around in Yoyogi for a little while (and went to Starbucks) before walking to the shrine, and I took some pictures there. I've only really changed trains there before (at least before this week, when I've found myself actually walking around there twice), so it's not an area I hang out in, but it's close to areas I do hang out in and it does look pretty typical for Tokyo. So, you know, this is the kind of view I get lots of places I go.

After visiting the shrine, obviously had to go next door to Harajuku for a crepe (the lemon kind I had the other day) and bubble tea (mango milk). Then walked to Shinjuku for karaoke and then came home for dinner at Yayoiken. Very nice day!

Today we went hiking at Takao-san. It was super easy after Fuji-san! Even the bit with stairs, which I whined about a lot last time we were there, was okay! It was great! I want to try to go more often. It feels so healthy to be able to go there and breathe fresh air.

Alas, I saw neither bubble tea nor crepes on Takao-san, so the chain has possibly been broken. All hope is not lost though; I'll check at the conbini in a little bit to see if they have any.

Enjoy pics of the area around Yoyogi Station! And also our Mango Passion Tea and Lemon Green Tea Frappuccinos! And the display case at my favorite crepe stand in Harajuku!

Fireworks!

Fireworks! We enjoyed them by the Tama River last night in Seiseki-Sakuragaoka (not close to where I live - it's on the way to Takao-san). And I could wear my new yukata, yay. It's grapetastic. The weather was really nice; it was a little too warm when we were on our way to the festival, but once it got dark out, it cooled off a lot and there was a breeze. Lovely!

And it was nice to relax and eat watermelon and see everyone looking so pretty in their yukatas and watch fireworks. It was my first time to use the fireworks setting on my camera, and it worked better than I expected. So please enjoy the fireworks pics (and video)! And the one of me enjoying my daily bubble tea (mango tea) and crepe (strawberries and whipped cream, and I longed for the lemony one from the day before the whole time I was eating it).

I have no plan for today. Might go buy a book or two and find somewhere to just chill and read. And obviously I'll have to find bubble tea and a crepe (maybe a savory one this time). But we'll see what happens!

there could be worse themes to a vacation than crepes and bubble tea

I've had three days of vacation so far, and I've had a crepe and bubble tea on each one of them. Got a crepe and not-the-greatest bubble tea (it said it was tapioca, but it was more like jelly) at the conbini on Sunday on my way home from a party. Got a crepe and bubble tea in Ikebukuro on Monday. Got bubble tea and later got a crepe in Harajuku yesterday. Realized the trend while I was eating that crepe (totally amazing crepe, too, with lemon slices and lemon sherbet and honey and stuff). Will it continue?

Anyway, yesterday! Since the fireworks festival was postponed, ended up spending the day in Harajuku, Nakano and Shinjuku. Bought another yukata and obi in Harajuku (the yukata has a grape pattern...maybe I can wear it to a winery back in Washington?) and was finally able to visit Forever 21 (with minimum waiting in a line to get into the store...seriously, it's been open since May and there is still a line to get in). Forever 21 was wonderfully not disappointing. H&M here is - it's the same quality as at home, but costs about 3 times as much - so I was worried Forever 21 would be too. But it's super cheap! And it's a giant store, so there's a ton of selection! I got 3 t-shirts and a headband for 1200 yen, yay.

After Harajuku, went to Nakano for more shopping and wandering around. After that, went to Shinjuku for Vietnamese. Pho! Mango pudding! Yum! After dinner, wandered around trying to walk off the food coma we were in.

Enjoy the lights of Shinjuku at night, Shinjuku Station South Entrance, the singer we momentarily listened to in Shinjuku and Takeshita Street in Harajuku during the day! I felt like such a tourist taking these pictures.

Vacation!

I am on vacation this week! So far there have been two earthquakes and massive amounts of rain! Yay, vacation!

I only felt one of the earthquakes. Unfortunately, it was not the one that happened a couple nights ago while I was awake, but the one that happened a little after 5 this morning and rudely woke me up. Why, earthquake, why? Don't you know I want to sleep in?

Was going to go to a fireworks festival tonight, but it's been postponed due to potential typhoon.

It hasn't all been earthquakes and bad weather though. There have been good food and shopping and dancing and hanging out times too! And hopefully later in the week there will be hot springs times and beach times.

For today, maybe the plan is for relaxing times.

富士山 (Part Two)

Before I went, I thought I would be super disappointed if I didn't make it to the top - like, I thought that if I didn't make it all the way up, I couldn't really say that I'd climbed Mt. Fuji - but I'm really not. I think maybe it's because I didn't stop because I was giving up, but I stopped because, you know, I was injured and didn't want to damage myself more. And before that happened, I was doing great at getting up the mountain, and it was difficult and it was fun and, you know, even if I didn't reach the top, I made it up most of the way, and that was pretty cool. And I got to see more stars than I've ever seen before, and I got to watch a beautiful sunrise, and I got to spend time with all the good-looking guys that worked in my hut. And I climbed Mt. Fuji at night, and that's not an experience you have every day.

Although, if I ever did it again, I would not climb at night. Partly because it just made it harder - especially the rocky bits because it was hard to determine which was the best direction to go - but mostly because it's pretty much the reason I ended up not making it. We had flashlights, but they didn't happen to reveal that particular rock to me.

But I don't intend to climb it again (well, climbing from the bottom to the 5th station might be nice; it's supposed to be pretty), and that's entirely the fault of the descent. Everything up to that point, despite the unexpected snag of injury, was great, but the descent was the worst hell I've ever lived through. I found it so much harder than the ascent; it was endless switchbacks of volcanic rock, and it was boring and they were super slippery and people kept falling down and I thought I would die. With my foot and ankle both swollen and tender, it was super difficult, but it would have been horrible regardless. The scenery got better around the 6th station, which helped a little, but finally getting back to the 5th station was, like, the happiest moment of my life.

Anyway, I'm glad I went, and I'm okay with how it turned out. It would have been nice to reach the top, but even though I didn't and even though my Mt. Fuji experience was not what I expected, I got to have a different experience than anyone else's, and that's kind of great.

It's kind of weird that I've climbed Mt. Fuji, but I've never actually seen it. Like, from a distance. I didn't feel like I really saw it at all until the sun came up and I could, you know, see. And I've never seen the whole thing, so it still seems like I haven't seen it, even though the bits I could see while climbing looked familiar; it looked like Fuji-san should look. But I still want to see the whole picture!

Please enjoy some people enjoying the view of clouds below, the bit of path that was my downfall (it's too bad it was too dark to take pictures of the other bits of the path so you could see just how lame it was that I hurt myself on this bit), the massive amount of people behind on us the horrible descent (there were some tour groups), a view looking up (moments later shrouded in clouds), some trees between the 6th and 5th stations, the glorious sight of the 5th station (and a ton of people ready to start their journey up the mountain), and the curry rice in the shape of Fuji-san I ate for lunch.

富士山 (Part 1)

I visited Fuji-san this weekend, and my experience was not what I imagined. Out of the seven of us who went, four of us made it to the top; I was not one of the four.

We had talked about climbing the mountain for a while, but apparently a lot of other people also planned it (not surprising, since there is only a short period during the year when you can climb), and we could not get the room or bus reservations we wanted. So we ended up leaving Shinjuku at 7:30 on Sunday night, reaching the 5th station (where most people start) a couple hours later and starting our climb.

I knew that it was going to be a difficult climb, but I think it was difficult in different ways than I expected. From the 5th to the 6th station is fairly easy, but between the 6th and 7th there are a ton of freaking stairs. I was definitely not expecting stairs. I DO NOT LIKE STAIRS. I am short, and they were very tall so required excessive amounts of effort to get up on each one, which made me breathe harder which made me really feel the altitude, Luckily I had oxygen with me, which helped so much; I never would have made it as far as I did without it. Anyway, I knew that the path was rocky, but I was not expecting the climb up to the 8th station to involve, like, literally hauling myself up ridiculously steep rocks. I was like, "WHAT IS THIS AND WHY IS IT HAPPENING?!" when first faced with the sight, but I think it was actually the easiest part for me. It was challenging, but I didn't feel like I was overexerting myself. Eventually, partway through the 8th station (which goes on forever), the path got a bit easier.

Of course, that was the point where I smashed my foot into, like, the only rock on that part of the path, both hurting the top of my foot and twisting my ankle. I went back to the hut we had recently passed to rest for a few minutes and see if I was okay; if I was, I would catch up with my two friends I was with, if I wasn't, the rest of the group would come along eventually and I could let them know I was injured.

Yeah, I was not all right. It hurt to step on my ankle, and every step also made the wounded top of my foot hit my shoe. Eventually, two more of our group showed up, and it was decided that I should probably stay put where I was, watch the sunrise, and then meet up with them when they came down later on the supposedly easier descent path. This was around 3 in the morning, and it was getting unbelievably cold. When I had been moving, I was fine, but just sitting there and waiting was not going to be good. Super luckily for me, there was a bed available at the hut, so I got to sleep and be warm for a little while and then enjoy the sunrise and then sleep a little more (I was there about 3 hours, but rest was so nice that it felt like much longer). Then I was able to meet up with the last two members of our group (who only reached the hut right above me, I think - the one I'd been nearly halfway to when I injured myself - and that not too long before we met up) and we could descend together. And then get food together and fall asleep on the ground waiting for the rest of the group.

Please enjoy pictures of various degrees of sunrise, the view down from my hut, the view up from my hut, and the view of my hut.