The rants and laments of Fred and his dad: 8/10/08

SECOND RAID GUYS

OMG FMP REFERENCES FTW

Hisashiburidana~ .. Where to start? Guess... I love melon bread. Yeah. Shana introduced me to it, and it's the nommiest snack around, just look how she's going NOM NOM NOM on that one.

There are good ones, great ones, and bad ones though. The great have a thick, sugary melony crust all around it. The good ones are crusty, but no melon taste left. The bad ones are like putting your teeth into a cheesecake that's exceeded its "best before" date by a few months.

I drooled all over when I got a great one on the way to the hon-ya in Wakkanai.

Week in review! And a long one, at that. I'll put as much heart into this as possible, Youri.

Monday
Headed for Kawaguchiko, we went to Shinjuku station. Got some plane tickets for

Wakkanai too, and tried to get lunch, but we only had 10 minutes left, so I had to leave the TASTIEST ramen behind. :(

Somewhat long trip, but got some shots of Tokyo Tower in Roppongi. After a few hours, we stopped at this huuuge hotel, RIGHT next to the WORLD'S BIGGEST ROLLER COASTER, so naturally I went "HOSHITHOSHITHOSHIT", and was about to run off the bus, when I found it this wasn't our stop. We actually got off at the wrong station, but the staff from K's House, our hostel, picked us up as it started raining.
Nice place, 4 computers, 3 toilets and bathrooms. 2 sleeping floors too. We met two S

wedish girls who had just arrived after some confusion about getting around. As we were going to get some dinner anyway, we took them with us, them being the first Scandinavians we'd met so far. Got some ramen at a burger/ramen hybrid restaurant, the bamboo shots tasted REALLY bad.

Way home we realized we didn't even know each others names yet, lol. On my dad's Fuji post, Melinda is blonde, My is brunette. Oh, and we all ended up in the same room, where the fan stopped working and Melinda had to deal with it in pitch black darkness.. It's like messing with the toilets here with their numerous buttons.
Tuesday
We were supposed to go to Fuji with Melinda and My today, but after realizing we didn't want to do the night hike, we were too late anyway. So! We went to the roller coaster amuse

ment park a bit from the hostel. Had to take a train though.

Luckily not with this train, if just the exterior of a train is this fucked up, I don't even want to know who's driving it.

Pretty expensive to get in, but that park had the biggest, longest, fastest and most awesome roller coasters I've ever seen.
We try a pizza-slinger thingy, which was pretty fun, but no tickle. Then we got in like for Fujiyama, the world's biggest roller coaster. And then what happens? Fujisan decides to take a wee. And one hell of a wee. Lasted all night. They closed the rides, and we bought ponchos and umbrellas. I took off my socks, and we ran into the rain to seek cover. It was quite an experience, but I'd liked to try the roller coaster. Meh. Instead, we go to some wine basement. Dunno. Quite boring, and cold as hell.

Thunder! Catch a cab, and go shop for dinner. I wanted to make one of those omelettes I usually do when I'm home alone. Tastes like pizza. And so it did. Oh, and my dad bought the RING book, I chewed it down in one night, lol, you can keep to just reading what they're saying to each other, and still perfectly follow the story. Which is best, book or Hollywood movie you ask? Hmmmm... close call, but I'd actually say movie. Special effects make it much creepier.
Oh, and we change rooms, because planning ahead is for losers. n_n

Wednesday
SUP GUISE GUESS WAT WE DID 2DAY

NO

NO

K STFU I TELL U

Fuji! That's right. With Melinda and My, too. Would have been mindblowingly boring to go alone imo. Up 8ish, bus to the 5th station and walk from there. 20% chance for rain before midday, and 50% after. But we went. Was pretty cloudy, and kind of discouraging to see the hundres of people coming down from the night hike, looking literally like zombies. They couldn't even say 'good morning'. Though, we thought "Ha, we're smart, we walk during the day!", and tbh we were.

It was a good hike, and we had lots of energy, going OMG everytime the massive clou

ds cleared away the thick, white curtain that encased the mountain, and let us peek down on the surreal terrain below us. This picture is from 2500m ish, you can almost hear the AIR intro music playing, eh?

The walk was a walk in the park, so to say. That was until we reached 3000 meters.

//Fujisan hits Team Fred with its THIN AIR!
-Dexterity fell!
--Quickness fell!
---Strength fell!
----Team Fred now recovers endurance more slowly!
//Team Fred used OXYGEN CAN!
-Fujisan's THIN AIR wore off!
--Team Fred's endurance has been boosted!

Yeah, that oxygen-in-a-can is incredibly refreshing. You can't feel the thin air apart from the raving headache you suddenly have. A quick wheeze and hogging a bit of oxygen clears it away completely! It's like a Cure Disease spell. And it gives a quick burst of energy.

There was no rain on our trip, which was pretty lucky. The sky cleared up as we reached the top too, and we got to see one awesome UFO cloud.

Not much to do at the top. Ramen, pictures, see the meteor-crater sized... crater. It's big. 3 hours walking down, it was SO DAMN TIRING. Have you ever tried to walk downwards on a path made of nothing but rubble and sand? It was nice to walk backwards once in a while though.

We arrived at the bottom at 8 pm, and bought some souvenirs. I gots me a small katana with a ornamented sheath and everything. Room change again, but this time to a luxury tatamimatted room with own bathroom, woo. Shame it's last night. We say goodbye to Melinda and My, and I give them two Lala figurines as a tiny gift. Not much, but eh... And yeah, we were tired, but we had to get up at 6ish.
Video dumps! Internets to me.

Thursday
Up early, and we take the bus back to Shinjuku. RAMENRAMENRAMENRAMEN -Closed-

Shit.

We skip lunch and head straight to the bus for the airport. There was some McDonalds with sauce burgers, so, yeah. On the bus trip I saw THIS building.

Those who've watched Digimon know it. I was like OMGWTF on the bus, and started snapping pictures of it, while everyone around me were going "o.O, gaijins.." So, we fly to Wakkanai, takes two hours. I sleep and listen to iPod all the way. Then, as we reach the top of Hokkaido, the plane turns around, Rishirisan is revealed, as well as the tons of windmills.

Nice view tbh. Land, bus to station, find hostel. Quite cozy little place.
We get our own room, and guess what? INTERNETS! F*** YEAH! I generally spend my day in the manga library or infront of the laptop. Read Dragon Ball 1-18 in a few hours. Some damn old manga there, though. In the library, we meet another Japanese traveler, Takemura-san. I forgot his age though.. 22? Nice guy, though.

Oh, and ever heard of an "Otohime"? Literally means 'sound princess', but I'd named it something along the lines of "Durchfall Dynamo" if it was me who'd invented it.

ONLY IN JAPAN!, it's this little machine on the wall that makes a LOT of noi

se when you click it, like flushing, coughing, talking, which is mixed into one big crowded soup. I think it's for when you don't want people outside to hear when you're dropping a bomb. They should've at least put an English warning of some sort other than 'PUSH', I pressed it around 2 am in the night, as it then proceeded to make me shit my pants which I weren't wearing. The five lamps you see on it is its timer, when you push it once, the first one lights up for 3 seconds, then the next, and so on, until it reaches the last, it turns off. I thought I could stop it by clicking it again, but that just resets it -.-

Panic & failage.

Dinner at the hostel, which was salmon eggs on rice... very meh. But apparently it's a very expensive treat to Japanese.

Friday
Ahh - finally a chance to sleep in a bit. We get up late-y, and go to a ramen-ya I spotted on the way to the hostel yesterday. Stuffed, small place, but two seats available, and two different ramen, salt (shio) and soya (shouyu). We both take soya, and it was.. salty.

Then, we catch a bus and go to Soya-Misaki, the "northernmost" point in all of Japan, excluding Rebun and its two teeny islands. There was a monument on the spot, so we couldn't miss it, but there were people standing in line for photographies, mostly Japanese. I asked an old woman to take our shot (Everyone had the person behind them take their photo), but she failed. Hard. All three of the pictures were shaky, out of focus, and on one of them showed the sea and half of my dad.

Soo, we had two cute girls take our picture at the side, instead.
Catch a bus home again, place was kinda boring, we were only there for 30 minutes. I couldn't have wanted it any other way.
"Everything sucks." -teenager.
When we return, my dad wants to go to some aquarium "a bit" from our hostel, and he says "20-30 minutes", so I agree, little beknownst to me, and apparently to him, that walking and bicycling speeds aren't the same.
Fishes! (Yes, that's grammatically correct.) And seals, and penguins. I could have touched them if I would. One of the seals was just sitting on its tail in the water, cutely opening and closing its eyes, looking around. It reminded me of Huan, I miss him more than anything ;-;

Oh, and HUGE freaking, spiky, spiderlike crabs. Pretty kewl. We go home, and it looks like it's going to rain, so we try hitching a ride back, but no luck. I find the best melon bread ever, though, and we catch a cab instead. Back to hostel, and I go buy some manga, since I left them all at Hotel Gim.. mond.. deja vu.. all of a sudden. Oh well.

Started on Sekirei, fanservice ftw!

Saturday
Up early, in time for breakfast at the hostel. Bacon and egg, woo. At one of the other tables there's an elderly couple who's going where we are; Rebun-to. Check out, and head for the station. We didn't really know where the ferry was, so we got a map there. And headed in the completely wrong direction. We arrive at the ferry terminal and get tickets 4 minutes before it leaves, and get onto it in time, too. Whew. We carry around two huge backpacks, one in front and one on the back, so it's tiring to be hurrying all the time ...

Not really an awesome donkey ride, that ferry trip, a liittle too shaky. Nevertheless, we arrive on Rebun, and look for "someone crazy with a flag saying Momoiwa-so". And there they are.
Shouting a load of things back and forth from the ferry bridge to their van in the parking lot as they spot us, we're certain we've found them. We have to wait 1 hour for some others to arrive though, so we just mess around a bit and have some horrible seafood lunch.

My dad decides to walk to the hostel, and I go with the van along with 3 other Japanese people, plus the three 'helpers' from Momoiwa-so. They start screaming stuff and yelling about the van's name being "BLUE THUNDER-GO 'S'" and their names are Michael and Ni-Jack, safety rules where you have to step on a crate, and yell "HASSHOU" or something to make the van start... these guys are crazy. Ni-Jack is in the back of the van together with us, and talks the whole trip to the hostel about.. Hell if I know. Some time tunnel where he opens the back and screams, too. Momoiwa is +7 hours, and 30 minutes, being just out of Japan's time zone, and apparently they're very proud of that.

tl;dr this place is /b/, with their very own party van.

It doesn't get any better when I arrive at the hostel.. They drive the back of the van aaaall the way up to the door, and have us step inside saying "I'm back" in Japanese. What we didn't expect though, was 20 people, sitting frozen with various instruments in their hands on the floor, waiting for the magic word.

"Tada... ima."
Hell breaks loose.
I don't think even a shaken crate full of killer wasps could be this frightening for me. I, a quiet computer nerd, pianist, dreaming person, arriving at a place like this... This place is like a night club 24/7!

"You can only have the fun you yourself makes." I guess that sums up this place quite well.

After their bellowing and shouting OKAERINASAI

and banging their instruments around, they scatter and leave some "sign-in" forms for us. Okay, so they know how to organize stuff, too. They have these cute little drawn portraits of the staff here, which I found quite funny.

At dinner we meet Takemura from Wakkanai again, and my dad talks with Elizabeth from England. They both persuade us to go on the 8-hour walk fr

om the tip of Rebun to the hostel tomorrow. They have a crazy ceremony for when you get back. Dancing on the roof and stuffs.

Every evening they have a 2-3 hour "meeting" in Momoiwa-so where they sing, dance, scream and perform. EVERY evening, for four months. I can't believe they still have their voices.
Oh, and Momoiwa means 'peach-rock', because there's a huge rock/cliff next to the hostel that supposedly looks like a peach. Looks more like a very hairy boob to me though.

They have a Nekoiwa in the water, too, and a... Penisiwa at the dock a kilometer away. (I couldn't read the kanji, but that's what it looks like, seriously. What a vulgar landscape.)

Sunday
Up 6... no wait, 5:30. 5 normal time. This sucks, I didn't get any breakfast, shower, or anything. I slept on the whole bus ride to the tip. We start on the 8-hour walk, and immediately some Japanese guys are talking to me, despite that I'd been trying my best to keep my distance. They were quite friendly though, Taka-san and Yousuke-san. I think that was his name, anyway. I meet Nori-san and Naomi-san, Mori, and ofcourse Takemura-san, who is now referred to as Takemura-taichou (Captain), being chosen as leader of the hike.

Everyone were really nice, and we talked and walked, and became extremely tired from the heat. I wish Europeans were like that. I mean.. well.. nevermind.

The group later split into two, as some were on the 4-hour trip. So we were halved. We were each assigned a number in Japanese, and ofcourse my dad forgets it. Come to think of it, I haven't ranted about how much he fails at Japanese yet. I'll get to that at some point.
At one point, we reached a seemingly neverending hill which lead into a HUGE bamboo field. It was pretty. I stood around and waited for 10 minutes after realizing I was

alone, but no one came, so I just kept walking.

Some of the landscape was amazing. Can you say Samurai Champloo?

It was funny how many things suddenly popped up into my head. First came videogames, mainly CoX, I thought what'd happen if my characters suddenly appeared in the real world.. (More on this later!) Then my family, particularly Huan, whom I can't wait to see again. At one of the shops we stopped at there was a very hostile, small, white dog bound to the wall, it'd snap at your fingers if you tried to touch it. It was surprising for me to know that there was actually dogs like that.. I know, it's obvious, but if you have seen Huan, you understand what I mean.

Then came my friends, schoolmates.. internet buddies.. I wonder how many of you I will still be in contact with in 10 years? 10 years. It's longer than you think, and when you look at yourself in the mirror, you just can't imagine yourself 10 years older. How you'd look, where you'd be, who you'd know. It's the same if you look at your baby pictures. What exactly did you do, or not do, to come this way? Was it good or bad? When I think about what I've done in my life, I try to focus on how many people I've made smile, and base it on that. The more actions I did that had people smiling, the better. Even though I sometimes consciously avoid those actions, it's what keeps me going in life.

Eventually, I reached some gorge of some sort, and picked up a grass and blew into it, sending a whiny echo along the hills. This had me thinking of what effect you individually have on the world. Time travel, they say that every time time travel is invented, it's erased. The moment the idea is born somewhere, and that it's carried out in success, which leads to the eventual destruction of the world, it's erased, or made sure that it can't be used. It all makes sense if you think about it.

Enough braindumping onto the keyboard. We all met up, and headed back towards the hostel. We were dead tired, and didn't join the meeting. Oh, and I should mention these guys.
They'd be standing on the roof of the hostel waiting for us/you, singing, shouting, dancing, clapping. Then we'd do a counting, ichi, ni, san, yon ... juu, jushy! Err..(My dad.), juu ni ... ni juu ni (Me.).
Anyway, dinner, shower, SLEEP. Goddamnit.

Monday
Sleeeee-GINIRONOSORAGAWARERUNOWOBOKUWATSUTATTEBOOOTOMITEITA

GOD, IT'S 6:30, JESUS CHRIST - IS IT BECAUSE IT'S MONDAY OR WHAT

How can these people have so much energy??? Lights out at 22:30, even!

Despite the raving music and the banging of various cooking tools against each other, I manage to sleep until 8. Got up and got some food, shower, and read the rest of my manga in my bed. I have a nice, tiny "room" behind the rest of the beds. Here's me in my cave.

We found out we could get a ferry back to Wakkanai at 11, so we did that, already pretty fed up with Momoiwa-so...

There was 40 minutes of saying goodbye to someone else while I slept, so we left VERY quietly (Even going as far as simply saying "Ittekimasu" instead of "Sayonara").
So, after a bit of walking and eating stuffs, we get on the ferry and 3-4 people from Momoiwa-so are there to dance/clap/sing/wave goodbye to us, with flags. Kind of embarassing if you ask me, but it's good advertisement for them.

And something awesome now: There was an extremely strong wind blowing while sailing, but we were on the rear deck, so we were in shelter. However, just outside the ferry there were tons of seagulls hovering/flying along the side. If you stuck your hand out with bread in it, the

y'd come eat it! It was fun, but they had sharp beaks. They didn't bite so hard though, but that didn't keep me from taking precautions (Read: Plastic bag around my hand).

Arrive back at Wakkanai, we get back into our hostel that we stayed in the previous week. Dinner was exactly the same as we had last time, salmon eggs on rice. Bleh. But there were two nice Japanese people at our table, an engineer (All Japanese men are engineers) whose name I can't recall, and Aki, a travelling 22-year old art student. We talk a bit and spend the evening with that.

Tuesday
Sounkyo timez. Finally I can relax in some nice hotel, with a TV, Internet and hot spring. NOT.

We get up at 7 to get breakfast and catch our train. 5 hours ride, but I slept the whole way. Arrive at.. whatsthename.. Asahikawa, and buy fooooood, and next train. Obento with sushi, burger, melonbread and apple juice, damn I was hungry.
Reach our stop, and get on the 1-hour bus ride. I didn't really mind the long tran

sportation, as I looked forward to relaxing. Dropped off at station, and we walk up to our hotel.
Two gigantic buildings immediately dominate my view, each with their own onsen at the top, massive parking lots, as well as girls in kimonos greeting people outside the temple-like entrance.

We move past them to what seems like an old folks home... gah.
Anyway, we settle in, and go for a walk in town. They have ramen-yas, woo, I'm relieved. But no bookstore. Crud.

Wednesday
My dad decides to go to the mountain that's nearby here with a girl from the US named Sarah. I stay home. Nice. We have a huge room with beds enough for 6 people, that includes the floor. Tatami mats.
They have this cool little map over the route where my dad went, which says "DANGER, POISONOUS HOT SPRING, BEAR, FOX, AND EVEN MAN WILL BE KNOCKED OUT", you can smell the rotten eggs all the way down here. "DANGER, FALLING HERE WILL BRING YOU TO HEAVEN", cool, a gravity-negating gorge.

Oh, and this place has grizzly bears, everyone wears bells, lolz. I'm walking the route alone tomorrow/today, Thursday.
What I did Wednesday? Walk around town, eat, sleep, surf the net, and I got a cool bracelet with some dingly-thingies on it, pretty nice design, but expensive. 4,200 yen. Oh, and to convert to DKK, remove a zero, and divide it by two. 20 yen = 1 DKK.

Got some nice ramen at lunch, too. I always go for a shouyu chashuumen, which is soy

a-flavored ramen with pork slices in it. All ramen-yas have it (Note: '-ya' means 'shop'), so I try and find the best there is. So far, the one in Shinjuku is still the best.

Check out this chopsticks-can. I smell sarcasm! "I SURE AM HAVING FUN. FUKKIN HELL"

That's it for now. Some damn long post, sorry about that. When I get a better Internet connection, I'll add more pictures. Oh! And we need a place to dump ALL of our pictures. If you know of any good sites that'll let you store a lot of pictures relatively quick/easy, say so in comments!

-Fu-kun

It is Sunday morning exactly two weeks after arrival. We are now on the tiny island of Rebun-to at the very north tip of Japan. The nature is fabulous and the hostel on the rugged west coast of the island is unique.

Under the huge “Peach-Stone” cliff, a group of young people are creating a world of their own. To underscore this, they have set Momoiwa-so time 30 minutes ahead of Japan Standard time…

The hostel building is on a cliff side with a stunning view of cliffs and breaking waves. It is constructed as a huge one room “village house” like those found in Java. The building is 2-3 stories tall and the nice wooden floor at the center must be at least 300 m2. A staircase leads up to maybe 60 bunks loacated at the second floor level – but still inside the same gigantic room. Smaller surrounding rooms and buildings comprise Japanese style sleeping areas, toilets and bath facilities. A dining room at the back seats 75 people on floor mats at long low tables.

The culture of Momoiwa-so is embodied in the 15 staff, who are actors in a 24 hour stage show. First act of the play is experienced already when the ferry arrives at the harbor in Rebun-to. Momoiwa-so staff are on the quay waving flags and greeting you with shouts of appreciation and welcome. They take your luggage in the van, and you may choose to walk the 1 hour stretch across the hills to the hostel on the west side of the island. When you arrive at Momoiwa-so all the staff gather and you get another flag waving and singing reception – which makes you feel good – but also completely baffled: “Do they really do this every day?”

The answer is yes. And in the evening the spectacle only grows. From 1900 to 2200 one side of the center floor in the building becomes a theatrical stage – and for three hours the staff tells stories, sing songs and act out plays – involving the 70-100 people in the audience in dialogue, singing and dancing.

Not understanding the language makes you miss the intellectual content – but anyone will understand the happiness and intensity. Also, forget about doing anything else. I tried to read for a while in my cot – but being in the same room I was soon attracted to the festivities.

And how does it all conclude? Having excited everyone, will they ever sleep? But yes. At exactly 22.15 Momoiwa time, a recording of an enticing and relaxing bed time lullaby is aired, and we are told to be in bed and lights out by 22.30. And behold – so it was.

In the evening we had signed up for the signature trek of Rebun-to. It is an 8 hour course which took the team 12 hours on the previous day. 32 km by foot from the north to south tip of the island. When we signed up, we were told that we would be transported to the north tip by bus – and then trek back: “Departure time is 6.10”. OK - that is not so bad. “But remember breakfast is important – please eat breakfast at 5.40”. That is early, but I can live with that. ”And that means we will wake you up at 5 a.m.” Hmm… this is moving in the wrong direction! “And, of course, that is Momoiwa time! – so it will be 4.30 on your watch.” Arrgh – pain! And I will not repeat Frederic`s reaction here.

But.

It was breathtaking nature all the way; up and down 2-300 m hills, frequent descents to small fishing villages on the beach, fried octopus here, fresh water there, back to the hill tops with adequate amounts of sweat, making me very delicious – by the time we reached forested areas – to the millions of horse flies residing there.

Wonderfully tired returning to the hostel around 6 pm – this or that time – we were greeted by staff standing on the roof! Shouting and singing and welcoming us home: a ceremony lasting some 30 minutes, including standing in line to be counted, singing and bowing.

At six 6am (5.30 Japan time) we are awoken to another piece of beautiful but energizing music. No lying around in bed all day here… Frederic managed however to sleep till 8 am.

I thought I had seen it all – but the climax – the most impressive spectacle of warmth and affection I experienced - was the sending off ritual: 40 minutes of saying good bye, where the staff was waving, singing and shouting in Japanese: “Itterasshai”… until the last person had turned the bend on the top of the road moving into the tunnel back to Japan!

Summary
In my (so far rather short) book on Japan, this experience deserves a *** - three stars using Michelin notation. Michelin says that * is worth a visit, ** is worth a detour, and *** is worth the journey”. My view: for someone studying Japanese and wanting to experience Japanese culture, language and youth close up, this is a must and a treat.