Nara Food Festival

Before I write about the Nara food festival, I need to tell you about Kansai Scene and a festival we went to around last November. Kansai Scene is an English language magazine published in Japan for ex-pats. It is our go-to place when we're looking for events in the area. Last November I had read about a festival happening in Kyoto that sounded like the Japanese equivalent of a Renaissance Fair. There was going to be dudes in Samurai costume sword fighting, food booths, traditional entertainment like acrobatics, etc. I was really excited. Some of you may be wondering why we never made a blog post about it. The answer is it was pretty disappointing. There was traditional entertainment, however most of it was storytelling, not so good for non-Japanese speakers, there were two food booths offering chestnuts or sweets, an origami booth, and some traditional Japanese souvenir booths. There wasn't even the Japanese equivalent of the giant turkey legs you can get at a Ren Fair, the biggest reason for going to one in my opinion. There was also NO samurai stuff, at all. When we got home I re-read the Kansai Scene description to prove I hadn't gotten confused, it was just way off. So now we've learned to take what we read in the Kansai Scene with a giant grain of salt.

Now on to the Nara food festival which was described as a place where chefs from all over Japan would be showing off their cooking skills and food, both local and international, would be available. When I read about it I joked that there would be 5 booths. Craig checked on the Japanese webpage for the event and it looked like the description so we decided to give it a try. It was held in a beautiful, deer-free park in Nara. The park was also hosting a flower festival so there were tons of big, colorful flower arrangements planted through out. The food festival did, in fact, consist of more than 5 booths. I would say there were 20ish but I didn't see any chefs showing off their skills, unless you count guys pushing around frying fatty pieces of chicken with tongs. Suffice it to say, the festival was not what we expected but the weather was perfect, the park with all the flowers was beautiful, and we still got to enjoy some tasty food. Also, Nara doesn't have nearly the foreigner population, we were the only white people we saw all day so Gus, of course, was repeatedly told how cute he was.

Don't worry, the boy was slathered with sunscreen - repeatedly.

Do you see the little boy looking at Craig. Little kids were really curious about us. They'd often run up to get a look at Craig and I and then try to sneak a peak at Gus. We'd hear them say things in Japanese like "Americans?" and we'd respond in Japanese which they thought was just hilarious.

This is a tofu sandwich. The tofu is the "bread" and inside is ground pork, potatoes and ginger.

There was a lake with the ubiquitous koi fish and lots of turtles.

The food festival.

We just thought this was funny. Inside the big stall there was a grown-up sized toilet, sink, baby changing table, and little kid sized toilet and sink. It was totally full service.

Here I am with a more traditional Japanese snack, a roasted fish on a stick. It was apparently so strange to see a white person eating a fish on a stick that a Japanese woman asked if she could take my picture while I was eating it. I ate all of it except the bones and head, I'm apparently too American to look my food directly in the eye before taking a bite.

Mt Fuji

There is a saying in Japanese which, roughly translated, goes, “You're a fool to never hike Mt Fuji and you're a fool to do it twice.” Craig hiked it a couple of summers ago and, since neither one of us are fools, I hiked it a couple of weeks ago while Craig stayed home with Gus. I went with a friend from church, Rachel, and we approached our adventure a little differently from the way Craig did. We made our way to the 5th station on the Fujinomiya trail, the steepest and most accessible trail from Kansai, via train and bus on Friday afternoon. From there we hiked for a little over four hours to the 9th station. It was overcast and drizzly until about the last 15min and then it started to pour and hale so we covered the last 200m of the trail in record time.

Starting out at the 5th station.

People disappearing into the mist.

We spent the night at the 9th station to help get acclimated to the altitude. The accommodations are referred to as huts and they are about as primitive as the word implies. There are three hallways, each with about 6 bunks, so 12 total. Inside each bunk eight people sleep shoulder to shoulder. We were assigned pillows 4 and 5 in a top bunk. The bunks are only as wide as 8 pillows so there are hooks everywhere to hang backpacks and clothing. Since it had been pouring when we arrived all of our and our bunk mates wet clothes were hanging above us all night. Neither the bunks or the restroom (which smelled like cat litter) are gender segregated. Lights out is at 8pm and they are turned back on at 1am so people can get ready and hike up to the top in time for sunrise. As Rachel and I laid there, shoulder to shoulder, wondering if we were going to actually fall asleep at lights out, the woman to her right started to snore and the man two pillows down from me started to loudly mouth breathe. Despite all of that, I slept pretty soundly.

9th station hut hallway.

Our bunk with Rachel next to my pillow.

We had already decided we weren't going to try to reach the summit in the dark, the trail was just too steep and rocky and the weather to lousy to make it worth it. We headed out around 5:15am and made it to the top by about 7am. It turned out to be pretty clear between the clouds passing over us. I enjoyed a hot cup o' noodle, we snapped some pictures at the summit and then headed home.

Heading to the summit in my winter clothes.

The view when the clouds parted.

The top!

Looking down at the trail.

The outside of the 9th station, it was built into the mountain side.

When I used the vivid color setting on the camera the landscape made me think of Mars.

It took us roughly 6 hrs to climb and about 3.5 hrs to descend Mt Fuji. I believe Rachel and I tackled the mountain with our self respect intact. At no time did either of us stop, bend over, gasp for air and let off a string of expletives – this was not the case for everyone. I think the saying holds true – I'm glad I did it once but I don't ever intend to do it again.

Japanese word of the day: Sawanobori

What? Two outdoor-themed posts in one day?!?

Like the last story, this one starts with an e-mail, except this time it was from Yuri Mazuka, the organizer of the Climbing Club at the RIKEN AICS (Advanced Institute for Computational Science). I've never been to AICS (they pronounce it "ikes", as in Mike & Ikes), but it's just one Portliner stop away from CDB. She was inviting people to come along on a "sawanobori" (沢登り) event. In the e-mail (which had Japanese and English sections), she translated it "shower climbing (hiking along a mountain stream)." A hike along a mountain stream sounded like a nice idea.

We met at 8:00am at the JR Namaze station, just north of Takarazuka, and climbed through some neighborhoods to the place where the trailhead was supposed to be. As you can see, there was some healthy debate about exactly where we were going, initially.

We started off hiking on a trail, but then when we reached the river people took off their backpacks and started getting out special river shoes. Then I realized that "along" was not quite the preposition she wanted -- we were hiking in the river.

In some places, we couldn't really follow the river as well:

Fortunately, we were able to go around the obstacles.

I hadn't realized this, but Takarazuka (much like Ithaca) is gorges:

Eventually the water ran out, and we were just climbing a dry riverbed. This is when we started to realize how hot it actually was -- being knee-to-ankle deep in cold water makes the summer temperatures a lot easier to take, while it lasts.

When we reached the top, Yamamoto-san opened up his (suspiciously-large) backpack and pulled out a styrofoam cooler filled with dry ice and ice cream. No kidding. Apparently the climbing club has a budget from the RIKEN Kyosaikai (Mutual Benefit Society) and he used it to get ice cream for everybody. The only thing better than ice cream on a hot day is completely unanticipated ice cream on a hot day.

While we were hiking along the ridge, we came across this thing on top of a hill overlooking Takarazuka:

People were referring to it as a hanshaban and talking animatedly about it as if it were something really cool. I asked what on earth a hanshaban is; the Japanese answer was far above my skill level and the English answer was something along the lines of "ummm.... Han. Sha. Ban. Get it?"

I took a picture of the sign so I could google it when I got home. I'm not 100% sure, but I think this thing is a reflective (hansha = 反射) plate (ban = 板) that is used as part of a passive relay system for super-high frequency radio communications. Apparently they're used a lot in mountainous areas where it's hard to get the uninterrupted line-of-sight that you need for microwave radio relay links. This one is owned by the Hankyu rail company and apparently has something to do with transmitting signals between Takarazuka station and the neighboring stations. This explanation, alas, is far above my Japanese skill level.

After that, we hiked back down on dry ground:

We passed a little temple in the woods where Mazuka-san rang the bell for us.

There are more pictures and an incredibly detailed down-to-the-minute itinerary of the trip on the climbing club's website.

Pasayten Wilderness

It has taken me a while to write this post. This has nothing to do with writer's block or difficult content or anything like that. Ironically it's because I've had extra time -- Quinn and Gus have been in the US for the last few weeks and I've been here in Japan by myself. Instead of having extra time for all of the little things I usually put off, though, I've blown off the little things completely and just spent a whole lot of time at work.

Back on July 11th, the three of us flew from Osaka to Seattle to begin some much-needed vacation. It was Gus's first time meeting my parents. The trip involved another first -- Quinn and I leaving Gus with other people so we could have an evening together. Hopefully we'll be able to have a date night next summer too. We also ate a lot of Mexican food while we were in Washington. On the 17th, Quinn and Gus left for the East Coast to spend some time with her family.

What did I do? Back in 1992, I went on a 60-ish-mile backpacking trip in the Pasayten Wilderness with a bunch of guys from church (and some intrepid adult leaders). It was one of those formative adolescent character-building ordeals that people talk about, and I'm confident I didn't appreciate it properly at the time. It also rained the whole week. Anyway, early this year one of the former kids (Keith Dyer) sent out a message on Facebook inviting anybody he could reach to come back and do it again for a 21-year reunion. I debated for a while, and decided to go for it.

The cast of characters:

Keith Dyer, our fearless inviter.

His big brother Duffy Dyer, making good use of a lightweight folding chair. I didn't even tell him to do the Japanese-girl peace sign; he just instinctively knew it would be a good idea.

Stefan Gehring.

Kirk White. The 1992 trip was his idea, so he takes responsibility for all the consequences.

Dan Dickson. He's not really smiling in this picture, because he was sick pretty much the entire time, with no clear idea why. He definitely gets toughness points for keeping up despite it all, though. Don't ask me what toughness points are actually useful for.

Brandon Parker.

...and I almost forgot about me!

We hiked along ridges...

...and in forests...

...and through fields...

...and over talus...

... and occasionally on snow.

The accommodations were pretty nice...

We always had water available...

Although sometimes we didn't find a place to stay until after dark.

Some sections of the trail were better-maintained than others...

...and sometimes we had to improvise.

It's not every day, though, that you feel like you're literally on top of the world.

After the journey was over, of course, we replenished our strength with hamburgers. Last time it was McDonalds (remember, we were 12); this time we stopped at a hole-in-the-wall place (the name was "Good Food") in a small town we drove through on the way home.

They even had outdoor seating!