Silver Week

We had another crazy weekend, followed up by an amazing nature-filled trip so this is going to be a loooooong one. Sorry for saving it all up!

Our weekend-o-adventure: Jim from Obira, and his girlfriend, Emily, came to stay with us on Saturday. We had snacks and some sake and the guys got haircuts. Then we had some curry at one of our favorite restaurants, Zion Curry. This place has some delicious spicy curry and great Rasta-inspired decor, along with a continuously-playing drumming video. Dave joined the four us and so the party began. As we payed for our meal we noticed a poster advertising a Reggae event at All Genres Bar (the one with the trance music). We laughed and asked the waitress more about it and she made a dancing motion. We were sold. Back at our place we did some more damage to the sake and strategized. Ping-pong was first on our list, so we got fired up with a little healthy competition. Once we started hitting each other with the ball more than the table, it was time to move on. Our next stop, before we lost our nerve was All Genre's Bar.

At the bar, we were greeted by half a dozen patrons and some loud reggae/hiphop music. We got our beers and took over the dance floor. Everyone in our group was cutting loose while the japanese patrons stared. A few of them were dancing too, so I took it upon myself to instigate a dance-off. Obviously I won, but it was a good battle that involved a lot of stepping, swaying, gyrating, thrashing, and a LOT of sweating. Since I burned most of the calories I ate that day and then some I called for food as we left the bar. We walked around the bar area looking for something open. A ramen shop looked closed but the lights were on so we stared into the windows until they gave us the OK sign and let us in. I don't really remember what happened after that except for a bowl of delicious pork ramen, a lot of laughing, and Jim falling asleep. Somehow we made it home and Don made us all take 3 Advil with some water before bed. The next day we woke up, made a breakfast feast, and then went to play park golf. Don got a hole-in-one, and Dave got a ball-in-ocean. Don't worry, the ball was saved.

Our nature-trip: So, this week we had a few days off and decided to head over to the largest national park in Japan, Daisetsuzan, and check out the tallest mountain in Hokkaido, Asahidake. Dave came with us and provided the necessary comic relief. We headed out east in our new-old Honda Civic (named Betty), from Rumoi very early Monday morning. After some successful navigating we found ourselves in the middle of beautiful mountains, lakes, and traffic. Evidently, everyone else in Hokkaido had our same idea, but we kept cool and eventually parked, bought gondola tickets, and carbo-loaded for our hike. Despite the number of people, everything ran really smoothly and I kept thinking to myself "if this was happening in New York . . ." So the gondola is is like a giant bubble that holds about 100 people and carries them silently up the beautiful mountain side. During the ride you can see for miles in either direction and the looming Mount Asahidake ahead. On the hillsides the leaves were changing and the bright white birch trunks stood out against the greens, reds, and oranges. Even though we like to be proud and say that we climbed this giant volcanic mountain, the gondola actually did most of the work. We got off, took one look at the giant mountain, and decided that come hell or high water we would make it to the top. The path was rocky and gravelly and there were vents a hundred feet away spewing sulfurous fumes. Somehow Dave was able to gallop upwards while Don and trudged. A few times I thought about abandoning ship, my back hurt, my legs hurt, breathing wasn't as satisfying as it normally is, but Don kept encouraging me and once we were more than halfway, I decided it was best to finish. I also felt like an giant wimp for even considering giving up when I saw 60 and 70-year-olds coming down from the top with smiles on their faces. At the top it was absolutely breathtaking and serene. The Earth actually looked round and the effect of being taller than everything else was dizzying. Mount Asahidake is an active volcano that at 2,300 meters is the tallest peak in all of Hokkaido. It was amazing and humbling and terrifying. Unfortunately we had to go all the way back down so we ate our prize for finishing (some dried fruit) and headed back down. Walking strenuously downhill might not be hard on your muscles but it does a number on your knees and feet. Again Dave, who I'm thinking might be part mountain goat, zoomed and skipped downward and ended up waiting about half an hour for us. I tried his running approach for about 5 seconds until I fell and slid on my butt. I contemplated just sliding the whole way (but there were giant boulders in the way) using Don as a sherpa, or calling for a helicopter. This sounds silly, but anyone who has hiked a steep downhill area for over an hour knows what I'm talking about. Eventually we made it back down and Don rung some bell to announce it and we walked a little trail on our way back to gondola. We spotted some wild foxes, smelled some berries, bought hot tea in a can, used toilets with bacteria that digest the human waste, and headed back down to our car and hopefully a clean warm hotel room. We stayed in a ryokan, a traditional guesthouse, and it was crowded so we didn't get the okay to use the bath and shower until very late but we were already half-asleep in bed. The next day we had to explore Asahikawa, second biggest city in Hokkaido.

The most famous attraction here is the zoo. It was made popular by a Japanese movie, but I don't know the name of it. We got suckered into paying for parking 100 yards away from the free parking lot. Oh well. Since this is the holiday week, there were lines to see certain things. Yes, lines. At the zoo. It was pretty typical as zoos go. A couple of cool things: an all glass tunnel that goes through the penguin pool, a giant outdoor open-air trapeze for an orangutan that ended up throwing a ball into the crowd and hitting a little girl on the head while we watched, a few bubble-dome things that popped up in the polar bear and wolf habitats so that you could get a prey's view of the animal. Many of the large animals seemed sleepy and bored, and I don't want to get into the reason I don't normally ever go to zoos, but a little excitement came when a lion that was chilllaxing in the grass let out a roar that gave me goosebumps and shivers. If I was in the jungle and heard that I would definitely need new underwear.

After the zoo we did some exploring and shopping and commenting on the large number of gambling joints. There were some cool shops and a giant used-goods store with everything from musical instruments to tires to snowboards to clothes. We ended the night with some very-bad-for-you fast food and headed home. Definitely a city we will go back to. As so ends this long post. Hope you enjoyed reading it and hope you enjoy the slideshow. There are some really funny videos. I promise not to write so much next time!