Weekend plan: Climb Fuji-san
Ah, the first weekend in Japan.
Hardly one to waste such free time we’d made plans.
- Friday, we dance
- Saturday, we rest
- Sunday, we climb Fuji-san
About going out in Japan I can, so far, be brief: I’ve only gone to the wrong places so far. The music was poor, the girls were poor and the only thing that made it quite an enjoyable evening was that I was out with my friends. Now, as for the second point on that list, let me explain: They don’t speak enough english (or I don’t speak enough Japanese) to get a nice flirtation going and the girls that go out in the places I’ve visited dress up like an exagerated version of the wests’ 14 year old innocent sluts. They are in fact 20+ (or so I assume) but they dress and act like they’ve bought their first make-up box last week. From the street, the centre and 1 girl at the club I am now fairly certain that it was indeed the venue and there are interresting girls to be found here (and if I’m lucky they’ll wear about the same amount of clothing 
). But, I had a good time and I wasn’t the one carted away in an ambulance with alcohol poisoning, so I guess I didn’t have too good a time.
While saturday was a day for rest, this could only start at around 3 as I had plans before. 10″30 at akihabara station. I thought I was feeling rather well for having 3 hours sleep. Oh, I should note that I was up at friday from 5 a.m. to watch the typhoon (which was wicked I may add) and saw my bed again 25 hours later. So after 3′ish hours sleep I thought I did rather well. We browsed for a laptop and a translator. I’ve made my pick on the translator but I need some more time on the laptop. Being in a foreign country I’m not getting info at a pace I’m used to and one shouldn’t rush these things. We also made our final preparations for Fuji-san. That is to say: we went to the place to buy bus tickets and we thought that would be preparation enough.
It was, as we found out that in the off-season the first bus leaves at 8 (depositing us at the start of the hike at 11:30) and the last bus back leaves at 4. With an average time spent reaching the top and returning of 7.5 hours this compicated things. So, we decided to suspend the adventure till next week when we would make a weekend of it, and we would be able to properly do it as EVERY guidebook only mentions going there for the sunrise, which requires 2 days anyway. Thought it is entirely possible to ascend and descend in the same day it wasn’t described anywhere. Oh well, that’s for next week then. Let’s see if the weather clears shall we.
Sunday we went to Nikko (like the radio controlled cars, yes). I’ll leave it to the wikipedia link to explain what goes on there and I’ll tell my story as soon as I get a laptop and upload the pictures. As I can now rabble on on how nice the temples were and that a sleeping kitty gets a disproportinate amount of attention. But without direct references to what I’m talking about that’s rather a weak story. Suffice to say that we had a lot of fun, were introduced in the principles of buddhism, shinto buddhism to be exact. Made picturtes, had our shoes stolen and returned (damn you, evil monkey spirits), walked and walked, paid respect to our ancestors (or recently deceased dogs), ate well, got on the wrong train back, ate remarkably well and did other stuff which is probably important to mention. But I won’t for reasons I will keep entirely to myself.
On the food” I had my first sashumi, and it is delicious. It’s a shame it’s so expensive or I would be eating it every day. Raw fish delicious . . . . go figure. And I’m not talking about sushi either. One should be ashamed of wrapping such succulent goodness in rice.
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Quote of the day:
Before god we are all equally wise, and equally Foolish
A. Einstein
and act like they’ve bought their first make-up box last week…
I’m in my 20-ish and I don’t even own a make-up box, so why would it be weird they might have bought their first last week :p Don’t most Asians rarely do make-up?
I don’t know about most asians but
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&q=Harajuku+girl
is the current fashion here
Truth be told. That’s not what most Japanese women look like. Though those that do stand out more.
But it’s true, most Japanese women get by on accenting rather than plastering. That’s why it was such a shock . . . . and due to the plaster, not a good one. If they’d gone for some nice cos-play thing. Maybe I’d've dug it, but since it seems to be mindless drywalling of the face . . . . . it just has that “14-year old and just found my mothers make-up kit” look to it, you know what I mean?