Kyoto, aka The Land of Sweat

So, I dug up these old gems and realized I hadn't posted them yet. There's one more conclusion post in the works (I've been back from Japan for a week) and then it's onto blogging about adventures in outdoor education! Enjoy:

“We can sleep when we’re back home.”

Kayaking on the Izu Peninsula: left base at 5 am

Climbing Mount Fuji: left base at 2 am

Exploring Kyoto: left base at 4:45 am

So much for relaxing on the weekends.

For our last (!) weekend in Japan, five of us opted to explore Japan’s historic former capital. After catching an early commuter train headed for Shinagawa, we transferred lines to ride Japan’s ever-so-famous bullet train. It was probably the closest I will ever come to flying first class. The legs on my 5’10” frame had space to breathe, the chairs were squishy and comfy, and the windows allowed  you to have a decent view of the landscape without having to awkwardly crane your neck. And, needless to say, the train was FAST.

 

A mere two hours later, we stepped from our wonderfully air conditioned bubble into the hottest weather known to mankind. After consulting with the tourist information desk at the train station, we set off for a bike rental shop, ready to take on Kyoto with everything we had. (Considering how much we sweated over the course of the day, we didn’t have very much of anything. Especially body fluids.) We handed the bike rental man some cash,  he handed us some bikes and some water bottles, and we rode our helmet-less, waiver-less, direction-less selves over to the orange torii gates of Kyoto. Many stops for help later, we arrived to what is probably my favorite site in Japan. Rows upon rows of orange gates with black kanji insprictions lined the hills, creating walking tunnels which hid small little shrines and memorials in the forest. It’s honestly one of those places that can’t be described—you really have to be there in person to truly experience it.

250 yen ice cream and the world’s smallest salad later, we weaved our bikes in and out of sidewalk traffic (aint no bike lanes in Japan, or if there are any, cars hog them) to find the Nijo castle and the imperial palace gardens. Forget the historical sites, trying not to hit every living person that came across my path was an adventure enough. It was like Davis on steroids.

Day 2 brought us to the bamboo forest, which was similar to the torii gates in the sense in that it totally enveloped you in an awe-inspiring sort of way. On the other hand, everyone and their mother wanted to see the Golden Pavilion, which, for me, slightly diminished the awe factor of being near a building leafed in gold. Still, it was a good item to check off the Kyoto sight-seeing list, and I’m glad we saw it before we made our way to our final stop of the weekend: the Gion district, famously home to the geishas of Japan. As amazing as I’m sure this area of Kyoto is, our travel group was far too tired to explore beyond a few side streets. A fruitless search for a glimpse of a geisha yielded no results and an angry policeman, so we made our way back to the station on a crowded bus, bursting into choruses of “gomenezi”s and fits of giggles when I dripped elbow sweat on a poor elderly Japanese women. (Yes, it was hot enough to have elbow sweat. If you didn’t know that existed, you’re welcome.)

 

All in all, Kyoto was a fantastic finale weekend to a wonderful 10 weeks in Japan. I’ll have one more entry summing up my greatest loves in Japan, and then it’s on to blogging about my new adventures in outdoor education in the mountains of Southern California!

War and Peace

Short version: I love camp people.

Long version: For the last three (!) weeks of camp, all 40 of us Yokosuka Camp A staff are engaged in SOCK WARS. At our last staff meeting, we picked our targets from a bag of names, and our PCs gave us the following guidelines: To kill your target, you must thow a sock at them. For this “kill” to be valid, you and your target must be alone, and not at work. Once you have assassinated your target, you aquire their target, and so on, down to the last two remaining counselors.

As I unfolded my piece of paper, I smiled, seeing the name of my gym buddy, the one friend I was alone with the most often. However, getting the opportunity to throw a sock at her turned out to be harder than I thought. The gym is full of people, we work all day together, and, conviniently, everyone hangs out in her room after work. Since the game started, I’ve carried around a bundled up sock in my backpack/purse, waiting for an opportune moment that never seemed to come. But one night, after a Sandlot movie night in the lifeguard lounge, we walked back to the TPU to find her room empty. Adreneline started pumping through my body. Now was my chance! But I had to be schneeky. So I walked down the hall a bit, towards my room. Then I stuck my head back in her door. “Oh, what time did you want to go workout tomorrow?” She opened her mouth to answer, I reached into my bag, and threw the sock at her face! Except I didn’t realize it was attached to my phone. So I threw my phone at her face too. “IT WAS YOU!” Her eyes widened, not even noticing the phone, just the fact that I had eliminated her from the game. “Who’s your target? Who’s your target?” She nodded toward the laundry room across the hall. During my glorious kill, my target’s target had walked into the empty laundry room. “In there? Hold on a second.”

Second target, destroyed.

As repentance for my murderous ways, I took part in a memorial service for beetles. Yes, beetles. One of my friends had purchased a pair of beetles from a vendor in Tokyo, who warned her that if they were left together, their desire to make beetle babies would be so great that they would die from the increased heart rate involved in such activities. As it turns out, a piece of cardboard was not strong enough to stop the love of these two magnificant creatures, and they died mere days after their purchase. A group of us gathered outside our housing at night to celebrate their short lives together, saying a few well-chosen words for the beetles we barely even knew, all while a navy man looked on in utter bewilderment.

Just a day in the life of 40 camp counselors living together for 10 weeks.

Just Another Day at the Office

Overheard at the pool by me and my fellow lifeguards:

“I’m pretending to be a horned pig!”

“I farted underwater and saw the bubbles!”

“I haven’t farted yet today.”

“Vagina. That’s right, I said it, vagina.” (Said by 7 year-old girls)

“It’s already a massive hernia, and I don’t want it to explode…I think the lifeguard heard that.”

“Why do you look so happy, Mrs. Lifeguard? You should come in the water. I’ll tell all the other kids to get out so you don’t have to watch them.”

“Today we’re going to review our expectations. Can anyone tell me another word for expectations?” “Ketchup!”

I smiled at two 6 year-old boys when they made dinosaur noises as they walked by my lifeguard chair. Then, thinking they were out of earshot, one turned to other and said, “the pool is a great place to meet girls.”

6 year-old boy: "I like to play video games!"

Me: "What kind of video games?"

"VIOLENT video games!"

"Oooh, what else do you like to do?"

"I like to put my face in cake."

Friends Indeed

Once a year, the naval bases at Ikego and Yokosuka open their gates to the Japanese public, where they can play carnival games, eat American food, and dance to live music. The Camp Adventure staff helps run the games (while getting paid a whopping $9/hour!), so I got to be a part of the whole “meeting of cultures” experience.

Each of the American staff worked a game with a Japanese citizen, who acted as an interpreter for the many participants who spoke only Japanese. (While all Japanese students are required to study English, many adults do not retain the knowledge. Kind of like most US adults and their high school Spanish.) Most of my coworkers spoke no English at all, so we amused ourselves by trying to win grand prizes on our own games. (We failed.) One, however, spoke some broken English, which resulted in a pleasant conversation. When I answered the question “Where are you from?” with “California,” his face lit up, and he continued to smile when I told him it was my first time in Japan. Nearly every Japanese person I’ve talked with has asked me if it is my first visiting the country, and they are always so excited to hear about all the exploring and adventuring I’ve done. They truly want visitors to experience everything they can about their homeland, as indicated by their frequent urgings to “enjoy.” At the end of the workday, my Japanese friend found me and bowed, thanking me for working and talking with him. So much gratitude for a 5 minute conversation.

Outside of the carnival booths, more friendships formed over the smallest of shared experiences. My personal favorite: For about two hours, a live band covered top 40 pop songs while a group of fifteen elderly Japanese women called the “Sparkling Spurs” performed line dance steps for the crowd. Picture the Electric Slide performed to “Low.” As in, “apple bottom jeans and boots with the fur” Low. Incredibly intriguing, absolutely hilarious. The music played on, and soon others joined in on the dancing, including a little two year-old boy, who spun and jumped around to the beat as if his life depended on it. One of the Sparkling Spurs branched off from her dance steps to groove with this little boy, forming the unlikeliest of friendships. Meanwhile, the lead singer of the band rocked out to Shakira’s “Waka Waka” and mingled in the crowd, stopping to dance with various people. I stopped for a second to take it in: a Japanese-American singer dancing with an African American woman while performing a song written by a Colombian woman, all while an old Japanese woman danced with a American baby boy. On a military base. To top it off, a fairly accurate Michael Jackson impersonator closed the musical acts for the day, wowing the crowd with his ultra slick dance moves and quick costume changes. A day full of happy encounters, that’s for sure.

It was wonderful to be a part of these unexpected interactions, and strange to think back and know that Friendship Day wouldn’t have happened a certain points in history, especially at an event sponsored by an American military instillation. Friends indeed.

Oh, Julia Child WISHES

Flashback to 2007. Moving into J Building dorms at UC Davis, with a microwave and mini fridge in my room, along with a tiny kitchen with an oven on the bottom floor of the building. Back to the present. Moving into the dorm-like Transient Personnel Unit (TPU) in Yokosuka, Japan. Subtract the tiny kitchen on the bottom floor. And that is the extent of my cooking tools. So what’s a pseudo-chef to do?

Improvise.

The Camp A staff has come up with some pretty creative ways to cook with only a microwave and a refrigerator. Veteran staff members brought items like magic bullets to make hummus and salsa, leaving those of us lacking the foresight to bring such things content to merely mooch. PB and J sandwiches get old pretty fast (yes, even for me) so my dinners have diversified to minute microwaved brown rice mixed with cheese, pre-cooked chicken strips, and seasoning salts. Muddy buddies (peanut butter, chocolate chips, and butter melted together and poured over chex cereal, then doused with powdered sugar) have become a favorite snack, as has the mixing of five different cereals into one tiny tupperware.

But my all time favorite oven-less dorm dish?

Cake. My roommate had a birthday earlier this month, complete with friends, presents, and cake. No, it was not cake batter that we pretended was a baked cake. Actual cake. So how does one make a cake without an oven? Like so: crumble up Chips Ahoy cookies, mix in peanut butter and melted marshmallows, mold into a cake-like shape, cover with choclate frosting, and you’re done. Some of my roommate’s friends surprised her with this very concotion, and it was quite delicious. Once we’d had our share, we offered it to the rest of the “dorm” hall, and, needless to say, it was gone within minutes.

A challenge to my dozens and dozens of readers out there: find a dish that you believe impossible to make with just a microwave, and I will see if I can find a way. No raw meats, please. :) I only get to eat off base every so often during the week, so I need more interesting non-Japanese food in my life. 

Kids Know

Ever since I began working with kids, their awareness of the world around them has continued to amaze me. Not only are they much smarter than most people give them credit for, they also pick up on the tiniest details of conversations and remember them forever. And then they’ll blurt them back to you at the most inconvinient of times.

Case in point #1: Before every hour of swim lessons, we sing camp songs to the kids in our classes and then review behavior expectations. We introduce every song with a short little story, which we generally make up on the spot. I think there’s an unspoken competition between all of us to see who can come up with the most ridiculous story. Example: “Yesterday I was swimming in the ocean by my favorite beach, when suddenly I saw a whole family of sharks. There were baby sharks, momma sharks, and grandpa sharks. I tried to swim away, but they kept swimming after me. Then I sang this song, and then I escaped.” *Cue the camp song “Baby Shark”*

Most kids in the lesson stared at Mr. Sierra in wide-eyed  amazement as he told the story, looking at him like he was some sort of world-famous shark fighter. Then, one kid who couldn’t have been older than six blurted out, “THAT’S JUST A STORY!” Us counselors looked at each other and snorted, trying to cover up our laughter. We feel so ridiculous telling these stories every day, and we often wonder how kids believe us. Apparently some of them don’t.

Case in point #2: It was my turn to lead songs on Friday, so in celebration of the day we sang a little diddly called “Party.” After singing, (“paaaaarty! (make sure your momma knows) paaaaarty! (so she will let you go)”) a small child raised their hand and commented, “but you shouldn’t party too hard, otherwise you won’t remember anything.”

A word to the wise.

Climbing Fuji, brb

“A wise person hikes Fuji once, but the person who hikes Fuji more than once is a fool.”

I apparently have a lot of wisdom now. Here’s what I learned:

Prepare, prepare, prepare

Being the former girl scout that I am, I already knew the value of being well prepared for any adventure, especially an outdoor one (in a foreign country, I might add.) Our group of thirteen Camp Adventure staff attended a safety briefing by the Outdoor Recreation center on base, rented high ankle hiking boots and gators, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and bought an insane number of Gatorade bottles. We needed all of it. After our hike, we encountered a group of Camp A staff from another base in western Japan who were about to start the climb, and let’s just say I’m glad I was not in their shoes. Literally. They wore running shoes (one had brand new Nike shocks); most had cotton ankle socks and cotton t-shirts. As it turns out, they didn’t have an outdoor rec center to help them like we did, so they planned everything themselves. From now on, I will never be afraid to ask for help from experts, even for activities like hiking that I’ve done countless times before.

Adrenaline is more powerful than sleep

After a day of lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons, it was time for commissary shopping, showering, roommate’s birthday dinner, packing and schnack making. In bed at 23:30 (look at me and my military time!), up at 1:00 am to make it to the bus at outdoor rec by 1:30. Start hiking at 5:30, ascend at 10:30, off the mountain by 16:00, leave Fuji at 19:00, back to base by 22:30. In case you skipped over that, it basically translates to NO SLEEP. Still, I wasn’t physically tired or sore until nearly two days after the climb. Yay endorphins!

When someone tells you to buy a Fuji stick, just buy a Fuji stick

Before hiking Fuji, you have the option of purchasing a “Fuji stick,” a long wooden pole used to aid your climb up the mountain. As you ascend, you can stop at one of the many huts on the mountain to rest, buy food, and, for the lovely price of 200 yen each, get a stamp burned into your stick. It is the ambition of many a hiker to collect the unque stamps from every hut, which totals to a pretty penny in the end. I initially dismissed the stick as a cheap tourist ploy, and waivered for a while before finally deciding to buy one. Cheap tourist ploy? Hardly. 300 meters from the top, as I anchored the base of my stick on a rock above me and pulled myself up on pure brute force and the stability of the stick, I had never been more pleased with a $10 purchase (and that category includes a half ironman race registration and a river rafting trip!)

(Side note: I didn’t end up getting all the stamps, but I did get enough to make my stick look pretty cool. I took picutres of my stick in sections, and lacking any sort of photo editing program, could not stitch them together. Sorry, photographer friends. See below.)

  

I will never be the most hardcore person on earth

I finished a half ironman, I can climb a mountain. I finished a half ironman, I can climb a mountain. I relied on a ton of mantras and songs to get me through some of the more difficult aspects of the climb, and eventually I began to feel like a pretty legitimate, intense mountain climber . I finished a half ironman, I can climb a mountain. I finished a half ironman, I can…OH HEY OLD JAPANESE MAN. As I leaned exhaustedly on my stick, forcing my lungs to find some air at 12,000 feet, a skinny 60 year-old Japanese man RAN by me UP THE MOUNTAIN. Nothing lowers your self esteem like a man three times your age absolutely kicking your butt. And then having him and his friends run by you again on the way down through loose gravel six feet deep, while you slip and fall ever-so-gracefully on your bum.

There really is 1 vending machine for every 12 people in Japan.

There was one at the top of Mount Fuji.

Sometimes writing can’t capture an experience

Climbing Mount Fuji definitely ranks among the more physically demanding things I’ve done in my life. For all you Davis tri kids out there, it was like hiking up the steepest part of Mix, pretty much all the time. It took us, the first group of Camp A staff, 5 hours (with breaks) to climb 5 miles with an elevation gain from 7700 ft to 12,388 ft. I sweated gallons and gallons, yanked myself up rock faces with a skinny little stick, and fooled myself into thinking I still had oxygen. But I was happy the entire time. Reaching the top was a remarkable experience (despite the cloud cover), and I was with the best people possible. We remained relatively positive the entire way, stayed silly by calling ourselves “the wolfpack/the A team,” and relished in our peak fitness levels. I don’t know if I plan on becoming a fool, but if I ever return to Fuji, it will be to share it with new people, perhaps on a sunrise hike. And I will definitely have to wait until the route up the mountain is erased from my mind.