Fuji Rock Festival and being ghetto

me and shiv have many similarities, one of them is that we love rock music, and have been wanting to go to fuji rock since we were both in junior high. We both love the beastie boys (shiv loves their older stuff, i like their newer stuff) and we booked our tickets for FRF the same day that the beastie boys would be headlinig the event. coincidence, i think not!

So here is where the adventure begins. We let jan plan this tip because jan likes to be in control... i booked all of our transpotaion to and from the concert, but we i didnt book accomodations for 2 reasons. 1) we could probably find cheap accomodations if we needed to (its japan!!) we could stay in an internet cafe if need be. and 2) we are too cheap and ghetto to spend for hotels!!!hahah

so the trip to niigata from osaka was long, but we had a really nice bus so it was a classy trip all the way. we got to niigata, wich reminded us of edmonton for some strange reason. maybe the flatness, the lack of a down town core...hmm. But any way we got to nigatta and it was only 7pm. so we decided to keep on going, and try to get to echigo yuzawa. The main station before you get the shuttle bus to the concert. We got our tickets for the shinkansen bullet train!!! and away we went. The bullet train by the way was fantastic. It was full of genuine tokyo business men eating salty fish snacks peanuts and drinking beer. It was what dreams were made of. It couldnt have gotten any more japanesey in car #12 of that shinkansen!

We got to echigo yuzawa station, and luckily it was the FRF station we neede to be at. For a while we were scared that we had bouth tickets to the wrong station. but we saw the banners and we had finally made it. So next we decided we have to find a place to sleep. We went to the FRF info desk and asked if there was an internet cafe near by, and the lady said "no"
a hotel---NO
a ryokan--NO
is the train station open---NO
for real?? we were seriously with out a place to stay, the lady was genuinly concerned fot us and called every hotel and ryokan (inn) near by. they were either full, or charging about 7000 yen per person.
She couldnt seem to understand why we were still saying no to all of her efforts, at one point she offered to have us sty at her place.. for 3500 yen per person, wich is a deal for a ryokan, but not a deal for cheapsters like me and shiv!

So we decided, hmmm either we can 1) walk this small deserted mountain town till the AM then take the shuttle to the concert or 2) go to the concert, be with the people and see what happens.
we chose #2 and got on the next shuttle for naeba ski resort, where the festival was being held.

This story is starting to sound like a choose your own adventure, but thats honestly what it was like the whole weekend.

we get to the ski resort and the town looks like a japanese version of jasper, quaint, but packed with people, tucked in the mountains. by the way osaka temperature is about 30 degrees and humid, and naeba temperature was about 17 degrees , no humidity, so a little chilly in comparison, and me and shiv only have on t shirts and have rain ponchos in my purse.

we decide to roam the town and look for a place to stay. after checking with about 20 places we start to feel like mary and joseph and relaizing there is no room at any inn for us. we have convinced our selves that we are about to be sleeping out side to night, when we see a bunch of earthy peeps going into this one ryokan. so we follow. and the man says sorry no vacancy...but we have showers for 500 yen... hmmm
what do we do 1) sleep outside 2) sleep in the shower alnight
we take his information and decide to get a cp noodle and think about it, on our way to the cup noodle we saw another ryokan with more shifty charachters, so we followed them.
Lucky for us we were greeted by a really drunk japanese lady that said something to the effect of. "this place is really nice, hot water..."
the door guy must have felt bad for us and gave us a coupon. we decided to stay at this place. it was a 24 hr onsen, so you can sleep in the water, or come to a common tatami room and pass out.

One thing about japan that is great is that there are so many people, it is basically written, that there will be some one in your very same perdicament. so we sat, ate our cup noodle, sat in the onsen, slept under the brigt lights on the tatani (in 1/2 hr spurts). The place was really full, and the lights were blaring so you couldnt really sleep, but it was nice to just lay down. we didnt have any blankets so we slept on our onsen towels. this ghetto ness would be the theme of our trip. i love it!

The next day we woke up nice and early, had a big breakfast of tonkatsu curry and headed to get some snack and then to the festival.
Fuji rock festival was worth every penny. it was in a valley that was intricatly decorated to look like a forest wonderland. disco balls in the tress, 7 music stages, tons of resturants, shops etc.. it was grand. even the rocks in the streams had been painted bright colors and had googly eyes on them.

The bands we saw were :hige, motion sity sound track, kula shaker, kaiser cheifs, !!!, lilly allen, feist , iggy pop and the beastie boys. My faves were feist, lilly allen, !!! and the beastie boys. !!! did an awesome performance that me and shiv try to reinact on a daily basis. check youtube for !!! in concert, you;ll see what we mean.

great day, but the night was coming and we had to make it back to echigo yuzawa station in order to get the 1st shinkansen back to nigatta so that we could make out bus back to osaka. phew!!

we took the shutte bus back to echigo, and tried to find a place to sleep, but echigo is way more dead that naeba. so we decided to follow people to see where they were sleeping/going. aftter many failed attemepts at following people, we decided to sleep in the park. we found a nice little park, it even had a foot onsen bath. we snuggled up on the park bench, covered our selvesin out towels and rain jacket and tried to get some sleep. Shiv fell asleep fast, but i remained awake, sort of like the muma bird i guess. well it was funny because as the time went by, more and more vagrants from the festival ended up finding a parkbench and falling asleep in the park. we were really homeless and ghetto, it was nuts.

so I finally drifted og to sleep, only to be awoken at about 3 am by a bright lfash light in my face. AHHH!!! was it the cops, no it was the fuji rock staff!. I was so excited, he was saying" sumimasen (exuse me) you cannot sleep in the residential areas of echigo" and i got so excited. I though he was going to take us to a fuji rock sleeping area, maybe even a ryokan.

But no... he took us back to JR echigo yuzawa station. he rounded up every one from the park, put them in a van and drove them to the station. me and shiv were laughing, and crying inside a little...

so the station alreadt had people sleeping there from the concert. so we picked a nice little place on the sidewalk, put down out plastic bag ( that had been carrying our garbage) laid down on it, used our towels as pillows and slept till morning.
so ghetto, so good.

the rest of the trip was luxury, nice bus and good food all the way to osaka. but after this trip, i will never look at my futon the same way, ever again.

FESTIVAL TIME!!!!

its summer and that means it time to go crazy and get sweaty. Osaka, has alot of festivals in the summer and they pretty much all include floats, costumes, drums and sake. we went to a nieghbourhood festival in bentencho. it was really nice, lots of dancing, drums and food stalls. The stalls sell every thing from eels, baby crab pets, rubber balls, tacoyaki, french fries. slushie cups, hello kitty parepheniliea and pet frogs. I so understand why japanese kids aren't afriad of insects. Its because from a young age bugs are treated like toys. In all of the "carnival games" you can win either toys or creepy crawlies. no aminal right here people. there was a "game" i kid you not. you have to stab the eel with a stake and if you "get it", you get to keep it. crazy heh? so kids just see beetles and spiders like a toy, fort of like a moving action figure. its crazy. here are some pics from the big gion matsuri in kyoto, we called in sick for this one, the tenjin matsuri, and the bentencho matsuri. xoxox

Climbing Mt Fuji! (july 19th-20th)

so a japanese quote about mt fuji goes a little something like this..

" a wise man climbs fuji once, a fool does it twice"

And i belive this quote is very true. On July 19th and 20th me and shiv set out to climb Mt fuji. I dont think he magnitude of what we were abotu to do, hit us untill be were about 1-2 hrs into the hike. We are so glad we did it, and heres a little recap of our adventure.

So, we go to the 5th station, in our bus. the 5th station is about 2700m up, and you are well in/over the cloud level. I went to the bathroom a few times, because im known for my small bladder, then we went upstairs to change and have a lunch before we set out on the hike. While in the tourist shop we ran into some other climbers in our group. they happened to be from calgary, and some other peeps on the climb were from toronto and georgia. small world.

The small lunch was not small at all, It was a hearty udon souo, tempura, rice, chicken kaarage, meat, and other typical japanese lunch bits. very filling , very good. Before lunch we had gone into separate mens and womens changing quaters to change. I didnt know exactly what to change into, so i slyly watched what the other women were doing, and followed suit. good work detective!

We started our climb at about 530 pm, and it was very easy, so beautiful and really relaxed. Our tour guide was keeping a super slow pace, that i only understood later on in the hike when i was so tired i could hardly walk. Our tour group consisited of about 30 people, about 6 gailjin and 24 japanese people. along the first part of the hike you could see "a peak" in the distance far up the mountain, but as we kept on walking, rest staion after rest station, i started to realize that this mounatin was so high, the peak just kept on going and going.

it was really hard to mentally prepare myself for fuji, because it just didnt end. It just kept on going, you have to be so positive, sing, smile,talk to your self, to push your self to finish. I was talking and singing in my head like a shizophrenic to keep my self focused on getting to the next rest staion, and then the next one.

As it got darker, we got to put on out head lights, a fun highlight to the trip. The terrian that we hike dup was not bad, it was not a hard hike by any means. Its the environment, that was challenging. It was the altitude and the nausea that really made the hike hard for me. I got really alitude sick, shiv felt a little nauseous. At first i thought it was all in my head, i pretty much refused to buy a 1500 yen cannister of oxygen. (what a waste i though!), but after feeling so sick and almost unable to stand, i thought maybe i might be lacking O2.

Altitude sickness felt (for me) like food poisoning. You stomach is churning like you are bad bad curry, and its so bad its making your head feel dizzy. I was walking at a slower than slow pace, and my heart was beating like i was running a marathon. Its the strangest feeling, that really makes you look at the people around you, the 60 and 70 yr old japanese seniors that are doing this hike, it makes you see everyone in a new light. like human machines,

Just getting to the next rest station was a big feat, shiv was motivating me the whole time, always staying positive and giving helpful hints about how to climb the course better. I looked at him and saw him in a whole new light too. he has really been preparing for this hike. and he was carrying way more weight ( camera equipment) than I was. Every time we had gone on a hike, he has always liked to carry his equipment, to make him self ready for fuji, and the uncomfortable nature of the hike. it paid of because he was able to hike, take photos and help my sorry buns up the mountain. go shiv!!!

We walked for what felt like 2 hrs, but what must have been 45 mins of so, then took a rest, and sat on the mountain. Sitting had never felt so good. I could just feel every muscle relaxing when i sat down at a rest station. catching my breath and just trying to breathe and relax my body was the most important thing for those 5-10 minutes we had.

A fond memory i have of fuji is gasping for air at one of the high rest stations, and seeing this japanese man smoking a cigarette beside me. here i am, unable to breathe 3000 m in the air, and here he is breathing and smoking. i could understand it. the human body is a magical thing.

We climbed from about 530 pm till about 1130 pm and then rested at a mountain hut. It was a really nice hut with warm bunk beds and a pack breakfast consisting of meat balls, rice and pickless. mmmm. I went to bed feeling like crap, and work up feeling a little less like crap. 3 hrs sleep had never felt so good, but i still had a bad case of altitude sickness. We started climbing and i was determined to be more positive than ever. My game plan was going really well till i had to stop and take a deep breath of air. Instead of yawning, i started puking all over the trail. I was so embarrased. time seemed to stand still, and i still could stop puking. i just remebr seeing head lights go past me.

A few minuted earlier, shiv had said he was going to go up front to the front of the pack to take some photos and that he would meet me when i caught up to him.
here is shivs recap; so i was at the front waiting for jan to walk past, i remeber seeing a japanese girl croched down at the back of the group and the I remeber hearing a tap. and i thought, "yeah!" they have running water up here, we can get a drink... and then it hit me, where is jan??? maybe jan was that japanese girl. AHHHH!!!!

so... after puking a few times and lindsay and john helping me get back on my feet i started the hike again. I was so dehydrathed from puking up all my food and water. my worst memory wa the hike leader asking me "dijobu??(are you ok??)" and me saying "yeah" and then puking continuously.

So i caught up with shiv, and he was in shock that i was the puking japanese girl. I felt like crap, but i was determined to finish this hike. the rest of the way up was pure concentration and positivity. that last grind was probably the hardest thing ive ever done. We got to the top at about 4 am, and the cheer, happiness and the overall amazing vibe at the top was enought to bring you to tears. climbing fuji is not a competitiion. its an experience. People share in this cause its not easy, but its something you do together as a team.

I pretty much wanted to get a hot vending machine coffee, and fall on the ground, but shiv secured a seat near the edge for us to watch the sunrise. I was bitter for a bit, but all that melted away when the sun started to rise on the horizon. the veiw was pretty much like watching the sun rise from a plane, but theres no plane!! it was unreal, cold and amazing. thereare food stalls, wending machines and souvnir shoppes on the top. only in japan!

The decent took FOREVER!!! it was a very rocky wash all the way down and i couldnt wait to get to the bus. we got to the bus about 8 am and then slept for 1 hr untill we went to an onsen resort type place for bath time the lunch. after the lunch we got back on the bus to osaka, and then the trip was over. high times indeed!!

its for sure summer time in osaka

well yesterday we got some thyphoon weather. that was fun for about 1/2 an hour. and then it was just too wet. it rained for about a day, non stop. and then after the rain dried up mother nature left a new gift. Cycaydas!! i saw my furst live cycadah on the wall of the apt building next to ours. I first though.hmmm what is that green rock doing stuck to the building, then at second glance i saw that it was green and rainbow shiny, had huge wings and was as big as my palm. ewww.

and if i wouldn't have seen the guy, i wouldn't have been so scared when i noticed all the "birds" in the trees were going crazy this morning. The cycaydahs are super loud in the morning, and sound like hundreds of baby birds in the trees. hmm its going to be intersting considering im quite paranoid/scared of bugs.

well, ill live. but over the past few weeks we've been busy bees. doug was here weeks ago, and we showed him a good time (as always).Me and shiv tried to get lost, this act had a greater purpose. We are trying to explore new areas of osaka. and of course we did find all new nooks and crannies.

we'll post some pics. of the bike rides. before i forget. we went to shakeys pizzaria today, and i dont think ever one fully understands the pizza combinations that come out of this place. Here are some of their creations
- ikasumi (octapus ink pizza) ** 2 stars, gross, no taste - tuna, raw shrimp and corn ** for obvious reasons-- sweet ground beef, extra cheese, potatoes **** so good, ---rosemary,ginger and salmon * toomuch weird flavors-- taco pizza with peperoni, lettuce, salsa, cheese,***** its like one big tortilla chip, with so much topping. ----

cant think of any more slices right now, but it should be known that corn, mayo and potato are as common as cheese and pepperoni, for pizza topping.

While on our bike adventures we went to the umeda sky building, that really weird looking super tall building. it has outside glass escalators that take you to the roof. very scary. but even more interesting the building had a bift shop that had a small harrods section. So you could get all types of bristish teas, jams and harrods shopping bags.
Also, in japan its very common to send a gift set as a measure of thanks. Like a cookie set, a jelly set, a beer set or a cooking oil set. yes a cooking oil set.
So what it is is a gift box full of regualr, nicely wrapped cooking oil. sandra and paul notified us of this strange asian trend, and its alive and well in japan. Just like in korea, they do have span gift sets complete with the gift wrapped cooking oil.

We went to see shrek #3 but were mildy excited. it was ok. The 300 was super good though. for our anniversary wich was on the 8th, we decided to go to kobe after work. we were going to go out for srilankan food, but then we both decided that we would probably get small portions and it wouldnt be as tasty as ammis food. so that morning we were really craving a good hearty canadian style meal, like old spagetti factory. And alas! we found one in Kobe. we were so happy. we walked around the harbour, ate over priced desserts at the desset land, and then had the most amazing crepes at the shopping mall complex near the harbour.

kobe had this amazing cathedral building that we wanted to photograph, but it was locked off by a highway and ramp. thats so japan. Inside one of the malls there was a huge bust of the mona lisa made out of pearly buttons. i couldnt stop looking, i swear she was looking at me...

This week shiv worked a ton, he did a whack load of privates for miki, so i was out and about, or at home for the week. one night i went to hard rock with tara, evania, nicole and becky for dinner and dessert. The apple crumble is so over priced, but so worth it. i will never take apple crumble for granted ever again.

xoxo