Maxi Danger Uncut

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Tooookkkkkkyyyoooooo

So we were up and at em bright and early Saturday morning, eager to explore Tokyo. Breakfast in Ginza accompanied by a bit of strolling through shops looking, lunch in Shibuya, afternoon nap in Yoyogi Park, Harajuku, then dinner in Shinjuku. Nice.

Couple of interesting sites in Shibuya, including this love hotel:

In transit:

Micky had only request for the whole trip, and that was to go see the massive Godzilla in the centre of Tokyo. Surprisingly, for such a humungous monument, it wasn't that easy to locate, but in the end we got there. Well worth the trip, all of us were speechless because it's just such an impressive feat of engineering combined with lifelike artistic sculpturing. Check it:

Well, it's huge if you get the right camera angle, anyway:


Godzy was a good sport though, so we decided to have a few beers with him:


Good times, good times.

After a full days trekking through the city, and still feeling the effects of the Fuji climb, it was back to the apartment for a quick triangle de love power nap, before tearing up the town. A serious debate was held, to decide how long to nap for. Being pretty tired (yet still frisky) , I floated the idea of 'sleeping till 2am, and then going out - cos that way the beatches will be drunk, and heaps easier' but was voted down by my ultra conservative brothers.
Time for some sustenance. I wouldn't say the fridge in our apartment was particularly well stocked, although it did have the essentials - vitamin jelly packs and beer - what else could you possibly want?:



With Fuji conquered, and about to hit the town in Tokyo, I decided it was time to trim up the mountain man beard, in favour of something a bit more refined for the city. That done we got our Sunday best on and subwayed ourselves to Roppongi, to hook up with a friend of mine who lives in the city.
Gangsta's on the Train:



They say Tokyo is an expensive city, and it can be, but it's also full of some pretty good deals if you know where to look. After a $4 gyoza and curry deal, it was time to hit the clubs.
Pre-clubbing, Roppongi:

Roppongi is pretty dodgy, and you get this impression straight away. As soon as you walk down the street, you're pretty much swamped on both sides by big african-american dudes touting 'titties, titties, you boys want to see some titties?'. It's pretty much the only place in Japan where you get harassed on the street bangkok style, and it's interesting to note that the Japanese don't tout themselves, they employ foreigners to do it on their behalf. Nothing seems to work to deter them either - the touters don't get the hint if you ignore them, a forceful 'no' doesn't work, and, when micky says 'yeah, I'd love to see some titties', that only seems to encourage them to the point that they get a little emotional when after a few minutes they realise you're only taking the piss and you're actually not going to accompany them down some back alley to the titty bar that they're spruiking. Who would've thought?
The first bar on the list was a little joint named Motown, and this set the tone for the evening. You would be hard pressed to find a dodgier joint. Being under the impression that bars are generally for youngish people, Motown was a shock. The number of middle-aged overweight friendless balding blokes wearing checked shirts tucked into their 80's stonewashed jeans was astounding. Astounding, but also humorous, as shortly after noticing this fact the game 'spot the paedo' was begun. The rules were quite simple - you get a point if you get 'em in a picture.
Suspect A - Mikey 1 Point (do yourself a favour and click this photo to enlarge it, you'll get more out of the close up view I promise you):


Suspect B - Skahill's 1 Point:

Here's a little live footage with the running commentary:




So we ditched Motown after a couple of beers and headed to the classic Roppongi hangout, GAS PANIC!
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I thought the girl in front of me in the queue for the bar may have been cute, but couldn't get a good look at her, that's where the digi cam comes in very handy:


I was right.

There definitely was a few cuties around, this one was a was a bit shy at first, but I knew her coyness was just an act


She had a fat friend that was blocking my run, but Mickey being a good wingman, doing his best to distract her defensive line up.


More gas panic live:




If you didn't catch the dialogue in that clip it went:
"Here we are at Gas Panic - dancing on the tables...doof doof doof doof...whooa, got told off."

We also checked out Yoyogi park, I love that place. The mix of people that hang out there is great. Nunchuck dude was providing quite the show, but unfortunately he didn't have the goods:



All in all the few days we spent in Tokyo were an absolute blast.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Here We Are, Part II - The Ascent

Thursday, 2nd August, 2007.

With the early morning movements of the other backpackers thwarting our sleep-in attempt, we were up at a reasonable hour on Thursday morning, and feeling pretty fired to smash fuji to pieces. The first order of business was to find a decent breakfast, and luckily enough there was a Gusto family restaurant around the corner. Steak and potatoes was the unanamous pre climb choice and it got the job done.
Next move was to stock up on essential mountain climbing equipment, such as a portable barbeque. It had been the idea for a while to have an aussie bbq at the summit, in order to do this we obviously needed to purchase a barbie, so purchase a barbie we did. It was a little beauty. Also along for the ride up to the top were a couple of little fold out chairs, which we couldn't go past at $5 a pop. Just as a side note, we could've got blue, but opted for pink just to show how tough we are.

Supplies in hand, Hardware Shop Carpark:


Skahills and Fern being all dorky also picked up some equipment that we might actually need, such as head lamps and batteries.
After the hardware store it was off to the supermarket, cos no bbq is complete without a few snags and a six pack of beer. Given that the climb was expected to take around ten hours, we loaded up on food to keep us fueled up along the way.
Supplies purchased, we headed to the base of the mountain, Sengen Shrine. Parking wasn't readily available so we just stashed our hire car at a nearby worksite, and just to ensure that if we had avoided detection it wouldn't be for long, we set off a few fireworks to mark the start of the mission ahead.
We packed our gear up one last time, shouldered our packs then set off in high spirits.



Ready to Roll:


Micky was pretty wary of the dangerous traffic in front of the shrine, but luckily enough there were some little yellow flags to assist his crossing.

How to Cross The Road Safely, by M Skahill:



Safe!

We hit the shrine, and after a little bit of a good luck prayer it was time to set forth.

Preparations Complete, 16:38, t=0.



I was also carrying a teru teru bouzu, which is a japanese weather charm. You're meant to make it, and hang it in your window the day before you want good weather. One of my students told me about it in class so I thought I'd give it a crack, and it seemed to work pretty well as the conditions when we set out were perfect.


The path to glory, fully laden:



Sign showing us that it was 12.5km hike to the 5th station - where most people start:


On our occasional rest breaks Micky would try and liven up the atmosphere with a little fireworks show. By this stage we'd realised that clearly we were the only ones tough (or stupid?) enough to be doing it from the bottom, as there wasn't a soul in sight.


We made it to the first station without too much drama, after trekking for a little over two hours.

First Station, 19:06, t+2:28:


Morale still high we kept on hiking, a few more stations and a few more hours passed us by. I was under the impression that we could buy food and water along the way, although by station three I was beginning to think this notion may have been not quite on the money. Pretty thirsty work hiking a mountain in warm weather, so I began to ration the little that I hadn't already drunk.

Water Supply Running Low, 20:17, t+03:39:


Arriving at the fifth station all in one piece we broke for some dinner. The night was beginning to get a little colder so it was time to bust out the super sexy skin tight thermals. Actually it was a beautiful night, and some of the views of the surrounding towns by moonlight were pretty cool. Unfortunately my digi cam isn't too hot with the night pics.

Moonlit View From Fuji:


Fifth (or Five) Stiation:



After a bit of a dinner break it was onwards and upwards. The further we went, the colder it got. Nearly seven hours in we made it to the seventh station, and could feel the weather starting to change. The award for the best dressed goes to?

Seventh Station, 23:22 t+6:44:


The photo above is the last shot of us together, cos that's about the time we split up. Feeling pretty keen Skahill's pushed on ahead, while me and fern took it a bit easier. Fern was starting to feel the effects of altitude sickness, and I was also not feeling too flash cos the large pasta salad I'd just knocked back wasn't really sitting that well. Plenty of time up our sleeve though so we just cruised along.
About here the photo's stopped as well, cos it was around this time that the tail end of a nearby typhoon hit. The weather was absolutely terrible. Very strong winds and slashing rain was the order of the day, and being the captain of team skinny I had to hit the deck a few times to avoid being blown off the track.
It was also pretty busy, the closer we got to the top, the more climbers we encountered. The cold was another factor to deal with, after being rained on for a while you really started to feel it.
Most of the climb wasn't that tough, except for the last bit. Really steep, slippery, and as I'd made the extremely uninformed choice earlier in the day to not buy a head lamp, it was also very dark which didn't make it easier.
With dawn approaching, I decided to give making it to the top a decent crack, and made plans to meet Fern at the top. I picked up my pace a little and made it up there at 04:08, a solid eleven and a half hours after embarking.

The summit was absolutely dismal. The storm was in full swing, with wind speed and rain being pretty impressive (hence the fuzzy photo). However, in true Japanese style, there was a vending machine on the summit. GOLD. $4 for a hot cocoa and had some warmth in my hands to try and stop the shivering of me bones.

The Summit, Albeit Blurry, 04:08, t+11:30



I bumped into skahills just before dawn which was a relief, he'd been spending the last few hours shivering on the toilet floors with a couple of other underprepared blokes who were pretty close to hypothermia.



We waited for dawn trying to keep out of the weather, and eventually one of the huts at the top opened so we ordered up some hot coffee to try and bring the body temp up a bit. In case you didn't know, it isn't that much fun being cold and wet for an extended period of time.
Dawn came so it was back out into the elements to get what we came for - sunrise over the clouds. Not being in the best state of mind, we were pretty unimpressed because all we could see was bloody clouds. 12 hour hike and a view of some fucking clouds and rain was not what I had signed up for. That said, the clouds did part temporarily and I captured some footage of the sun coming up which was pretty decent.

Note - the wind is pretty loud on this vid, so you may want to turn the sound down a little before playing.


I should subtitle that clip. If I was to do that, it would say 'We Pissed It In!'

Here's a couple of stills taken from the video.


What you saw there was pretty much all we saw as well, cos after that it was just more wind, clouds and rain. Too cold to even move my fingers to get my bag open, the big plans for the barbie were heartbreakingly trashed, as the presiding sentiment was 'let's get the fuck off this mountain'. So off the mountain me and mickey headed, heads hung a little low cos after carrying a bbq, gas, meat and beer up 3776m, we didn't even have a snag in bread to show for it.

Fern got a couple of decent sunrise snaps on his way down:


The descent wasn't a lot of fun - on the way up we had the expectation of the summit to look forward too, on the way down we were just tired, hungry, and pretty sick of walking cos we'd been doing it for the last 13 hours straight. I saw a couple of signs and knew that we weren't taking the same track down as we did on the way up, but was too tired to care - we just wanted off. Eventually at about 08:00 am (over 15 hours of straight walking since we left) we made it to the bottom, and shared a taxi with some other peeps who'd also taken the alternative route back to the base.

Thankfully Fernsie showed up a few minutes later (having no car keys, no money and no phone cos he'd put them in my bag to keep it getting wet before we split up). We didn't even want to think about what we would do if he didn't show.

After having a quick change, we pretty much just passed out exhausted, in, or beside, the car. Feeling like dirt we cruised into the township to get some fluids and some food, and after a quick team meeting decided to push on to Tokyo (100+ km's) in the car, as we had accomodation booked there for the night.
It was a tough drive in but once we got into the city, the buzz of Tokyo fired everyone up. We made it to our one room in the apartment we'd reserved no problem, with the eccentric landlady being a real darl and giving us a 'melon pan' each as a welcoming present. Melon pan is a sweet roll that's pretty hard to explain, but very tasty. All of us were wrecked, so much so that we didn't even care that the three of us had to share a room about the size of two toilets for the next three nights. It was cheap though, in the heart of Tokyo for only $22 a night each. Too tired to talk about sleeping arrangements, I just slept where I fell, with the other two having to arrange themselves in a bit of a triangle to get any decent sleeping space. And thus, the 'triangle de love' was born. We slept from 16:00 on the Friday night, woke up five hours later and ate our one Melon Pan each (which were excellent), then passed out again until 07:00 the next morning. That's how it goes I guess - you climb a mountain for 15 hours, drive a bit, then you sleep for the next 15.

One Room Fits Three, Shinjuku, Tokyo:


Upon reflection, we gave Mt Fuji absolutely no respect. That said though, we did make it to the top, and even with the horrendous conditions I am fucking glad we did it. Mt Fuji - cross it off the list!

So that concludes the Mt Fuji Expedition, and leaves us ready for road trip 2007's next episode: Saturday Night Fever - Roppongi, Tokyo.