The Beginning of the Middle

Bang! That's the sound of me showing my face in the staff room at around 9:30 this morning. Really, there wasn't much of a bang, just a shuffle of a door and a "Shitsurei shimasu" on account of there was a meetin' going on. In fact, I realised after I had sad down and pulled out some things to scribble on whilst looking thoughtful, there had been a meeting going on when I'd last left this staff room, which was 4 PM last Monday. A meeting about the same subject. Could it be the SAME MEETING? Was it possible that I had taken a bus to Tokyo, climbed the biggest mountain in Japan, had wild and crazy adventures for three days and four nights all within the time it took to hold a single meeting?? It was indeed possible.


LET'S GO TO A MOUNTAIN!!!


Yes, I went there. First. My thoughts. On Mt. Fuji. Mount Fuji is sort of a gigantic desolate rock in the middle of the country. It is mostly reddish brown, but some bits are black and green. It has metal poles and chains sticking out of it, not unlike Hell. Unlike Hell, (at least as portrayed in most mainstream literature) it is pouring rain and not on fire. Luckily, we are above the clouds and so we are not in much danger of being blasted to smitheroons by the lightning that flashes every minute or so (though usually silently... creepy). It was not too crowded, nor too smelly, except when the chain-ed path passed by a toilet. There were huts at which one can enjoy cups of corn soup or cocoa, or being tossed callously out into the cruel storm because one has not paid to book a piece of floor for an hour. Sari is clever and thinkful and has brought such things as extra fleecies, and dried cranberries (some of which were the best food I've ever tasted in my life). I brought the chocolate peanutty things.


A blasted and desolate land.

We started climbing at 10 PM, by the way. At first, it rained not, it just fogged. Fogged like a maniac. Head-lamps were good for creating crazy cone-shaped beams of opaque fuzz in front of our heads, but not so good for illuminating stuff. We walked into oblivion, and up it.

We collapsed a few times, made it to the top just after the sun showed us its shiny face, and just before the wind showed us the back of its hand. It was windy. It was cold. I was wet like geez. I was muddy from having slept briefly in dirt. I was a mountain-conquering KING! But then we had to go down again before we got blown off by the typhoon
That going down part sucked.

Actually, the whole thing was really, really quite difficult. The rain made it miserable when it was going on, and the thought that we were struggling so hard to make it to the top, only to have to come down again.... well, that was something to not think about. But we did, (through the use of the "Charlie Brown Run" method) and now we are totally awesome. We made it down by about 7:30


Plus, I also went to this place, "Mars." It was pretty cool.

Mountain conquered, we ate/fell-asleep-in some food and waited for the bus to take us back to Tokyo. There, we tramped around, got less disgusting, said thanks to the Lightning God at Kaminarimon, ate ramen and gyoza, and were flippin' tired. Sari had to go back to the family's place so as to rendezvous with more relatives in Yokohama the next day, so we said goodbye and I said hello to the hotel and bed.

Next day, I bought a day pass for the subway and boogied around the big city. Impressions of Tokyo:

• Tokyo contains an abundance of purple shoes which can be procured quite cheaply.
  
• Other cheap things include books, gyoza, and... that's about it, I think.
  
• Tokyo has a big and confusing subway system, but it generally seems to work very well if you go with the flow.
  
• Tokyo is... surprisingly peaceful. Maybe I'm crazy. But it seemed a lot more relaxed than I expected. More green areas too, in that I saw two or three trees.
  
• That big intersection with the big TV screens that you always see in stuff like Lost in Translation is pretty awesome. Like being in a nightclub in the middle of the street, with noise instead of music and umbrellas instead of drinks.
  
• The Starbucks that overlooks that intersection (which is in fact where that scene from Lost in Translation was secretly shot from) is huge and probably makes more money than God.
  
• Book stores that sell English books are terribly awesome.
  
• The air did not make me want to die.
  
• I didn't bring that much money with me.
  

Yeah. So I got the purple shoes, finally. They were the cheapest shoes in the store, too, so I knew they were destined to be mine. I'm a heap of quivering excitement. Didn't buy any other clothes, though I found some cheap pants with like 4 unnecessary zippers AND 4 pointless straps. But they looked uncomfortable, and I was almost out of money by that point after buying a load of books. So instead of buying clothes, I went to the BELLINI CAFE, which was on the top floor (8) of a fancy-pants building. This cafe was sort of an attempted fancy-pants joint, and somewhat successful at it. You can tell by the way you pay the waiter at your table instead of taking the bill to the register like at most places in Japan. I sat and read my books and ate an organic ("non-chemical") vegetable and bean bruschetta and an ostrich meat bruschetta and sipped a Bellini that was expensive but I didn't care because it was a Bellini (mostly). The ostrich was kind of not very good though. Anyway, that was a nice time, and the not-waitress-but-other-girl-who-worked-there was totally beautiful and she was for sure into me. I could tell. So I'll have to go back there sometime.
I wasn't quite thinking straight at the time, since I had to get back to Tokyo station to catch my bus (after looking in the comic shop and watching trailers for Land of the Dead and almost buying some comics and playing a round of Taiko (I lost). Then I came home. Got on the bus that's all 2-deckered and sat in seat A-1 at the very front and got all bounced around by the wind and rain and road and tried to sleep and eventually succeeded. Though there was this one bit where the wind and engine and tunnel were humming and whining and there was light coming in through the cracks of curtains and whirling all around the sides of the bus extremely fast and I thought I might have possibly gone to Hell again (there were no chains or poles, and it was not raining or on fire in the bus), but then I went to sleep instead. Woke up, got off the bus in Miyoshi. Walked along the river getting sweaty and jumping on rocks. Realised after 10 mints that I was going the wrong way. Came back. Went the other way. Talked to an old lady on a bike. Made it to Andrew's house in Ikawa after not all that long. Got in my car. Felt gross, but amazed that my legs still worked after all the climbing and walking. In fact, I think they are better than ever. I could probably kick a cow RIGHT IN HALF. But only if it was a really angry cow and it was in self-defense.

Then I went to work and this meeting was happening. Geez... I think I stop going to work for the middle of every week from now on. It seems to be the better way of doing things.