Awagatake Yama

October 9^th, 2006

I woke up to the sound of Anna whispering “Can you hear me” and Decky replying in his Irish accent “EVERYONE IN THE ROOM CAN HEAR YOU!”

Around 10ish I arrived home only to go back to sleep, wasting away my entire day!

Monday:

Hiking Mt. Awagatake

The welcome sign at the beginning of the hike: Watch out for angry bears that will rip you limb from limb…have a good hike! It’s funny though because even bears have slanted eyes in Japan! Bear in Japanese= Kuma

Japanese lesson during the hike:

Bear= kuma

Bags under your eyes= kuma

Spider= kumo

Car: kuruma

( I thought it was just all in my head that Japanese words all sounded alike, but no, in fact, the words are THE SAME)

Suburi Yasui

We started in Kamo and when we finished the hike, we were in Shitada.

The Great Outdoors

They call this hiking? This is climbing trees…Instead of do you wanna go hiking, it should be: Would you like to go climb some ladder attached to trees at the edge of a cliff today?

You should be able to find 3 people…Where’s Paul?

Finally @ the top…climbing time: 4 hours.

The girls of the group: Me and Takako

The boys:

I’m so cool.

Takako is so kawaii. She was so excited to ring the bell.

Crazy Paul on Awagatake’s lovely lady lump. The sun was just starting to break through the clouds. Perfect climbing weather, I am soooo happy that it didn’t rain for the first time in a week.

IITAI! My hands were sooo blistered from my walking stick! I have to toughen up!

The 3D mountain range model…

Takako wasn’t in very good shape either. Kitanai!

Resting: I don’t think I’m supposed to sit on the art…but I was TIRED.

1292.7 meters: Proof we made it to the top!

The worst part of the hike it the walk down. Coming up I am so stoked about reaching the top, but once I finally get there, I usually just want to sleep…BUT INSTEAD, we get to walk down the mountain; thus, erasing all the hard work we just accomplished! At least the scenery is pretty…Ko’yu (autumn colors, which I never get to see in CA)

Hut 2 the 7^th station…since we descended down the other side of the mountain we could see the landmarks that we reached when climbing up! It was around here that I fell and hit the splits! I was the first one to fall, but not to worry, there were plenty more to follow!

There were even really cool waterfalls.

Injury Report: fell 3 times, danced (almost-falls, we didn’t count it unless you were on your ass) many times, blisters on hands, bruise on forearm, bruised tailbone, cut on leg, and sore muscles next day! Needed: knee replacement! OVERALL a successful weekend…

Ending falling tally:

Paul: 1 time

Joey: 1 time

Kenji: 1 time

Me: 3 times

Takako: 5 times (shi’ko mo’reru)

Sakai- Too many times to count

HAPPY CANADIAN THANKSGIVING!

October 9, 2006

@5:30 p.m.

Dinner party @ Melissa’s! Complete with a “proper” Thanksgiving Dinner, grace and good friends (Shanna, Paul, Jenelle, Melissa) ! Yummy, just what I needed! Thanks for making me the O’dake (token American)!