The Calm

Today and Yesterday have felt like the calm before a huge storm. This time the storm is Japanese New Year's. All the stores have special hours for like a week starting tomorrow. I think I am underestimating what will happen the next week. I feel like all the Japanese people are looking at me thinking "He has no idea...".

Takao-San

I always see signs for this 高尾山 (Takao-san) on the Keio line and always mean to go to it. It's supposed to be a sacred mountain really close to Tokyo. Mount Takao is at the very edge of the Tokyo metropolis so it's a while to go on the Keio line, but really worth it. From the city to Takao is a world of difference, it's crazy. It's really quiet and you almost feel like you are in the country side. There are mountains all around and little huts. Crazy to think that I was only one hour from Shinjuku, centre of the universe.


The monument stone stating the entrance to the trail. Which by the way is not for the light of heart. The brochure thing said that it would be easy for kids. I don't know what kind of super human kids the Japanese have, but I was about to die halway up. Luckily the second half of the trail is a lot easier than the first half. I probably should have gone and bought a ticket for the cable car that runs you halfway up the mountain. But I got my excercise for the next month.


A sign telling you not to feed or stare at the monkeys, unfortunately I never saw any.


View to the south from the visitors centre about halfway up.


The Chuo expressway, a highway that runs through the middle of Japan.


This is all of Tokyo as viewed from the west. Right in the middle is Shinjuku and to the right is Yokohama.


Mount Takao is sacred because of the Tengu legend I think. Tengu are these warrior demons with the long noses as depicted in the statues.


There is the sign saying that this is the peak of Mount Takao at 599.3 metres.



If you faced the other side of the mountain you could see Mount Fuji perfectlely. It was one of those picturesque views you can only get while on top of a mountain in Japan. I took this picture in the place where you could best see Mount Fuji, and the other people there would take pictures and then pray.


Takao was a nice retreat from city life. It was so strange not to hear anything but birds. No constant traffice and actual greenery (techinally not green since it's dead, but still better than concrete).

Christmas Day

I got up early to go to the Korean Japanese Church for their Christmas service. It was good. We sang a bunch of christmas songs that were familiar, just in Japanese. The people there are a bit crazy though. I had 5 people tell me that they would call me this week. And they already call me and email me a lot. And I can't really understand them when they speak because they have heavy korean accents when they speak Japanese. Add in an american accent speaking Japanese and there is a lot of miscommunication. The service was all in Japanese but the pastor is Japanese as is most of the staff, so I could understand them. But of course the Koreans don't believe me that I understand Japanese. My name becomes "Kato" in korean Japanese to add to the confusion. Even if I write it out in Japanese, it's still Kato. Japanese is hard enough.

After the service I went with some exchange student friends to the Hobgoblin, a british pub, in Akasaka for a traditional Christmas dinner. Being roast turkey, mashed potatoes, smoked salmon among other things. English christmas is exactly the same as american christmas, but the british people kept on asking me if we did certain things at christmas time. The food was really good but it ended up with this thing called the "yule log". The description of it was really nice, but it was basically a piece of dry chocolate toast. All the workers were dressed up like santa. And then at the end a "real" santa came in and ho ho ho'd and gave gifts. Good times indeed.

After the dinner I went back to the girl's flat to their christmas party. It was supposed to be a mulled wine party with 100 yen gifts. The flat isn't too big, so they were getting worried when 15 people at a time would show up. There ended up being about 30-40 people there. Somehow we got everyone to do a sort of white elephant exchange with the 100 yen gifts. But then we realized that it would just take to long. So we just passed around the gifts and opened them. I met some new people, discussed politics. Accidently told a girl that they put pepper in the wine becasue I forgot the word for spices. The usual. By the way, mulled wine is wine that you put in a big pot and heat it up with bags of spices, sugar and brandy. It's really good. Since the wine is mulled, you can just buy the cheapest wine (i.e. 300 yen wine special at the convienience store) around. Which always stains the worst. So everyone had purple lips and teeth by the end of the night.

All in all I say it was a great christmas day. I just hope I can mix mulled wine and 100 yen gifts into my next holiday celebration.

Photo Time


At the hobgoblin for Christmas dinner.


Holly and Lindsay displaying our wonderful food. Look that's real turkey!


Lindsay and Erin missed the train even after we tried to hold the door open! And Erin's not happy about it...


The christmas party.


Attempting a white elephant game with the 100 yen presents.


Some girl won a thing that keeps smoke away if there is a fire. How pratical.


Rachel's good bye part from the other day. Kate was the only one responding to "look here".


Don't sit with your legs open on the train. It's rude. And a giant exclamation point might emerge.