Double Feature "There are usually chickens in the city"/"Maybe you are not a big boy..."

So I forgot to do one yesterday so you get a double feature:

Friday "There are usually chickens in the city"

On Saturday, Ryan basically gave me the keys to his bike and I had a whole day to explore Tsukuba. It's a nice size city with plenty of people, stores, and trees...yes trees! Even though it was the early afternoon and in most places it was pretty hot, in a lot of the places I rode through there were shady paths and forest-like settings. The city, like most of Japan, is built with pedestrians and cyclists in mind. The streets sometimes don't have sidewalks but those are small enough and the speed limit's slow enough that it's okay to walk on them anyway. There are a few interesting landmarks of the city. There's a large clock tower in a park that you can see from anywhere, a very large building almost in the center, a rocket (don't worry, it's retired), a set of plaques with information on the Solar System (there relative distances are reflected along the path on which the plaques stand) and life on Earth (relative time spans also reflected in the distances between plaques), and a lot of science facilities. If America had this many trees and was built for biking like this...well...people would be in better shape enjoy a better local weather. After I was done exploring, I went back to find Ryan and found his roommate who took me to there beginners Japanese class...so I sat in on it. From there Ryan had to do some experiments in his lab so I went home. After a few minutes Ryan comes back with some friends who are going for dinner, so I came along. A member of Ryan's group wasn't coming so he lent me a bike. I met a lot of people that night and apparent didn't eat a whole lot (I was on average 3 plates behind everyone). We stayed out pretty late hanging out and on our way back we heard roosters...yeah that's what I though but apparently it's normal for cities to have chickens...oh well. By the way, the sun comes up at about 4:30 and goes down at about 6pm here...

Saturday~Sunday "Maybe you are not a big boy..."

Yesterday, I climbed Mt Fuji...well not really...I walked up a very painful, treacherous, dangerous path up the side of Mt Fuji starting at about half way...but it still was pretty cool. It started off as a dusty trail then became a slightly steeper rocky trail then it became just terribly steep sand trail...and you think it's hard to walk or run on a beach...try sticking that beach on the side of a mountain. Anyway, after a while it started to get ridiculous. It was the mountain was playin' games with us. All of the sudden (nowhere near the end by the way) we started climbing some pretty crazy rocks...not a rocky trail but a slanted rock wall...no gear just climbing. At the beginning I was really excited, but then it got cold and a few layers later I just wanted to get it over with. Around the middle I started getting tired and it didn't help that we caught with everyone else on the mountain in a sort of stop and go traffic thing...with very comfy looking rocks all around me...I napped at every stop. So this was one of those things where at any particular point on the mountain you can only seen one or two resting stops ahead of you...which makes you feel like you're close to the end...until you get to the resting stop and you see two more ahead of you...which makes you feel like kick the nearest person! Also there were a couple of shrines and gates along the way to which I thought, "Wait til the end to show me something that looks like a finish line!" So we started at about 6pm and at about 3:30am I saw some light on the horizon which gave me some kind of determination to finish the darned thing before the sun came up. I didn't quite make it but I was second in my group to the top. In the beginning we had a buddy system but towards the end we were horribly scattered...and cold...and hungry...and miserable...but we accomplished something...I accomplished it with about 10 pounds more than everyone else around my neck (I had an extra bag of food and clothes just in case...what? I never climbed anything before!). Along the way there were people who were shouting things like, "You're half way there, keep it up!" and at the second to last gate, "You're not finished until you get to the last gate!" to which instead of, "HAI!!!" I wanted to scream, "Give me a break, I'm a city boy who hasn't gotten much rest or food in the last 10 hours!" but that would've been tough in Japanese...but I made it...and got some warm food and tea...which was awesome and I got to see the crater which was also pretty awesome and I got to walk all the way back down the mountain...which sucked eggs!!! On the way up I had to deal with my heels and hands hurting...going down I had to deal with getting warmer faster than I got cold my toes and knees hurting and getting volcanic sand in my face!!! But we all made it back together. On the way back we all hung out at Akihabara...just for a few minutes to get something to eat. There were tons of lights, cosplayers and anime just as I suspected!!! We stopped at a Kebab place and I ordered the Beef Kebab Don: Big Boy...but couldn't finish it...to which Ryan suggested, "Perhaps you are not a big boy..." Jeez! I crawled up and walked down half of Mt. Fuji!!! What more do you want?!