#11 Kamikochi
"Kamikochi is impossibly beautiful" I wrote in a letter to my family after returning from the mountains. This was where I had my most incredible and somewhat mystic experience in Japan, and rather than retype the whole story, I'm going to post the e-mail in the comments section of this page. It's long, but worth the read. Here are some of the two-hundred pictures I took. I met some wonderful people, too: pictured are Shingo-ando and I outside a mounatin hut, Mika and I, and the three other climbers (from right to left: the drunk who could speak english, the drunk who could not, and Kandou).
posted by The once and future Dr. Science at 8:20 AM
2 Comments:
Dear folks,
The good news is that right now I'm sitting in Nagoya eating curry
rice and, having just finished watching a cartoon starring a monkey
with a TV for its head and an electrical cord for a tail, I've started
in on a cartoon that is apparently about cowboys who play football, or
something.
Oh, and the cowboys are playing a team of guys called the "sexy queens."
The other news is not bad, but involves a rather long story - which I
am happy to recount below - that explains why I am back sooner than
expected from Kamikoichi. You may read it at your leisure if so
inclined, and I won't be offended if you don't; I need to write it
down as much for my own recollection as anything else.
The cowboys are now playing a team of tattooed germans, one of whom, i
think, is called "baby dangerous."
Kamikoichi is about a 4-hour trip from Nagoya, by express train, local
train, and bus/car. I should have taken the bus, but I only had five
minutes to catch the train I needed to connect to the bus. I couldn't
figure out how to work the vending machine that sold tickets, and by
the time I found someone to help me I had missed the train.
Consequently, I missed my bus - the last bus of the day. At this
point, I was in a hurry to get to Kamikoichi before the typhoon
arrived. Fujimoto-san and his wife had helped me reserve
accomodations, but were informed that I needed to get to Kamikoichi
before dark because there are no lights. Did I mention I missed the
last bus?
So when I got to where I needed to get the bus, it was dark. There
was NOTHING around except the closed down bus station and a taxi
stand. Thankfully, the taxi stand was still open, and, after paying a
painfully large amount for a taxi ride, I was driven for the hour or
so it takes to go straight up into the mountains to Kamikoichi. The
cab driver dropped me off outisde a hotel - which I was correct in
assuming was entirely too nice to be mine. Mine, the hotel concierge
explained, was a half-hour walk from there. Thankfully, I had both
the flashlight Dad had given me and a huge flashlight from
Fujimoto-san, so I walked for the half-hour uphill through the dark
forest, saw a monkey, and arrived at my mountain hut.
The experience I had at Nisiitoya-sanso (my first mountain hut) was
one of the most enjoyable times I have ever had in my life. No joke.
There were five other people there - the manager, a stout, pleasant
guy; Mika, his assistant, who was about forty or so and the only one
to speak english well; Kando-u (yes, that's phonetic, thank you),
about whom I must say more later; and the last two, one of whom looked
like Nev and know only the english word "Canada," and the other of
whom spoke english relatively well but was as drunk as could be. The
drunk fellow kept pointing to Nev and saying "he's my brother...I mean
father...he is not my brother...how old do you think I am?" And then
Nev would laugh hysterically and slap me on the shoulder. This
sequence was repeated at least twenty times. They asked where I was
from, and everyone there complimented me on my Japanese - i can say
all of five things, but people tell me I say them well - and the drunk
guy told me I was beautiful like a movie star. With Mika's help, we
talked for several hours and had dinner. And then they asked me where
I was going. I showed them where on a poster on the wall, and they
all got quiet. "But you are alone," said the drunk guy. "Why do you
want to go alone?"
I asked them if they thought I'd be okay, and they asked where
exactly I was going. I went upstairs and got my book, and showed
them. That's when Kando-u started to speak. He spoke VERY little
english, probably ten words at most, and he quickly started looking
over the maps and making notes. Mika told me he'd lived on the
mountains for 50 years. He was trying to explain to me about one
particular place, and was speaking somewhat frantaically and pointing.
I couldn't understand, so the drunk guys says, "he's saying you could
die there."
Mika came back at that moment, having been out of the room, and
translated for me. Now, what I am about to say will sound crazy. I
know that. But at one point Kando-u was talking to me, and he looked
me right in the eyes and I swear to you that I could understand him
perfectly, like he was a native english speaker. "Listen to me," he
said. "you must not go this way. It is a bad time to go this way,
and you will not survive. Do you understand?" At that point Mika
started translating into english, and I realized Kandou was back to
saying things like "condition, danger."
Kando-u and I were sharing a room, and we stayed up later than
anyone else, trying to talk. We muddled through okay, and he told me
that six or seven years ago, "friend. (motioning with his hand)
Mountaingu. " His eyes started to tear up, and then he made an X with
his arms. "No more," he said, and we just sat for a while, listening
to the wind. I also spent some time talking with Mika. She travels
all over the world by herself, like someone from a novel, and she and
I talked about her adventures.
I took a Japanese bath before going to bed, and honestly wondered if i
could work out some sort of deal where I could live in the bath and
have my mail forwarded.
In the morning Kando-u wished me luck and gave me some food to take
with me.Mika told me that he had really taken a liking to me.
I started off around 8. Kamikoichi is impossibly beautiful - easily
the most naturally incredible place i have ever been. By the end of
my trip there, I took around 130 pictures. It is amazing.
I had asked Kondo-u about how long it would take to get to certain
places, and he had said that the trip from Kamikoichi to Yari-ga-take,
the first mountain, usually takes two days. The book I had said it
took one, and he said, "Me? Two. Maybe you one. Very difficult." All
the folks at Nishiitoya sanspo had stressed that I needed to pace
myself and go slow. The first main checkpoint was supposed to take me
three, maybe four hours to reach. It took me just under two.
If you think this is beginning to sound like the song of my life, then
feel free to sing along. You know where it goes.
At that first major checkpoint - after about 11 kilometers uphill - I
met only the third white guy I have seen while in japan. He was one
of few people I saw after passing out of Kamikoichi village and into
the mountain climb. I asked if he was American, and he scoffed, so
I'll guess he was French. He asked me where I was going, and when I
told him, he got a concerned look on his face. "Today? That's a long
way to go, and it's very, very difficult. From here on it's tough,
but here (he pointed to the map) it gets brutal. Almost straight up.
Are you sure you want to go?" "Well, yeah," I said, surprising myself
with how much of a I-have-something-to-prove attitude I was carrying.
I walked over to the nearby hut for some water, and he followed me.
"Listen, I'm just saying, I mean, I see how you're dressed, and I
can't help thinking you're not ready for this." Now I was getting a
little offended. I think he sensed that. "No, that came out wrong, I
mean, it gets really nasty up there, and it gets cold very quickly. I
see what you're wearing and what you're carrying and I get worried.
The route you're going takes two days, usually. I've done it several
times.There's a hut about two hours from here. Most people don't even
make it this far. Just go to the next hut, stay the night there." I
told him I'd be just fine, thank you, and thereby let my pride get in
the way of what would turn out to be really sage advice. But by the
time I realized that, I'd be dead.
Well, maybe not. From that chekpoint on it was up at a 45 degree
angle, through tough terrain. Remember that hill in Montreal? Like
that, for 11 kilometers more. It was hard, but I just kept pushing.
More and more, higher and higher. During that time, every climber I
met, all of whom were going the other way, would respond the same way
when I told them where I was going. "Today? Very difficult."
I reached the place Mr. French had pointed to on the map, where
the climbing was supposed to get brutal, about 2 full hours before
he'd said I would. I started to climb, and he was right, it was
brutal. I went for about an hour, and decided I needed to stop for a
few minutes - not having done so for more than a minute all day. I
had been snacking along the way, but that was it. I sat down, and
realized that it was really hard to catch my breath, and that I felt a
little dizzy. I tried to move from a sitting position to a laying
one, but my legs hurt a lot and my joints - particularly my knees and
ankles, felt like they were locking up. They hurt. My clothes were
soaked through with sweat.
I knew I wasn't that far from the top, but it was the worst that
separated me from my destination, and I kinda collapsed on the side of
the mounatin, and tried not to slide down.
At this point there occured in me the precise sort of battle that
Ueshiba Sensei talks about so much in his writing - the battle to
supress the ego that makes us want to conquer, want to prove
something. One the one hand, I really felt like I wanted to muster
the strength to climb up the mountain; the will to conquer and prove
something had pushed me all day. One the other hand, I was having one
of those "they shoot horses, don't they?" moments where I realized
that this, right here, is how people die. I hadn't seen another
climber in hours, and it was getting cold. I just sat there, trying to
catch my breath, and thinking about how mad everybody would be if I
didn't get to safety. I might have managed there, but who knows? Not
me. I also though about how Sarah shotwell, among others, would fly
to Japan and climb the mountain just to kick my corpse for being dumb.
I wanted really badly to go back down, but there was that tiny
nagging bit of me left that wanted to climb. And that's when
Shingo-ando showed up.
He sorta came out of nowhere. He was a climber, slightly older
than me, headed down from Yari-ga-take. I asked him how far it was to
the top, and he said "about four hours. Very difficult."
I was really angry at the situation and at myself for a minute,
and then I culdn7t help but start to relax. A voice in my head said,
" good. Did you get it all out? Are you done? Can we go now?"
Shingo just looked at me, and, very kindly, said " maybe not today."
He could tell that I was still struggling, I think, because he
continued," I am heading down." The nonverbal part, which we both
understood, was, "and you are coming with me." Seriously, what was I
doing? This was pure ego.
I nodded, he smiled, and we were on our way.
We stopped about ten minutes later to get some water from a spring.
I was looking longingly up the mountain, and heard shingo say, "it is
very difficult." I kept looking, though, and he tapped me on the
shoulder. "Here," he said, "Yari-gat-take for you." It was a picture
cut out of a magazine showing the summit. I laughed so hard I almost
cried. Then he added, "Present!" and handed me some food. It was
this thing called "fibre boost" and was basically a capri-sun full of
chunky applesauce.
After an unfortunate event where Shingo realized he'd dropped his
camera and we had to look for it, I stopped at the first mountain hut
we saw. He was continuing on, so we said goodbye, and he hugged me.
That night I might as well have slept outside, though, because the
mountain hut, closing down for the end of the season, was being
cleaned, and all the doors were open. It was freezing by nightfall,
and the two other campers there with me - an older japanese man named
Kishi and his 34 year-old son - were good company as we huddled around
a kerosene heater.
Kishi had been climbing these mountain for 40 years, and said that
going to yari-gat-take should be a two day trip. He said it was more
fun that way, and I could see his point. The staff there were jerks,
though, and not only fed us poorly, but acted like we were bothering
them with our very presence. When it was time for dinner, the staff
woke me up by yelling, "gayjin. Dinner." Kishi remarked on it, and so
did his son. When I asked the manager how to turn on the light for
the bathroom, he turned to the other staff and said something that
staretd with "gayjin" in that tone of voice I reserve for calling
someone "princess." He told me that there was no light, and when I
said the wter was cold, he acted like I'd asked him to carry me
someplace warmer and to stop being so darned Japanese. I went
upstairs and watched the news with Kishi and his son.
Kishi was convinced that I spoke Japanese. "you speak very well"
he kept saying, and would try to carry on a conversation with me.
When I looked to his son for help, he would just roll his eyes and
explain to his father, once again, that I didn't understand what he
was saying. Still and all, they were fun company. I then put on
every article of clothing I had, and we all took the blankets from
every bed in the place, divided them up, and, teeth chattering, fell
asleep.
This morning I was sore, but found it much easier walking down than
climbing up. I had a great time, made sure to actually enjoy all the
scenery, took a few side trails here and there, and took many
pictures. When I got all the way down to Kamikochi village and its
surrounding trails, I saw many more Japanese sight-seers. With my
all-black get-up and Punisher knit cap with the skull on the front
(thanks, H and L), I was regarded strangely by most, like seeing a
bear or something. When I greeted them in Japanese, however, they
brightened up and acted as though I'd blessed them or something. Like
they'd seen a unicorn. They were very pleasant.
I had to go back to Nishiitoya-sanso to tell them I was leaving
(there's paper work for a trip like mine, beacuse people do get lost
and die, and so forth)I visited with Mika again for a while, and we
talked about the world, and my trip. She says she's off to Africa
before coming back to work at Kamikoichi as she does every summer. We
exchanged information, and I told her she should come to America
again, her first and olnly time before having been a trip to Spokane.
It was a very relaxing way to end my trip, and I'm still just trying
to put together everything that happened, and why, and what I got out
of it, hours later. The funny thing is, I think in the end - and
you'll have to take my word for this for now- I got out exactly what
I'd hoped for. One thing for sure is that although I traveled here by
myself, I am certainly not alone. Another has to do with ego and the
demands I place on myself, but it is harder to explain just now. The
mountains are a mysterious place...
..and, apparently, so is Japanese TV. There's a game show on, asking
passers-by which is more powerful, a daikkon raddish or laundry
detergent?
Goodnight, kids.
bloghopping! ;)
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