An Autumn in Japan

After Claire returned to Japan from our stateside road trip in August, I immediately began planning when I would make another visit. The doldrums of the current job market and the oppressive summer heat made it not long a wait for me at all. I remembered from a year ago that her teacher holiday would be in mid October, when we sojourned together in the Philippines. I would want to be back to enjoy Arizona’s winter and vote. The earlier I went would theoretically spare me that much more of the remaining hot season here as well. Thus, I opted to spend six weeks on this visit to Japan, leaving less than a month after my return. I’d stay with Claire in Tokyo the entire time, do my own thing while she worked, and savor an even longer spell living there domestically and settling into the rhythms of the city. I truly enjoy living with her in Tokyo, despite my glaring dearth of Japanese skills, though I’m getting better. I hope to further communicate that vibe in this writing! This trip marked my fourth visit to Tokyo in the last two years! I feel like I’ve really have gotten into a comfortable groove with this visit.

My departing flight was a bit weird. I thought I scored big on a cheap 9 AM flight from Phoenix, laying over briefly in Calgary. Unfortunately, my pal there wasn’t able to host, which threw a real wrench in my gears. The flight was just a hair too early to use the early morning bus systems with confidence, so I opted to take the latest bus possible and sleep in the airport! I got there at about midnight, very conveniently at a station next to the airport (rare semi-functional public transit), and vibed for 6-7 hours. I don’t recall sleeping after setting up my camping gear in an out-of-the-way corner. Though the flight was uneventful, I still remember the joy at getting off the plane and grabbing some fresh onigiri at the airport konbini before settling on my express train to Shinjuku. I’d meet Claire, with wet hair (a big deal!), at her local station in Setagaya and share a happy embrace over this fresh length of time we’d get to share.

Our joke between us is that I’m her butler there, so I’ve lived to embrace the role and become the meme. I try to be a very good guest anywhere I stay, but I find it really easy as a domestic partner to shoulder a larger load of chores. It’s especially easy to do this with a working partner while I’m not particularly busy otherwise. Teaching is a quite involved and draining profession, so I take some joy in reducing her burden. This was a good opportunity to learn more of the art of ‘nihon ryouri’, or Japanese cooking, in my own vegan fashion, and experimenting with many new cuisine options, such as baking bread, making tempura or working with unusual produce. Have you ever cooked with urizun or akebi? I had a nice routine of just doing my own things in the day and meeting Claire every night, either at home or out.

Besides domestic bliss, what else was I up to? Well, the biggest feather in my cap from this visit was probably day hiking Mt. Fuji. I chose the Yoshida Trail, its most easily accessible path that starts halfway up Fuji. I got there via a dawn bus from Shinjuku, nabbing the last seat at the ticket kiosk, talk about risking it winging it! I’d wind up burned on the return, having to take a miserable three hour amalgam of local trains back exhausted after not reserving my return bus, so lesson learned. Anyway, the day hike is pretty difficult! Going up and down Fuji from the Sixth Station in a day requires almost 5 miles and 5,000 feet each way, first up and then down. Journeyers typically will stay at one or two of the many huts on the way up instead of doing it a day, often known as a ‘bullet hike’ to locals.

The trail was actually closed when I arrived, so I had to skirt around a closure at the trailhead and make my way up. I was a little nervous at first, but I found myself amidst a few dozen other hikers that day and the weather was great in the late season (in fact it was more than a month before Fuji saw snow). I hear that this trail is often heavily crowded, so to roll up late in the season, and find everything quiet, was a blessing. I’m a social guy but I generally prefer to be alone or in intimate company when in the wild.

The weekend after my Fuji hike was a big event Claire had been hyping up, the autumn festival (or matsuri) for her home neighborhood in Setagaya. Our local version of a festival involved taking a kami (local god) on a tour of the neighborhood via 20 of us hauling its heavy wooden palanquin on our shoulders. For a full day, we walked a few miles with this onus, garbed in traditional attire, taking multiple stops with refreshments (including beer!) before we brought the kami first to the local temple, and then back to its home nearby. Claire does this yearly with one of her dearest friends, Haruna, who I’ve gotten to know through her, and I was honored with the invite and inclusion into Japanese culture. In return, I gave the kami my all when it was upon my shoulders, which was padded with dishrags to bear the load a little better. I was still sore for a few days after!

Through a stroke of luck and will, I hit up my old university friend Paul that I would be coming back to Japan, and invited him to do the same, after we’d had a good couple days hanging out in Springtime in Tokyo. Paul cleared it with his work and set up his own two week digital nomad stint through his employer, and put himself in Shinjuku. Unfortunately he (and I, a week earlier) arrived right in the midst of a lingering late summer heatwave, and his coming from Seattle’s mild weather was quite a harsh adjustment. We made due with Japan’s plentiful air-con, but outdoor activities(except climbing Fuji!) were often pretty miserable.

We had some fun outings together, including celebrating his birthday with izakaya drinks and karaoke in Shibuya, a day trip to Kamakura with Claire to see temples, his dropping in on us at the matsuri, and a day or two of coworking. Our big trip together was to Tokyo Games Show, one of the biggest gaming trade shows out there. Both of us are pretty big gamers, thus it seemed like a slam dunk of an activity. Unfortunately, we were ill prepared for the unreal level of crowdedness that descended on the event. We waited almost two hours for entry and we were unable to participate in any marquee attractions. We were mostly okay with the second class treatment though simply to be witnesses to the experience, and salvaged the day by trying out some of the less popular indie gaming booths without big lines. I wouldn’t go back though without a VIP ticket that gave early entry or a press focus.

Finally, Claire’s vacation arrived, and with it, another backpacking trip together. I had already brought my gear for it! We opted for traversing the Kita (Northern) Alps. They’re a mountain range in Nagano ranging from 2,500 to 3,000 meters in elevation or so, beautifully snowcapped in winter, and heavily built around recreation, especially hiking. We took a route of about 35 miles length starting from Nakabusa Onsen, which wasn’t far from Matsumoto, the part of Nagano I cycled through in Spring. We’d come out the other end in the Kamikochi Valley, where a lot of tourist infrastructure is in place for visitors and we were able to snag a bus back easily.

The actual hiking was more of an endurance challenge than I expected, with a thousand or more meters of elevation change each day. It was still a grand time, despite the physical punishment. We saw wonderful views, hiking whole days above the treeline on picturesque ridges and precarious rocks. Clouds came and went around us, with only one truly clear day amidst omens of rain and fog banks. It was a quite dismal wind on the last day that dampened our spirits, chilled our bones and to top it all off, blew my tent down in the middle of the night via some especially fierce gales. My Tarptent has historically served me well this past decade of adventure, but it’s tough taking that kind of beating when all the freestanding tents nearby were standing strong.

Fortunately, we had a place to flee to in the dark. That was one of the warming huts whose campground we were at, a half dozen or more of which punctuate the walk and offer water, shelter, meals or snacks. Sugoi (fantastic)! Although the price was steep for any goods, especially lodging, it was nice to drop in on any of them and stay out of the near freezing temps to have a hot tea or even a beer. Though we still had to pay just to throw a tent down outside, they make for the only permitted camping in this region. I’m glad we didn’t stay at any, since, besides not being friendly to vegetarian diets with their meals, the Japanese mountaineering culture involves waking up predawn to witness the sunrise, and so alarms and announcements would be on the intercom to kindly awaken their guests. Both of us prefer our beauty sleep, thanks.

After we made it home unscathed (then freshly bathed), it was soon time to leave once again. It’s gotten harder to say goodbye with the shared flame we’ve nurtured spending so much time in one another’s company; it’s downright cozy this life. As adventurers in different countries and fiercely independent strivers when not together, I think we have a good read on our situation and are happy, despite not knowing for sure what’s in the future. Will there be more or longer Japan chapters in my life? It seems quite likely. To boot, we’ll be seeing each other again shortly here for a spell in Arizona’s winter. It will be a chance for me to host and show the treasures of my adopted home. I’ll be blogging about that in the new year as I continue searching for where my focus and fate will rest upon.