Sunday, June 22, 2003
This entry will be for both today and yesterday. Sorry I didn't get around to an entry yesterday, but after reading this one, hopefully you will understand why I didn't.
Nathan and I got up early on Saturday morning for a trip to Mt. Tsukuba. We left around 7:30 or so in the morning. I did find a 3-D map online to give you an idea of the area and scale. If you look at the map, we live in the SE portion of the red cross marker in the center. Mt. Tsukuba is the mountiain directly north, marked as 876 m high. Well, after looking at that, consider the fact that we biked there. It looks like about 15 km from the scale, right? Now follow the actual roads. I estimate from the 2 hours it took us w/ non-stop cycling that it was at least 20 miles to the point on the mountain where you start hiking. Keep in mind that the map doesn't show the switchbacks so well. Or the incline, which we walked the bikes up for the last mile and a half or so. Also consider the nature of our bicycles. Not rough and tumble mountain bikes, not fancy racing bikes, but plain old commuter types bikes, with handlebar basket and all. I think some bikers we asked for directions were making fun of them. But back to the story...
So, after about five 20-oz. bottles of water and 3 hours after we started, we finally made it to the point where you walk up. It was awesome. There was a huge shrine to some type of frog god or something with all of these smaller buildings around it. People would come up, toss some money in a big cage type contraption, do some really short type of prayer and then clap their hands together twice, then say something else, then leave. It was very interesting, to say the least. Hopefully, I will have some pictures on Monday.
Then, we started to ascend the foot trail up the mountain. After climbing about 100 feet or so of 50 degree incline, we realized we had missed the trail. Thank goodness because I don't know if I could have done that the entire way. Then we found the real trail. It wasn't so bad, and somebody had pretty much tamed the trail with reinforcing logs to make stairs, and it was well traveled enough to be free of shrubbery and weeds. It was a pretty awesome forest, emphasized by the fact that the only thing you could hear was yourself most of the time. I could even hear my heart beating. Maybe that's because the trail was insane. Small incline for 100 feet, totally insane incline for 300 feet, level off a little for 50 feet, back to insane for 150. The mountain would probably not have been as difficult if we had ridden a bus or drove to the walk up point, but it was definitely working hard to make me its bitch. Throughout the 2.3 km trip, mostly huge incline, there was even partial penetration at some points. But in the end, it was I who was victorious and the mountain was indeed MY bitch.
I was famished at this point and I had run out of water about half way up the trail. Thankfully, there are restaurants and shops at the top. Easier to access when you use the cable car, but that was not our mission. The first thing we did was have a drink. Now, most of the people up there were drinking beer and smoking. I really wasn't interested because my lungs were sore from a combination of the trip and the high altitude and I sure as hell didn't need to feel more light-headed than I did. So, we tried their equivalent of Gatorade, called, I kid you not, Pocari Sweat. Why would you call a drink sweat!? I guess we should be thankful it wasn't Pocari $*it. It was the kind of drink that was only consumable after a long bout of physical exertion. We stopped at a restaurant and had some soba, or unbleached wheat flour noodles. It was a pretty good meal. Then I had an awesome ice cream sandwich. It was like a typical one, but with waffle-like outside and crunchy chocolate and vanilla ice cream inside. Thinking about it makes me hungry for another one. We looked around a bit, took a few pictures, looked around some more. Then it was time to head back. Let's just say this, I really appreciate Mayer's discovery of the Law of Conservation of Energy.
The bike ride down the road portion of the mountain was scary dangerous. Keep in mind the type of bikes we had and the fact that I have yet to find a helmet that will fit my enormous cranium anywhere (remember where I am and the typical consumer here). My brakes don't work as well anymore, not that they were that great to begin with. We had to stop for a few minutes at the bottom to let them cool off. Water sizzled off of the brake housing on the rear wheel. Looking back at the mountain one last time, we started the 15 mile or so ride back home.
After a quick shower, I filled the tub up with cool water and sat there for probably an hour. My legs were very sore, still sort of painful today. Somehow, I missed the back of my right hand when I was applying sunscreen and I should have worn a hat or started using Rogaine.
After that, we went to a restaurant a block away from Ninomiya House. We had passed it the night before and it smelled wonderful. We figured out why. It was a Korean barbecue joint, the kind where they bring you meat and you cook it on the grill at your table. We couldn't read the menu, so we picked stuff at random from the half-price specials menu. I ended up with some beef ribs and he got some other beef cutlet. Both were great! Score! So we ordered some vegetables. I tried ordering this vegetable plate with zuchinni, squash and something else, but apparently he thought I only wanted one and I ended up with the 'something else.' It was 'deliciously different,' I think I would say. I think it was some sort of pickled cabbage with crushed red peppers, but I don't know and I don't want to ponder it much longer. Think about the ice cream sandwich again...mmm... So, still hungry and feeling brave after our first triumph over illiteracy, we ordered the other two special items, thinking they would be similarly good. Well, we were 50% right. One plate was obviously meat, the other... well, it looked like maybe it was chicken meat. So we called the waiter over to ask if we needed to cook it and he said yes, just like the others. So, I was dumb enough to ask what it was. He told us that the last part we ordered was from the ribs and the back of the cow through broken English and pointing to body parts, then he said that this was from the stomach. I got the message, it was intestines. Beef tripe. yummy. So, not wanting to be rude, we cooked it thoroughly and ate it. It wasn't bad, but it definitely didn't taste like chicken. We made sure to keep some of the other meat to make sure the meal didn't end with cow guts. Needless to say, I got a real good look at the kanji that made up that menu selection.
That was pretty much the end of the day. I was way too tired to write something coherent so I decided to wait until today. If something interesting happens today, I'll be sure to make another entry, ok? I promise.
Sayonara suckers,
Muddy-san
Nathan and I got up early on Saturday morning for a trip to Mt. Tsukuba. We left around 7:30 or so in the morning. I did find a 3-D map online to give you an idea of the area and scale. If you look at the map, we live in the SE portion of the red cross marker in the center. Mt. Tsukuba is the mountiain directly north, marked as 876 m high. Well, after looking at that, consider the fact that we biked there. It looks like about 15 km from the scale, right? Now follow the actual roads. I estimate from the 2 hours it took us w/ non-stop cycling that it was at least 20 miles to the point on the mountain where you start hiking. Keep in mind that the map doesn't show the switchbacks so well. Or the incline, which we walked the bikes up for the last mile and a half or so. Also consider the nature of our bicycles. Not rough and tumble mountain bikes, not fancy racing bikes, but plain old commuter types bikes, with handlebar basket and all. I think some bikers we asked for directions were making fun of them. But back to the story...
So, after about five 20-oz. bottles of water and 3 hours after we started, we finally made it to the point where you walk up. It was awesome. There was a huge shrine to some type of frog god or something with all of these smaller buildings around it. People would come up, toss some money in a big cage type contraption, do some really short type of prayer and then clap their hands together twice, then say something else, then leave. It was very interesting, to say the least. Hopefully, I will have some pictures on Monday.
Then, we started to ascend the foot trail up the mountain. After climbing about 100 feet or so of 50 degree incline, we realized we had missed the trail. Thank goodness because I don't know if I could have done that the entire way. Then we found the real trail. It wasn't so bad, and somebody had pretty much tamed the trail with reinforcing logs to make stairs, and it was well traveled enough to be free of shrubbery and weeds. It was a pretty awesome forest, emphasized by the fact that the only thing you could hear was yourself most of the time. I could even hear my heart beating. Maybe that's because the trail was insane. Small incline for 100 feet, totally insane incline for 300 feet, level off a little for 50 feet, back to insane for 150. The mountain would probably not have been as difficult if we had ridden a bus or drove to the walk up point, but it was definitely working hard to make me its bitch. Throughout the 2.3 km trip, mostly huge incline, there was even partial penetration at some points. But in the end, it was I who was victorious and the mountain was indeed MY bitch.
I was famished at this point and I had run out of water about half way up the trail. Thankfully, there are restaurants and shops at the top. Easier to access when you use the cable car, but that was not our mission. The first thing we did was have a drink. Now, most of the people up there were drinking beer and smoking. I really wasn't interested because my lungs were sore from a combination of the trip and the high altitude and I sure as hell didn't need to feel more light-headed than I did. So, we tried their equivalent of Gatorade, called, I kid you not, Pocari Sweat. Why would you call a drink sweat!? I guess we should be thankful it wasn't Pocari $*it. It was the kind of drink that was only consumable after a long bout of physical exertion. We stopped at a restaurant and had some soba, or unbleached wheat flour noodles. It was a pretty good meal. Then I had an awesome ice cream sandwich. It was like a typical one, but with waffle-like outside and crunchy chocolate and vanilla ice cream inside. Thinking about it makes me hungry for another one. We looked around a bit, took a few pictures, looked around some more. Then it was time to head back. Let's just say this, I really appreciate Mayer's discovery of the Law of Conservation of Energy.
The bike ride down the road portion of the mountain was scary dangerous. Keep in mind the type of bikes we had and the fact that I have yet to find a helmet that will fit my enormous cranium anywhere (remember where I am and the typical consumer here). My brakes don't work as well anymore, not that they were that great to begin with. We had to stop for a few minutes at the bottom to let them cool off. Water sizzled off of the brake housing on the rear wheel. Looking back at the mountain one last time, we started the 15 mile or so ride back home.
After a quick shower, I filled the tub up with cool water and sat there for probably an hour. My legs were very sore, still sort of painful today. Somehow, I missed the back of my right hand when I was applying sunscreen and I should have worn a hat or started using Rogaine.
After that, we went to a restaurant a block away from Ninomiya House. We had passed it the night before and it smelled wonderful. We figured out why. It was a Korean barbecue joint, the kind where they bring you meat and you cook it on the grill at your table. We couldn't read the menu, so we picked stuff at random from the half-price specials menu. I ended up with some beef ribs and he got some other beef cutlet. Both were great! Score! So we ordered some vegetables. I tried ordering this vegetable plate with zuchinni, squash and something else, but apparently he thought I only wanted one and I ended up with the 'something else.' It was 'deliciously different,' I think I would say. I think it was some sort of pickled cabbage with crushed red peppers, but I don't know and I don't want to ponder it much longer. Think about the ice cream sandwich again...mmm... So, still hungry and feeling brave after our first triumph over illiteracy, we ordered the other two special items, thinking they would be similarly good. Well, we were 50% right. One plate was obviously meat, the other... well, it looked like maybe it was chicken meat. So we called the waiter over to ask if we needed to cook it and he said yes, just like the others. So, I was dumb enough to ask what it was. He told us that the last part we ordered was from the ribs and the back of the cow through broken English and pointing to body parts, then he said that this was from the stomach. I got the message, it was intestines. Beef tripe. yummy. So, not wanting to be rude, we cooked it thoroughly and ate it. It wasn't bad, but it definitely didn't taste like chicken. We made sure to keep some of the other meat to make sure the meal didn't end with cow guts. Needless to say, I got a real good look at the kanji that made up that menu selection.
That was pretty much the end of the day. I was way too tired to write something coherent so I decided to wait until today. If something interesting happens today, I'll be sure to make another entry, ok? I promise.
Sayonara suckers,
Muddy-san
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