Archive for July, 2008
July 29, 2008
An even earlier start today, this time at 4.30am, after only getting to sleep at 2.30am! We again made our way out to Zenkoji Temple, but again unfortunately we didn’t get to see the monks and their morning again, but we did see them drinking tea… Yosh. Totally worth it, ha! We were there before sunrise so figured they mustn’t be doing it for some reason. Oh well, are sleeping patterns are in such disarray after Fuji Rock, it hasn’t really mattered.
Back to bed for sleep before getting up and venturing out to Matsumoto to meet up with Belinda’s friend Ross, and then to visit Matsumoto Castle. This is one of the last original castles in Japan and has been standing for over 400 years! It is surrounded by beautiful grounds and a river around half of it. The castle stands 5 stories and 1 hidden story tall and is full of items used hundreds of years ago. It was so cool walking through the castle and reading about the samurai that would run through the castle when it was under attack, and looking through the holes in the walls that were used to shoot guns and arrows out of at enemies. I got some amazing photos which will be posted up for the world to see soon enough, along with all the others.
Below is a photo of my first view of the castle:
July 29, 2008
You’d think after the long weekend at Fuji Rock we would be asleep through to the night, but if you thought that, you’d be wrong! After getting home at midnight from Fuji Rock, we were again up at quarter to 5, the next morning to go to Zenkoji Temple, tired as hell and a whole 4kgs lighter, to try and see the monks in their morning ceremony. Unfortunately we got there a bit late and they had finished before we got there, so we went home to sleep.
Later in the day we went back to Zenkoji Temple to as I say, ‘ get our enlightenment on’ which involved walked through a pitch black tunnel under the temple which was supposed to clear the mind. On the way back we got the local ‘thing’ which was soba crepes, and they turned out to be quite nice, and then we went to the ninja village in Togakushi.
The ninja village was so much fun, with a house with trick passages and doors we had to try and navigate our way through, then another little house which would start rocking around and moving once you got inside. Walking up the stairs to the next level was a bit difficult but no doubt fun, or funny, especially as Belinda nearly fell down trying to make a video of herself walking up the stairs and being ‘freaked out’ about it.
After the ninja village we went back home again to catch up on more sleep, especially as we planned on going back to the temple again tomorrow, earlier this time to make sure we see the monks in ‘action.’ By action I mean praying and being zen and such.
July 29, 2008
The last day of Fuji Rock had arrived, which was as much a good thing as a bad thing. Some things like walking up the mountain would not be missed, and after 3 days of broken sleep and and being on our feet for most of that time, we were glad it was the final day.
We started packing up the tent and took most of our gear to the car before catching the Dragondola, (a 5.5km cable car run through to mountains to another stage, which turned out to be hippy central. While there wasn’t much on up there, the ride up was nice, as well as the ride back down. Once we wee down we saw the end of Jason Mraz, and then onto Red Marquee where we sat for a bit waiting for One Night Only.
After having a bite to eat we went over to the Green Stage, grabbed a seat and saw Jakob Dylan of the Wallflowers, and then began our wait to see Ben Folds. As we were waiting, we heard some of the loudest and longest thunder cracks, and biggest lightning strikes I had ever seen, which didn’t fill us with the best confidence considering how much electrical equipment we were surrounded by! We stayed out there, and then, the rain came. And it didn’t just rain, it poured! We were that wet we stayed out there and it was definitely worth it, Ben Folds was great, although he didn’t interact with the crowd as much as I expected.
We decided we may as we’ll stay out in the rain and wait as we weren’t getting any dryer, or wetter. We were waiting for Ellegarden, another Japanese punk band, but this time, they sang mostly in English. As with Mongol800, as soon as the band came on stage, the crowd stormed to the front, and it wasn’t your normal mosh pit crowd. There was kids and parents in there too, small petite girls getting in amongst it also, and people running around in circles and purposely jumping into each. It was really a site to be seen, and the music was really good as well, as the ain continued to fall.
As the sun started to set, we headed back to the campsite for the last time, to pull “The Hilton” down and back to the car before ending the Fuji Rock experience! We would have stayed longer if it wasn’t for the rain, but we weren’t overly fussed missing the last few acts, and were much more excited about heading to the onsen (translated as hot spring, best described as a public bath).
After our onsen we started the journey home, this time going a different way which turned out much quicker than the trip there. We got home about midnight and after unpacking our gear we were off to bed after our long, long weekend. which was much better than I ever expected it to be!
July 29, 2008
Another early morning, this time to see a Japanese punk band called Mongol800, which was an interesting experience, and proved to me that Japanese people aren’t as civil as they seem to be. We were fairly close to the front and there was enough room around everyone. That was until they came out, which then had everyone storm the front of the stage and cram about 3 times as many people into the same amount of space! With everyone pushing, screaming, bouncing around and crowd surfing it was truly a fun experience. Even though I couldn’t understand the music, I still really enjoyed it!
Hard-Fi was next up in the afternoon, followed by Asian Dub Foundation, before a break in time for another long night. That began with Underworld at the Green Stage, which had an amazing light show and graphics, but unfortunately didn’t play Born Slippy, well at least not that we saw, as we left a bit before the end to go to the White Stage and see Simple Plan. While neither me nor Belinda are big fans, Belinda in fact saying she “would rather slit her wrists than listen to Simple Plan”, they put on an awesome show, speaking in Japanese, interacting with the crowd, and even doing a cover of T-Pain’s, Get Low, which they should actually release because it was that good.
After Simple Plan me and Bel went back to the Red Marquee and saw the end of Princess Superstar, who as usual was a lot of fun and worked the crowd, before we went to try and see Rodrigo Y Gabriela again. But after waiting for nearly an hour, it turned out that they had been canceled, so we trudged back to the campsite pissed off, and walking up the mountain seemed so much harder than ever before.
July 29, 2008
It was an early morning wakeup at 8.30am with the sun beaming into the tent and the noise from neighboring tents, and the many security and staff on megaphones directing the crowds. After having some breakfast, we headed down for what would turn out to be a huge day.
First stop was the Green Stage, which was the main stage and could cater for 40000 people, to catch some of Rodrigo Y Gabriela, a guitar duo. It was amazing, the speed they played and the movements of their hands and fingers was great to watch. I highly recommend seeing them if you ever have a chance.
Next we headed for the Red Marquee, which was called a marquee but was more like a giant shed. We were there to see one of the Australian acts, the Midnight Juggernauts, who didn’t disappoint. As usual they were great, but was more on the rock side playing here and to a much larger audience.
Next up was an old favourite, The Presidents of the United States of America, which turned out to be even better than expected. They played some new songs, but best of all they played their old songs which we all knew and sung along too. They even spoke in Japanese and exchanged some words in songs with Japanese words which was good fun.
We grabbed some food and headed back to the tent for a half hour nap before making the long trek out to the Orange Court, which took close to an hour from the campsite! We were there to see Ozomatli, which all I can say is ’sugoi’ (or ‘wow’ for those of you playing at home). Belinda and I got close to the front and danced away, with the music playing, and for half of the show, rain coming down, which was a nice relief.
Next we started back to the Red Marquee to catch the end of The Vines, then on to Green Stage to see the first half of Kasabian before heading to the White Stage, halfway between Green & Orange, to see the end of Galactic. After this it was back to Red Marquee to see Feeder, who blew us away, then back to White Stage to see some of Bootsy Collins – A Tribute to the Godfather of Soul, which turned out to be a bit to mellow after seeing what we had already seen through the day, so we headed back to ‘The Hilton’ to get some sleep before All Night Fuji!
We woke at 2 in the morning and started our way down to the Red Marquee, as many other people were making their way back to their tents to sleep. We caught some of Grand Master Flash, which was a lot of fun, and mixed up different kinds of music, then headed out to Orange again, down the boardwalk. The boardwalk had some amazing lighting throughout it, with disco balls and giant light up stars hanging from trees. We got to Orange in time to see the second half of Paul Van Dyk, who unlike last time I saw him, didn’t disappoint. Once he had finished, we started our long and tired walk to the tent in the wee hours of the morning as the sun was just coming up.
The first day was over but the festival had just begun, we had much more music to see. There was no doubt this was the most amazing music festival I had ever been to, and nothing in Australia even came close in comparison.
July 29, 2008
I had no idea how much walking was going to be involved during the weekend of the Fuji Rock Festival, but it quickly became evident as we scaled the mountain looking for a nice place to pitch our tent.
From the car park, each of us loaded up with all we could carry, we walked and walked through “Tent City” and after going high up the mountain and scouting a few sites, we found a flatish spot. This took us about half an hour, just to get to the site from the car park, including going up inclines of 40 degrees, maybe more.
“Tent City” as it is known:
The journey up the mountain was amazing, but hard. Thousands of people had already set there tents up, and it was really bizarre seeing so many tents in the one place, hence the nickname, “Tent City.” We set up the tent, put what we had inside, and began the journey of heading back to the car to get the rest of the gear and bring it back to the tent, known as “The Hilton of Tents.” We eventually made it back to the tent, set everything up before laying down at 3.30am for some much needed rest before the big days ahead.
July 25, 2008
The trek to Fuji Rock Festival was an amazing experience, while at the same time being one of the most terrifying! After picking up supplies, we headed out into the mountains, where the roads wound in and out, left and right, up and down, and in some places were barely wide enough to fit 2 of the smallest cars side by side! This wasn’t too much of a problem as that is how many, or should I say most, of the roads are in Japan. With mountains straight up 100 metres or more in places, it was a sight to be seen.
It got worse though as we climbed the mountain an started to hit the fog and clouds. It wasn’t too bad to being with, nothing the high beams didn’t fix, but as we progressed, the high beams did nothing but reflect off the clubs and blind us, which wasn’t the best for us strangely. We soldiered on, and it got worse and worse, being able to reach out the windows and touch the clouds. It got to the point of only being able to see no more than a few metres in front of the car, and barely seeing the sides of the road, or corners coming up! After travelling for close to an hour, we covered 30 kilometres, but thankfully had gotten through to fog, and were powering on to Fuji Rock!
Our journey continued on, and quick stop for dinner was in order before again driving on. Eventually, some 4 hours later, (of what Belinda said would take 2) we’d arrived! The sheer size of the festival was evident, with alread thousands of people streaming in! I was so excited, it was going to an awesome 3 days, never to forget, I couldn’t wait!
July 24, 2008
Today was Belinda’s last day of school so I was spending the day at home by myself. Deciding some food was in order I headed out to the local supermarket to get something to eat, and possibly visit a few other shops in the area. After the 5 minute walk though it was just too damn hot to be out and about so headed straight to the supermarket.
Now, a Japanese supermarket is much like any other supermarket, apart from the fact I couldn’t read any of the labels so didn’t really know what anything was. This didn’t really aid me at all in choosing what to eat. So I wandered up and down the aisles for a bit, to see if there was anything that took my fancy. While there was many delicious looking products, I still didn’t know if they needed cooking or heating, or what needed to be done to them, if anything. I found some pre-packaged meals and sandwiches, from which I chose something with a bit of meat, salad, egg, noodles and some kind of seafood, which turned out to be decent enough.
All in all it was much the same as any supermarket shopping experience, but not knowing what things were or how they were to be served made it much too difficult to decide. Luckily Belinda didn’t give me a shopping list!
July 23, 2008
Here I was like a sucker paying to use the Internet at the hostel when I worked out this morning they had their own wireless network, with the security details posted on the wall. So all I had to do was put them into my phone and voila, Internet on my phone out the front of the hostel while I enjoyed my glass of orange juice!
The time came for me to grab some food from the convenience store, this time I chose AMPM. Had a bit of a look and not being able to read what a lot of it was, I settled for sandwich which looked like chicken, egg and salad, and a drink of Vitamin Water.
I once again proved that I was in fact the Subway Master by catching and changing trains to get to Ueno Station, where I was to catch the Shinkansen. I found my way to the ticket booth, and told the lady where I wanted to go, in JAPANESE! Thanks to the help of Belinda’s instructions. So I had my ticket and began to navigate my way to the platform following the instructions and signs everywhere. After going down and escalator which went for 2 whole minutes, then down another one, I was at the platform. So I grabbed a few drinks from the vending machine and waited.
The Shinkansen arrived and I jumped on, ate my sandwich, which turned out to be pork not chicken, and settled in for the ride. I took some photos out the window and just looked around before eventually arriving at Nagano station about an hour and a half later.
Being that Belinda wouldn’t be able to pick me up until after she finished school, I walked around for a while, until it started to rain. Although it was a nice relief from the 30 degree heat and humidity, I didn’t really want my bags getting soaked. So I headed to Starbucks, got myself a mango passionfruit frappacino and double chocolate donut which is where I write this from now. Belinda will be here soon an I’m super excited! So until next time…
July 23, 2008
Today began about 9.30am which seemed like a good time to get up after some much needed rest. I headed for the shower and got myself ready before sitting down for a while to study the subway maps and Belinda’s recommendations for the day.
I headed out for the day about 10.30 to the subway station where to get to Akihabara (Tokyo’s technology mecha), I needed to catch 3 trains, according to Belinda. Once I got to the station though I wasn’t too sure and headed to the ticket booth to get some help. After some pointing and running off the station names of what I wanted to do, the ticket man told me to catch just one train, and then Akihabara was only a 5 minute walk away. This would have been the case if I didn’t walk to far, and that wouldn’t have been the case if I had a street map instead of just the subway map. It didn’t matter though, I was enjoying walking the streets of Tokyo, (but not enjoying the 31 degree heat and high humidity) and just looking around, marveling at what Tokyo has to offer, and just how different it is.
Not 2 minutes of walking after leaving the subway station, I had walked 2 McDonald’s, 1 Burger King, and just about every second store being another variation of a convenience store. After a bit of walking I found a map near a train station and worked out the right way I should have been heading, and found my way to Akihabara, in particular, Yodabashi. The ticket man was right! Yodabashi is a giant electronics store with everything you can ever think of and more. It has 7 stories of different electronic and other products, with the 8th floor full of restaurants.
I looked around at all the different things, from mobile phones, to computer hardware and accessories, iPods & other MP3 players, to digital cameras, to game consoles, to TV’s, watches, sunglasses, household appliances and much, much more! I spent a good couple of hours wandering the floors, checking out what I want to buy when Belinda and I return there before I leave.
One of the most amazing things I saw there was a 103 inch Full HD plasma TV. That’s right, 103 inches! It was insane, but at about 900000 yen, or $90000 Australian, who could afford it? The thing was that big, you’d may as well have your own movie theatre!
After finding Akihabara, I had some newfound confidence in using the Subway system, so I decided to head to Asakusa, home of the Senoji Temple and a shopping district. First off, I grabbed a Teriyaki burger meal at McDonald’s (which was much better than any of the burgers we have in Australia), and after that, headed to the Subway station.
The more I used the Subway, the easier it got! I had my ticket and was at the platform, then on the train in no time. I checked out the Senoji temple, where a nice couple from El Mehico (Mexico for those who don’t know) took my photo in front of it. I looked around the temple for a bit, but it seemed familiar, or similar to the many temples I saw on my last visit here. So I started to walk around the shopping district, and it was just huge. All kinds of shops, it was just an experience walking through it all.
By this stage my legs were getting tired so I thought I would head out to Harajuku (like in the Gwen Stefani song) because it is apparently where all the cool kids hang out, so what better place for me to be? I got on the Subway with no problems and even managed to have a little nap on there without fear of missing my stop. I had become a Subway master! The Subway went to Shibuya, not too far away from Harajuku according to the Subway map, but I don’t think I found it. Shibuya was crazy busy though, people everywhere, and it was a younger crowd of people too, so I assume it was close. I went for a walk in most directions where all the people were, and saw some people that may have been Harajuku girls, but not completely sure.
I headed back to the hostel where I had a bit of a rest, then a shower, and then had some dinner before laying down again to end another day. (After writing this that is).