Two Mountains

I love waking up early.

Maybe I should rephrase that - I love getting up early for a reason. Especially if that reason has to do with (a) travel, or (b) doing something outdoorsy.

Luckily for me, Sunday brought the opportunity to do both. I read an advertisement from a club called the "Wondervogels," (Loyal readers of the blog will note that the theme of odd-sounding names with unclear origins pushes on as strong as ever*), inviting international students on a hiking trip to Okutama, which is the far west part of Tokyo Prefecture. Okutama has about as much in common with Tokyo city as Cooperstown has with New York City, to give you an idea of the vastness of Tokyo Prefecture.

Anyway, to back track for a second, I have heard many times that (the) Mt. Fuji was visible from a number of places in West Tokyo, but I had yet to see it and had passed it off as just a way to make the area seem more interesting.

Early Sunday morning, however, was as clear a day as I had seen in Tokyo, and riding the train out west to Okutama, I noticed a distant and beautiful mountain range surrounding the suburbs which I had yet to see in nearly 2 months of being here. My Japanese friend, after teaching me the word for mountain range, calmly pointed out to me that you could see Mt. Fuji as well.

"MT FUJI?!" I gasped. The Mt. Fuji?

As it turns out, one could see Fuji bright and clear from this normal suburban train that I had taken not a few times. It was in the far distance but one could sense its calm presence even in our airconditioned little compartment.

But more on this later.

Meeting up with the rest of the group in Tachikawa, the last major stop in Western Tokyo, we set out on a slow-moving train to Okutama, the last stop on the Japan Railways East line. I talked to two Japanese students who had been to Israel (seriously), watching as the concrete melange of Tokyo slowly faded into mountains of pine trees, deserted wooden train stations and lonely hilltop houses. One could sense the tension in the air of Tokyo releasing and melting away.

Disembarking at a one-room train station with a number of other climbers, our group leader Yuta-kun told us our climbing order (which we never actually climbed in) and lead us up a paved road to the entrance of Mt. Honita, our challenge for the day.



The mountain was steep - no doubting that. To be honest, I wasn't prepared for the type of hike it turned out to be. Not that I'm a hiker anyway. But our Japanese leaders were as prepared as the most decorated boy scout in town.

I alternated between hiking partners, discussing the difficulties of translating Japanese to English and vice-versa (My Japanese friend from early told me on the way up that someone had asked him "How are you?" and he had no idea how to respond. The phrase simply doesn't exist in Japanese. Even the idea of asking "how" something is doesn't really exist. I taught him to say "I'm fine, how are you?" even in situations in which he is not fine. My only suitable explanation for this was that it's just the way you do it. Not sure I'm going to be an English teacher any time soon.)

After about two and a half hours we reached the summit, where predictably older folks who have a considerable edge on me in the category of years lived sat calmly eating a picnic lunch while I wiped the oceanic amount of sweat from my brow with a bath towel. Japanese old people are superhuman. There's no other explanation. Must be something in the rice.

Anyway, as previously reported, Mt. Fuji was indeed visible from sea level. To my great surprise and delight, however, the top of Mt. Honita offered quite a more dramatic view:



The peak of Mt. Fuji, rising up from the clouds blocking the view of the onlookers below. I cannot describe the feeling this gave me. The mountain was understated, tranquil and beautiful in a very "Japanese" way. I felt peaceful simply looking at it. True, I did not climb it, but to have this privileged view of the peak gave the feeling of having arrived, not in the physical sense but, if you'll allow the mountain to be used as a totally unimaginative metaphor, having overcome some initial obstacles to not just be in Japan to be Living in Japan. I took approximately 2,000 pictures of Fuji, drank in the view some more, and returned to my group.

Often in Japan, one will be engaged in an activity that reminds one of something at home, only to be surprised at the end by a turn of events that seemingly has nothing to do with what had been going on before.

The leaders of the group had brought out portable gas burners, put some pots on top and...made cheese fondue. Oh yes, America. I had cheese fondue on top of a mountain. Before I had ever had it when not on a mountain.



I would suggest not thinking about it for too long. Your head might hurt.

We shuffled down the mountain, using the mountaineering technique known as stuffing your toes into the front of your shoes as you slide down hoping not to slip and fall into a tree, which were plentiful:



One of the down sides of waking up that early, however, was that after I made it back to my train stop, I stood in front of the huge bike parking lot with absolutely no recollection of where I had parked my bike. 15 minutes later...

The next day the group leaders e-mailed me to thank me for coming. Why they were thanking me I do not know. Unfortunately, compared to down here on the ground, the view from the top of that mountain made it a lot easier to find things lost in translation.


*Actually, it's not totally random: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandervogel . But its still pretty random. (Thanks Judy)