Gankoyama

This past Thursday and Friday I, along with my 2 colleagues, took 20 teenage students to Gankoyama - a campsite in Chiba - the big, rural peninsula near Tokyo.

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Overall I'd say the trip was a success. The most stressful part of the trip was getting there because I wasn't sure about the bus from Yokohama to Chiba -- if there'd be space on the public bus for us all and how to purchase tickets. I met 15 of the students at 8am at school and herded them from school to the train station, onto a train, to Yokohama station and through the massive station to the bus terminal. We arrived at 8:30am where we were supposed to meet my 2 colleagues and the other 5 students. The students were there but the teachers were not. I was not pleased. Eventually we all bought tickets and boarded the 9am bus. Around 10:30am we transferred buses to a private charter we booked which took us another 1/2 hour to the campsite.

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Almost immediately after arriving, it started raining and it pretty much poured until just after we left the campsite the next day! It was a cold, wet, muddy mess but it was fun. The kids made bow and arrows, cooked, chopped wood, relaxed, and fooled around.

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We left on Friday at 2pm and retraced our steps back to Yokohama around 5pm. Despite the whole trip lasting less than 48 hours it seemed a lot longer!

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For the spring we are considering a bigger trip to Hiroshima.

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Hiking Japanese-Style

Saturday, Yumi and I headed out to Mt. Takao to meet up with Kayo to climb the mountain (elevation 600 meters = 1900 feet). Apparently there are ugly big-headed monkeys there but we didn't see them. It was a beautiful day and we had a nice time. At higher elevations we got nice views of Tokyo, Yokohama, and other mountains. It wasn't the clearest day unfortunately. If it were clearer we could have seen Mt. Fuji. We left the apartment at 8:30am and arrived 2 hours and several train rides later. We climbed from 11am until about 3pm then headed to the Shinjuku area of Tokyo to do a bit of window shopping and have dinner. We finally got back home around 12 hours after we originally left.

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A few observations from the hike:
1. Japanese love dogs; specifically small dogs and they love taking them everywhere they go.
2. It is particularly Japanese that the whole path up the mountain was paved.
3. It is also typical that there were shops and vending machines all the way up.
4. Of course there were shrines, temples, and various other statues along the way.
5. Perhaps needless to say, in this country of 125,000,000 people squeezed into the size of California and being just outside of a conurbanation of 35,000,000 people (the largest in the world), it was crowded!

Mt. Takao Pictures

Takao

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Last Weekend

Last Saturday, Yumi, my friend Tomo, an acquaintance Misa, and a colleague Jonathan went to see the Carp play the Bay Stars. On the up side, it was a gorgeous day and to paraphrase an old adage, the worst day at a baseball game is better than the best day working. On the downside, the Carp not only lost, not only lowered my record while watching them to 0-5, but lost to a downright horrible team who has a record of 48-94 (0.338 winning percentage) and came into the game having lost 14 straight games! The hapless Bay Stars not only won but beat up the Carp 14-5 and knocked around their pitcher, Colby Lewis who came in with a spectacular 2.45 ERA! Tomo says I need to go to a shrine and rid myself of this evil spell; maybe he's on to something. Things to notice in the photo: the background features Japan's tallest building (Landmark Tower), the YMCA building right behind the scoreboard is where I work, and the score was 13-3 in the 6th inning and the Bay Stars had men on 2nd and 3rd.

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On Sunday, Yumi and I went to a small, local festival and ate lunch before running errands. While some things were familiar (some music, games, rides, kids), some things were a bit different...

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Playoff Baseball

I love baseball, but usually I need to be invested in one team to really enjoy it. Even with Cleveland out of contention for half of the season, I loved the end of this season. Entering the final weekend, after 159 games played and 3 to go for each team, 2 of 8 spots were still up for grabs. The games all seemed to be dramatic, too. Extra innings. Walk-off homeruns. 1-0 pitcher duels. The White Sox got swept by the 2nd place Twins to go from ahead by 2.5 to be behind by 0.5, then both went 1-2 the final weekend. The White Sox won their make up game with Detroit to pull even, then beat Minnesota in a one game playoff 1-0. Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and the NY Mets were jockeying back and forth for the two final spaces in the NL with Milwaukee winning by 1 game after CC Sabathia won his second straight start on only 3 days rest. He was absolutely incredible this season after a slow start and almost single-handedly dragged the Brewers into the post-season.

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As far as Cleveland goes, it's really a shame that they had so many injuries and coudn't get it together. They started the season with two of the best pitchers in all of baseball, last year's Cy Young winner, Sabathia and this year's likely winner Cliff Lee who ended up going 22-3. In the end they went from about 16 games under 0.500 to break even by the end of the year. If they had gotten it together earlier (and not traded Sabathia) they could have made the playoffs. Oh well, wait 'till next year. In the meantime I'll enjoy the playoffs - and the Hiroshima Carp - Yokohama Bay Stars this Saturday (and hopefully finally see a win after 4 losses!)