I have a new girlfriend. She's kind, funny and demure. She's also Japanese - meaning I've truly become comfortable here in Japan, as I was always slightly reluctant to become involved in a relationship where language was always going to be an issue. Fortunately for me, my love at first sight moment occurred at a junior high school I taught at when I met this Japanese teacher of English - Nobuko. You can read about our first meeting HERE.
Nobuko is perfectly happy staying at home watching television, though I'm still trying to get included in that activity. Her idea of fun, however, is something called hiking, or what she calls it: bush-walking.
Not a bad activity, you say? Well, I beg to differ. On our first excursion, she took me on the trail to Hell. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
On a crisp Saturday morning, we set forth in tint little pedal car to the area called Nasu Yama (Mount Nasu) (see top photo showing the Nasu mountain range after a major rain storm), in northern Tochigi-ken (Province of Tochigi). We drove until we came to an area at the base of the mountain called the "Life-Death Stone".
(See photo to right and below) The Life-Death Stone is actually a large area where nothing is able to grow because of either a high concentration of sulfur or a battle between some gods. Perhaps the gods used sulfur bombs, I don't know.
Why sulfur? Well, Nasu Yama is actually an active volcano - okay, maybe not burping fire and brimstone into the air, but it is constantly venting steam from various orifices.
We got out of our car and marched over to a trail hidden by some thick bushes. Why they don't put them out in the open where people can see them, I'll never know.
We glanced at a map at the start of the trail showing it to be 5.6 kilometres. Well... that's not so bad. I used to be athletic 10 or 11 years ago. And besides, it wasn't like I had stopped playing sports. I was sure I could beat anybody on darn near any video game.
Before starting off on the walk, I asked her if we had enough food and drinks. She shyly said she had packed us a lunch - Awwwww - and had a couple of soft drink cans, too. I had brought along an extra pair of track pants in case she fell down and got muddy, and a couple of sweat shirts in case it got cold up this snow-capped mountain that is venting hot steam.
We began hiking. Trees and plants and dirt everywhere. It was cool enough that there were no insects buzzing about. For that matter, there were no birds chirping, either. Hmmmm. No wildlife on a volcano.
Well, we did meet 40 people from an old folk's home who were staggering by in the opposite direction. The giggled when we told them we were going up the 5.6 kilometer trail - and we had no idea why. I always find it ominous when I see a mass exodus of people walking in the opposite direction I am going and laughing about it. Always.
After a couple of hours of hiking up a fairly steep incline, we stopped for lunch beside a small stream. I dipped my hands into the cool water to wash away the dirt that had accumulated after wiping out 14 times. My girlfriend, the mountain goat, was unscathed. A sign near the water said there was only 3.6 kilometres to go. We were traveling at one kilometre per hour. Yeesh. And when was this trail going to start heading back down.
We ate and drank everything. Not a good thing to do - after all, I hadn't seen any food vending machines in the past half-hour. Nor any people.
We marched on. Higher, higher, ever higher until we reached quite suddenly broke free of the trees. We looked around and noticed we were about three-quarters of the way up the mountain to the left of Mount Nasu. A sign said we only had two kilometres to go. To where? Dante didn't have this much climbing when he descended through the circles of Hell.
After five hours of climbing (it was now 3PM), we saw signs stating we were only 0.1 kilometres away from our goal. Thirty minutes later, we reached the top. I looked behind us and noticed a very dense fog moving in quickly. We were thirsty, and I was cold and hungry and really wanted a Coke or a beer. I was not a happy camper. Nobuko? She was in her element as a mountain goddess.
We found a trail which led over to the Nasu Yama peak - which was news to me, as I had thought we were on the Nasu Yama peak. Nobuko was moving with grace and agility towards it, while I was crawling and holding onto the rocks along the side - holding on for dear life as my fear of heights quickly amplified into severe vertigo. She actually came back to help me along by kicking my butt and calling me a chicken (in English!) With her helpful abuse, we made it over to Mount Nasu and its ropeway. A ropeway is apparently a cable car. Who knew? I'm glad it wasn't what I thought it was. (See photo at left showing the view from the top of Nasu Yama, with the rope car line and exit station below).
Because we had just missed a ride down, we had time to grab a quick lunch at a kiosk.
The trip back down was actually uneventful, except for my screams of mortal terror which delighted the large group of geriatrics in the cable car with us.
Anyhow, my girlfriend understood that I was too stupid to admit my cowardice beforehand, and that the Japanese don't know the difference between bush-walking and mountain climbing.
Since I wasn't needed to help her up the mountain...
Somewhere saving my videogame princess,
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is by The Byrds: LISTEN
PS: That fog that was rolling in, really did make the last leg of our journey quite perilous. We could see maybe three feet in front of us - and that was it. There were also venting steam holes maybe 10 feet away where the volcano was belching at us. Was it hot? Believe it or not, I wasn't stupid enough to stick my hand in and find out. Sorry.
PPS: What a day. It was pretty much a 12-hour journey from start to finish back at my apartment. Part of my problem was that I still had a sewer soaker from stepping into the open space where a sidewalk tile should have been (see HERE). Okay, and the fact that being in shape doesn't mean you can climb a volcano or do bush-walking.
PPS: The Nasu volcano group consists of a N-S cluster of five stratovolcanoes and lava domes at the N end of the Kanto plain. According to Wikipedia, it consists of:
- Sanbonyari Peak 1916.9m
- Chausu Peak 1915m
- Asahi Peak 1896m
- Nangetsu-san Peak 1776m
- Kuro-odani Peak 1589m
