Izu Peninsula

I got swimming here, but no luck renting or bumming a board

Cxxx  / Mxxxxxxx / OCEAN / Fxxx

I am just finishing up Part 3 of my intro Japan Tour - CITY / MOUNTAIN / OCEAN. I am on the Izu Peninsula, staying at a re-furbished Ryokan in Ito. The coast is all old volcanoes, lave flows, rocky inlets and hilly towns. The train/bus system gets you anywhere in a hurry and I am here for 4 days. I usually stay 3 or 4 nights everywhere I go. You see less (or do you?) but the pace is more relaxed. The Ryokan is a fluke. did not know how nice it was till I walked in

Check out the pics of this place...mine do not do it justice K's House Ryokan - Ito

If you think I am burning money, I am in a dorm room with 6 people and the cost is in line with Hostel prices here (in Tokyo I was paying $27, 12 to a room, here it's $35...the next country it drops to $12-14 and cheaper yet after that. My breakfasts are groceries (yogurt, fruit, bread, egg), lunches are street or stall food in the $4-6 range. Suppers are usually sitdown and bottom of menu or combo plate at $13-15. All in all acceptable for a first-world country. Trains and buses are expensive, but I take all local, non-reserved, which makes it OK. I am not in a hurry.

My average day is spent outdoors, walking, hiking, climbing, swimming, a shrine or two, a cemetery, a walk thru the older sections of a town, interested in architecture and use of space. Before supper is errands, computer work, laundry and shower/hot-tub(onsen). Supper and after are very social times when you meet people and compare trips and the days activity. since i do so little planning, a lot of my days walkabouts are based on what I heard in the hostel the night before.

No wasted space in this cemetery, places I find quite peaceful and always peculiar to the local culture

Up behind the orange groves

Rocky, lava flow coastline

Mt Omuro, bus up, walk back to Ito (15 kms)

Breakfasts tend to be quiet, as most of the kids sleep late. There are always a few of us and conversations start up easily. I am by myself most of the day unless there is a something particular going on (fish market trip, bike rentals). Supper on is very social, sometimes supper with a new friend and always some drinks/ reading/ online stuff in the common room. It is a lot of fun to meet other travellers and share stories of current and past experiences. I find backpackers a very open crowd.

I am finding locals very friendly, both in helping on trains and when I invariably get lost. They love to try out their English on you . Everyone has smiles all around and there are always handshakes and bows and sometimes pictures.

Above are Sibos (Indian) and Yamanase, both my age, both quite interesting

People travel for a variety of reasons. I love the speed that I travel at, I love spending time outdoors getting some form of exercise, I love sharing travel stories with other backpackers and meeting locals, I love the food in most countries I visit.

I don't count what I miss in any one area, just what I see, because you really only see a small slice of a country anyway.

Backpacking alone and staying in hostels and dorms with a very social way to travel. If I was with someone 24/7, a large part of my social interactions would be with that person. Being alone forces you to open up and let things happen. It is a large part of what makes me travel. B

Mt. Fuji

Sunrise view of Mt. Fuji from the hot tub in my hostel...sublime

Cxxx  / MOUNTAIN / Oxxxx / Fxxx

After the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, I trained (4 trains, 3 companies, help!) to the Mt. Fuji area (Kawaguchiko) for some hiking and R&R. In a nice hostel just across from the train station with a kick-ass view of Mt.Fuji.

Bussed up to Fifth Station at 8000 feet and hiked about 1.5 hours up to Seventh, stopping because of all the hard ice and requirement to hold the chain to stay on track. The path is closed for the season, the huts are closed, they take down the signs.

I love looking down from a height more than looking up, so the 15 km hike back into town was very enjoyable. Mind you, I got lost and ended up in the next town just as the sun went down. Added a bit of stress to what had been a very loose day. Made the supper , beer and hot tub all the more enjoyable.

Japan Thoughts

- I never hear car horns...so odd. Just too damn polite
- The huts from Fifth Station down are all abandoned, as the bus goes around them. Many people hike the mountain, but not from the bottom. Too bad
- The hiking paths are well maintained, yet they handle water runoff completely different from say New Zealand, using wired sandbags, cement poles that look like birch and rock bins
- I am continually in small, polite simple conversations with locals. My 5 words Japanese with their 10-20 English can across quite a bit, as long as it is not specific directions and you remember that answering YES to your question may not mean much

I also hiked up Tenjoyrama, which gives a nice view of the lake and the mountain

Travel Thoughts

- The mechanics of backpacking (book hostel, find groceries, laundry, maps, trains/buses, ATMs, museums, restaurants, hike locations) take about twice as much of your time when access to English is compromised
- I spend a lot of time wandering back streets, popping into cemeteries, peeking in backyards. I love seeing how different cultures use space for say gardens and laundry and parking and courtyards and how their architecture deals with hills and dense living.

I also visited the Fuji Museum. Lots of old farm implements and sports gear. Check out the split-toe skates, knapsack, crampons and handyd-dandy all-around food processor.

Tokyo Drift

Next participant on Japanese Hoarders

CITY  / Mxxxxxxx / Oxxxx / Fxxx

The 12 hour timezone shift from Halifax to Tokyo does a hard job on your body clock. From 2-4 PM each day, I want to lie down more than anything else. 12 hours later, in the middle of the night, I lie there awake. My body is forced to stand up/lie down to match the current timezone, but the brain has it's own clock...and it is pissed off.

Japan is a first-world country, but every society has it's people that fall thru the cracks. The city is the cleanest I have been in...yet no garbage cans anywhere...you are responsible for your own trash. Everyone waits patiently at crosswalks....unless someone like me crosses against the light...then a few others do as well. A very socially conforming society.

The picture above is taken by the Shibuya Station, a very rich shopping district. Just how did this guy end up here and why does he still have so much stuff. There are about 8 of these in the little section I was in. Japanese people are very polite and person to person theft is very rare.　In such a conformist, group-oriented society, it would be too embarassing to be caught stealing from someone. So buddy has all his junk, and everyone, even the other down-on-your-luck people...leave him and his stuff alone.

The sushi here is top-notch

The food in Tokyo is amazing and you can get really good food at street stalls and sidewalk restaurants, just like in any big city. I am in a small town now and the quality has dropped with the price going up for a very basic meal

Anne Hostel, NE of Tokyo Station

The hostel was pretty cool. Will stay there when I fly out in 2 weeks. I was in a 12 bed dorm that was 10' by 18'...basically bunk beds and a 2 foot walkway.The mix was global..2 Japanese girls, 2 American girls, guy from Spain, a few Aussies, a German, a Brit and me. The mix changed everyday and some of us ended hanging out together. There was a free, light breakfast in the common room and you got to meet the rest of the hostel 'croo then or for drinks in the evening.

Tokyo Subway and Above Ground System

The train/subway system is mind-boggling. It serves 33,000,000 people...yes that is the population of Canada! Very little English, but enough to let you know when you have messed up. Been lost a few times already. Really lost today, but not in Tokyo. If you are lucky, you can find one of these with English names to work with. The subway lines are owned by different companies, so you either by a bulk pass, or tickets at each switchover. That being said, the station masters and people you ask for help are very friendly tho their the English is limited. It is a learning process. I am now 100 kms or so outside Tokyo and the train trip held lots of little surprises.

Bicycle Parking Lot

The bike traffic in this city is astounding, bike parking lots everywhere, bikes on all the sidewalks (altho reading today about the amount of bike/pedestrian accidents) You have to be alert when walking, because the bikes weave in and out of foot traffic at quite a good clip. since theft is rare, the bikes lock to themselves but not to any post or fence. Of course, 90% of the bikes are the same commuter model...like a said...a very conformist society.

Love big cities...for awhile...then your head gets too full and you have to leave. In a small town now, decompressing, getting in some hiking.

On The Road, Again...

SAYONARA

Once again, I find the stars aligning and I am ready to head out into the world for a new set of backpacking adventures. The last year was spent doing a house down-size, and it took quite a bit of work to bring the old house up to snuff.

When I did the big 10 month HoboTrack trip around the planet in 2009/10, I skipped SouthEast Asia...and for a good reason. I was worried that I would get in there and really not care to leave. The internal drive to get around the world was pretty high.

When I say that the stars are aligning...it basically takes a lot of luck to be able to do a backpacking trip like this. At a minimum, you need these 5 things to be true:

TIME MONEY HEALTH MOBILITY DESIRE

Everyone who travels long-term has some sort of mix of these variables. Most backpackers fall apart a bit on money, but the flip side of the coin, is that if you have a lot of money, you would probably not want to be a backpacker...walking everywhere, hitch-hiking, sleeping in hostel dorms, making a lot of your meals.

MOBILITY is separate from HEALTH. You can be basically healthy, but not be able to walk 5 kms, or hike over a mountain.

So, I am off for a few months, hopefully until February or so and hope to end up in a few countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar). I will be doing some Wwoofing (organic farm volunteer) in likely 2 countries, and hope to get in lots of walking, swimming, surfing and maybe even some climbing.

I have a few friends to visit along the way and will likely make some more. That is why I like travelling by myself and staying in hostels. I do what I want most days and spend evenings in hostels, sharing the days experiences with fellow travellers from all over the world.

I'll be posting to this blog 3-4 times a month and posting pics to Facebook as I get a chance.

So it goes...

Bruce