A bit about Yakushima
In Japan there are three main islands constituting the northern, “large” body of the country. They are, from top to bottom, called Hokkaido, Kanto and Kyushu. Just below Kyushu is a small island known as Yakushima, home of the ancient and large Yakusugi cedar trees and the Yaku monkeys. The entire island is on the UNESCO World Heritage list, hence taking anything from the island is strictly forbidden. As one of the signs said: “Please take nothing but pictures”. Curiously, foreign tourists to the island are incredibly rare, and the island is mostly an attraction for Japanese tourists. We hoped that this would make the experience feel more authentic.

The plan
As mentioned before, we planned to hike across the island. The lush forests we had seen on pictures and the promise of hiking trail huts along the way for staying in during the night told us it would be a challenge but doable. We set aside three days for the trip and had dumped most of our useless luxury luggage in Kagoshima, the port town from which we took the ferry, in some lockers. Left we had half-full backpacks which we then stuffed with bottled water and a bag of rice, which we planned to cook on our trangia.

The city that often sleeps
Now when we arrived that evening in Anbo, a port town on Yakushima, we found that everyone on the island went to bed extremely early, the city shutting down completely around 8pm. There was just time for some dinner, and we set out to have our last supper.

We were lucky to find a camping area by the seaside before everything closed that evening, and the following morning we set out. We had a map and we had a goal: We would walk across the island to the center, where we would take a look at the islands largest Cedar tree, where we would then sleep in a nearby shelter and take the hike back to another port town from which we’d continue on to Okinawa and epicness.

A museum of trees
First stop on the way was to see a museum dedicated to Yakushimas wildlife and legendary trees. The museum itself was made mostly out of said cedar tree material, and featured many exhibits related to the history of the island. As far back as ancient times the island had been mostly a place for brave lumberjacks to venture, fell a mighty tree and make their fortune from the high quality wood they yielded.

The climb
While we were aware that the island was covered mostly in lush mountains, we hadn’t counted on climbing any of them. After Fuji-san we had made ourselves a promise not to challenge ourselves with that kind of strain again. The map was however misleading in it’s altitude dusplay, and before we knew of it we were walking up mountain trails yet again. Now this wasn’t too bad at first, as the road wasn’t that steep at all. The only really burdensome thing was the burning sun most of the day, which drained our supply of water and energy.

By nightfall, when we reached what was supposed to be the trail leading to the legendary cedar tree, we were met by a closed gate. For some reason this path to it was closed. Consulting the map we deduced that we would have to go all the way back to Anbo and then go to another, more northen town, in order to find an alternate trail. Instead of this insanity, we chose the next best solution: taking the next most legendary tree on the island, which the signs showed were only a few kilometers away. We were however exhausted and night had fallen, and we didn’t want to hike in the dark, so we put up a tent and spent the night before continuing.

The tree was nice, not as huge as I would have expected, but nevertheless kind of the thing we came for, so we had some feeling of having accomplished something.

Next up was the return journey. Once more consulting the map we made up a new route down a mountain trail nearby. It would go straight down the mountain, meet with a river and then end out with an Onsen (a hot spring resort). Not a bad plan. Off we went, straight into oblivion…

Journey through Mirkwood
According to the sign at the start of the trail, the journey down would take about 6 and a half hours, which sounded reasonable. We figured this would almost fit perfectly with our plans of reaching the bottom and the onsen before nightfall, so without further ado we started out descent. The mountain forest was incredibly beautiful, taken straight from a fairytale. Along the trail was pink plastic strips attached to branches to help hikers find their way, and every few kilometers you would see a sign directing you, but otherwise you were pretty much on your own.

The forest seemed endless, and while we could see we were clearly descending, we never quite seemed to reach the bottom. We crossed multiple rivers, despite both the map and the signpost at the mountain summit told us we would only have to cross a single river, and the further we went, the more and more afraid we were that we had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Desperation crept in through the cracks of our conscious, and despair grabbed us whenever there was a long way between the guiding pink strips. We were completely at their mercy, as our phones were dead up there, and had no other idea of how to get down. If one of us got hurt, it would be pretty much the end of the line. In spite of these fears, we did what we had to: Push on towards glory and onsen.

By nightfall we still hadn’t reached the bottom, not at all — in fact a sign told us that we were only half way down. Once more we despaired, for our resources of water were completely depleted. We decided to put up the tent and make the rest of the hike the following morning, hopefully reaching the onsen before dehydration reached us.

The morning after we decided to push our luck and drink from the rivers in order to combat the humid environment and the heat. The water did not taste foul, in fact it tasted far better than Japanese tap water, and we decided that whatever illnesses we might catch would be by far preferable to collapsing from dehydration on a mountain. Later we discovered that the water was not dangerous, to our relief.

Luckily, the rest of the trip down went quite easy, and a few hours past noon we finally reached the steps leading to the legendary onsen, safe at last!

Traumatic retreat
After this experience we agreed to relax a bit more the rest of our Yakushima/Okinawa trip, not wanting to repeat the nightmare and push our luck once more. In order to regain our strength we decided to book a hostel on Okinawa the first few days and from there decide where we could put up our tent.

So from the onsen we went back to Anbou, where we met with Yoshi, a japanese hiker currently walking all over the country, who was kind enough to help us find a hotel in Kagoshima where we could stay until the next boat for Okinawa. He was very kind to us, and gifted us with chocolate and ice cream, gifts we had a hard time accepting. We are not accustomed to this level of random kindness.

A monetary problem
Now, a problem we ran into was money. Our cash was almost drained, and after walking around all night in Kagoshima and asking at various places, including the police station, we realised the city did not yield even a single ATM capable of accepting our international (Visa and MasterCard) credit cards. As such we devised a plan with Yoshi to go with him and a couple of his friends to eat, somewhere that took Visa. We would then pay for the meal with our Visa card, and then they would pay us in cash for their meals. We did however let Yoshi keep his money, as paying for his meal was the least we could do in return for his kindness.

With the cash we recieved from the two girls, Yuuki and Minoko, for the meal, we could sustain ourselves until we could go to Fukuoka by train (the Shinkansen train takes Visa card) again for a brief stop — Fukuoka was, according to our reliable sources, the only city in all of Kyushu that had international ATMs. After withdrawing as much as we were allowed for one day, we took a plane to Okinawa, in order to save money (rather than take the train back to Kagoshima, and then an expensive boat). The night before we had booked two nights on a very cheap hostel in Naha, the biggest city on Okinawa.

A bit about Okinawa
Okinawa is part of the Ryukyu island group in the southernmost part of Japan, and is most famous for being the origin of Karate. It is also home to an american military garnison and some interesting culture and nice beaches.

Chilling in the sand
While staying on the hostel in Okinawa we relaxed a lot and tried to regain our strength quickly so we could carry on with our wildlife project. It however became clear that it was almost impossible for us. The only area nearby where camping was allowed and possible at the same time, was closed for some reason. Instead we chilled in the hostel and went a lot to the beach, although I was out of action for most of the time because of a nasty sunburn on my neck.

The hostel crew was very laid back and welcoming, and we shared their meal once(the neverending meal!), and watched a lot of Japanese movies in the lounge with them. We also went a lot to the beach, but most of the time we did absolutely nothing, which wasn’t quite the plan, but we didn’t really have much alternative, all things considered.

When we began to run low on cash we decided to break the Okinawa trip a few days short and go to Osaka before going back to Tokyo. Osaka was a place we had heard a lot about, but that had never made it into our plans, so it was kind of an unexpected trip…

A bit about Fukuoka
Fukuoka is as mentioned before a port city on the western shore of Kyushu, the southernmost of the three main islands of Japan, and is mostly known for being a hub between Japan and Korea. Backpackers often travel to Fukuoka to take the boat to Korea, and businessmen use it as a hub for cheaper Japan-Korea flights, but otherwise the city does not see that many foreign tourists.

The city is very hot and very bright, both during daytime and nighttime. It is also the home of multiple karate dojos, supervised the local Shinkyokushin karate president Shihan Midori.

Training with the master
Karate training in local dojos and, if we were lucky, meeting with Shihan Midori, was at the top of our TODO while in Fukuoka. We trained twice in a dojo with some of the local blackbelts as instructors until we were invited to the grand opening of a new dojo someplace else in Fukuoka, an invitation we of course accepted most gratefully.

Present was no other than the Shihan, so the experience was intense and a great honour. After the somewhat short training session we were invited to stay and celebrate the opening with the others with food and drink. We sat on the floor and ate sushi in a big circle while everyone filled each others’ cups — it is customary in Japan to never let your neighbors glass run empty, as well as never pour for yourself.

The training itself was much like we were used to back home, but with a few twists. The pace was much higher, and technical accuracy was in a lesser focus compared to agility and stamina. They also say a lot less “Osu” than we do back home, and some orders are even acknowledged with a kiai.

Taking action
Apart from our things-to-do-in-Fukuoka there was also plenty of time to engage in sightseeing and nightlifing.

Fukuoka, like every other self-respecting Japanese city, has it’s own tower, so of course we had to go in there. The tower itself looked a lot like the Citadel from the video game Half-Life 2, both inside and outside, which was kind of awesome in and of itself.

From the tower there was a kind-of-awesome view over the city, which is really kind of nice although we had never heard of it before.

We also ventured into the dark abyss of the Fukuokan nightlife, which, while appearing a bit dull on the hull, actually was exciting. We met a nice Spanish girl in one bar who led us to another, owned and run by a nice Dutch girl, who gave us the gos and don’ts of Fukuokan nightlife, which was kind of awesome. Along we had an Italian guy we met in the Guesthouse, Don Lorenzo de Spaghetti we called him, although his name was just Lorenzo. The final bar we went to, which was more of a club, was called Fubar. Epic name, less epic bar. It was nice and all, but the walls were pink(!) and the music rather dull — except for the random J-Pop thrown into the otherwise oldish american pop-mix.

All in all a nice experience, and in many ways far more explosive than Hiroshima, hurr durr.

Entertainment
In Japan they have a tradition for something roughly translating to “sitdown comedy”, which is kind of a traditional Japanese equivalent of the western concept of, you guessed it, standup comedy, in which the comedian sits down in a traditional dress and tells a funny story.

On Guesthouse Kaine we had the opportunity to see this, as a local amateur group of sitdown comedians were giving a show in the (rather small, therefore intimate) lounge. The only problem was that all of the spectators were tourists, and the stories were completely in japanese, except for one comedian who switched to english at random points, making wild gestures like “BIG DOG! RIGHT THERE! INTERNETTO!” and then continuing in relaxed japanese. It was a peculiar experience, and you probably had to be japanese to get it(duh), but it was fun in it’s own way, mainly because of the random outbursts.

Playing Go
Another thing on my “things to do in Japan” list was to visit a Go salon and play against the locals and sample the atmosphere.

Now, a bit about Go: Go is the oldest boardgame in the world, far older than Chess, and is originally a Chinese invention. It is played on a wooden board with 19×19 intersections on which you place checkers-like stones in black and white. Black always goes first, you put down one stone each turn, and the goal is to surround your opponent’s stones in order to capture them and encapsulate “territory” on the playing field. The game ends when both players pass or a player gives up, after which the score is counted. Go is played on all levels and in all parts of the world, although the concentration of professional Go players are almost exclusively Asian. Go is so advanced a game it is said that while it takes five minutes to learn, it takes a lifetime to master. To put it to the layman: while the ultimate Chess computer has already been created, able to anticipate every move and beat every only opponent, scientists all over the world has failed to produce a Go computer that can beat anyone above rookie level because of the complexity and multitude of possible moves.

In Fukuoka we had our Guesthouse hosts locate a Go salon for us, and we were lucky to have one within a distance of roughly ten minutes walk. As everywhere else in Japan, the level of english spoken there was abysmal, so we had to make do mostly with body language, but it worked out. It costs a small fee to enter, and then you can play the others who are present. On some days during the week there are lessons in Go, orchestrated on a big board on the wall.

Lui and I started out with a friendly match to teach him the rules and get a feeling of the boards they use. Then the owner paired us with a couple of their own players whom we then played.

The players we were up against were obviously amateurs, but without a doubt more skilled and experienced than us. I could see from the beginning that I would lose the game if this carried on, as she was forcing me to react to all of her moves. I threw in some randomness to throw her off her game, trying to play at as many areas on the board at once, keeping as many fronts under siege to her as possible in order to confuse her. It worked up to the point where I confused myself, after which I returned to losing. But it was fun, and I got some nice tips from the host who spectated the game.

We went to see the sites and stroll around in the park, and it was very beautiful and compelling, and the bombed out building that had been preserved to serve as an example of how nuclear destruction looks was a very moving sight.

We also rang the Peace Bell, placed in the middle of the park to emanate the signals of peace out into the world, by people all over the world.

Dystopian stories like Fallout and the like have however lied to us: Life is easily attainable in the wake of a nuclear bombing. Nuclear weapons are a far smaller threat to the life on earth than accidents like Tjernobyl, for example, as people are living all over the nuclear site of Hiroshima today without trouble, only a few landmarks kept intact to remind people of the terrible toll of war.

Atomic nightlife
My twentieth birthday was on the 14th of July, the day we arrived in Hiroshima, so naturally we’d have to hit the nightlife and have a good time. It was however a rather dull wednesday, so not many clubs were open, and the ones that were had zip people in them. We started out by getting some fancy dinner, a crab restaurant in a very nice Japanese styled building with traditionally dressed staff.

The food was a bit odd, and much of it was probably an acquired taste, but the experience was nice and authentic, so I do not regret going there.

We then hit a bar, containing one patron, and then went out to search for some clubs, before allying ourselves with a dude apparantly charged with helping tourists with directing them to places where they can spend absurd amounts of money on nothing at all — just what we needed. He directed us to a Club Diva, which is a hostess club with kareoke.

Now a Hostess club is basically a club in which you pay an entry fee and then you are entertained by what amounts to a modern geisha: a girl that talks to you, asks question about your ever-exciting life and laughs at your jokes. We hit two of these clubs before giving up on clubbing and instead looking for a pub with some life in it, but not before singing Bohemian Rhapsody on the kareoke system to much applause.

We did find a pub with some people in it, although they were all tourists like us — but it was nice to finally meet some english speaking people. There were a couple of australians and a couple of americans, and both groups were fun to talk to before we called it a night.

Oriental Hotel Hiroshima
Last but not least a few words about our hotel in Hiroshima. As we were staying there for my birthday, and only were staying there for a few days, we figured we could splurge a bit on the budget and book a nice hotel for those two nights. This was not a mistake, as we found something incredibly cheap yet very satisfying.

Located on 16th floor with a nice view to the skyline of Hiroshima with a nice bathroom and a very good bed, polite staff and beautiful interior, we felt like a couple of hobos in a palace. A culture shock, to say the least.

So far, so good. Hiroshima was a nice experience, but I’d rather go to Kyoto if I ever return to this country. Next up will be training with Shihan Midori in Fukuoka.

A bit about Kyoto
Kyoto is first and foremost famous for being the original and ancestral home of the Japanese emperors throughout history. Tokyo only became the capital of Japan in the late 19th century during the industrialization. Kyoto is a bustling metropolis built in the middle of a circle of beautiful, lush mountains and is at once a city with a pulse yet somewhat isolated from the rest of Japan. A saying is that if you only have a few days to stay in Japan, Kyoto is the place to go — it has a little bit of everything Japan has to offer. Lui and I whole-heartedly agree with this notion.

K’s House
K’s House, as our hostel was called, is a series of hostels present in most big cities in Japan, very popular and very, very nice. The price is a bit steep for a hostel, but it is worth every penny. Everything is clean, the staff speak great english and are very helpful, the rooms are nice and cool(Kyoto is a very hot city), and the people you meet there are very interesting.

We arrived the day before the Football World Cup Final, so a big TV had been set up in the common room, and posters were evident about the scheduled celebration. A curious fact is that in Japan, the TV-day extends beyond 24 hours, it is only reset to the actual hour when you go to sleep. A bit fuzzy explanation, I know, but that was how it was explained to me by the hostel staff when I asked why the match was scheduled to be played on July 11th on 27:30

Awesome people
Everything about Kyoto was an adventure, including the people we met. Lui and I are fans of the trading card game known as Magic, so we had brought a box of cards, this particular series inspired by Japanese mythology, for the trip. By sheer accident we stumbled into a couple of American Yu-Gi-Oh players, Courtney and Aaron, who expressed interest in learning Magic, so we borrowed them a couple decks and taught them the rules and played a few matches. It was loads of fun, and they were generally awesome people.

They told us about this card store in Kyoto where you could buy Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh and a lot of other trading card games. We actually went there and saw their impressive displays of cards — most in Japanese, but a few in english too. I even bought a handful of cards for favorable prices, in Japanese of course.

I also met a Canadian guy whose name cannot be pronounced, so he told me to go with Marc, and I did. He actually worked on the hostel, planning to stay in Kyoto for a year — he did two months of travelling Japan last year, like we are doing now, and was so enamoured with the country in general and with Kyoto specifically, that he decided to work and live here for a year. He was familiar with the city already, so I asked him about an electronics store — as mentioned earlier, my camera got smashed in Kawaguchiko, so I needed a replacement. Marc just so happened to know both a place to get cameras, as well as a fair bit about what to get and what not to get, so off we were. I got my camera alright, a Pentax camera with 12.1 megapixels for just around 750 yen — it would have cost more than double that price in Denmark, so it was a bargain.

We also met a bunch of american and french people with whom 3-4 hours went with playing the International Backpackers Game: Uno. I was having so much fun with the “french rules” they were teaching us that it didn’t occur to me to take pictures, so there are none, sadly, but it was a great time. In the group was also an american man named Mark Rosa, living in Tokyo on vacation in Kyoto. His father was an american soldier on Okinawa, so he had lived a lot of his life in Japan already, so it felt natural to him to travel there again. He told us a lot of awesome stuff about the culture on Okinawa, where we are going after Hiroshima and Fukuoka.

Doing Kyoto
Kyoto is an awesome city, it’s only drawback being it’s humid climate and lot of rain. We went for a lot of sightseeing, visiting the Imperial Palace, going to the top of Kyoto Tower and strolling around in the old Geisha area of Kyoto.

The Imperial Palace was the home, and after the coup d’etat by the Tokugawa-clan of Shoguns also the prison, of the Emperor of Japan for centuries until the Meiji Restoration that abolishhed the Shogunate and put the Emperor back into power. You have to reserve and pay for a guided tour in order to get inside, though, so we got no further than the gates, but it was still quite an experience. You could really feel the history of the place.

A goal while in Japan had also always been to visit an arcade. We originally feared we would have to wait until we returned to Tokyo before having the chance to experience one, but by chance we stumbled upon one a few minutes walk from K’s House, just above a Pachinco-hall.

The place had all sorts of games and lived up fully to the platonic arcade we had read about in Japanese legendry. It had rows upon rows of obscure fighting games based on animes we had never heard of before, one more strange than the other. We played one coop game where you entered the role of a couple of female fairy superheroes that shot pink laserbeams and had a special move that blew up everything on the screen. It was the most bizarre gaming experience I’ve had in a long time.

I was happy to see that Tekken 6, a game I’ve been playing for more hours than I’d ever admit on my X-box 360, was also present there. It was also, incidentally, the only game where I wasn’t completely smacked to bits and pieces by the other arcade guests — I still lost every fight, but it was a close call every time.

It wasn’t a close call, however, on one machine called “Actress Again”. We both played the machine for about a minute before we were both annihilated soundly by what appeared to be an insane AI. We saw others sit down and play the machine, only to get completely smacked to bits in a few seconds too. Later we realized that the insane AI was actually a dude sitting on the other side of the row, slamming buttons and winning every fight in a few seconds.

One evening we also went out to see the Geisha area of Kyoto and have a little sample of their nightlife. Both was very satisfying, although I myself went home because I still was sick from Fuji-san and it started raining. The Geisha area was very old Japanese style in it’s look and feel, and it had this vibrant, cozy atmosphere.

Kyoto Tower was also an attraction we had to take a look at, it being the tallest building in the city, and the city being encapsulated by mountains, so we could see all around the city from up there.

After Kyoto will be the world famous city of Hiroshima, a bustling metropolis and a living piece of history.

A bit about Sosai Masutatsu Oyama
Curiously, he was originally from Korea, but emigrated to Japan as a young man to join the airforce, but was rejected due to him being a foreigner. Instead he took up a life of martial arts, and developed his own branch of Karate, derived mainly from Shotokan Karate, which he called Kyokushinkaikan — meaning something along the lines of “the school for the path to the true meaning”. During his career he wrestled bulls and lived as a hermit in the mountains, mostly Mt. Minobou. A recurring karate tournament in his honour is also held called Mas Oyama Memorial Tournament. He lies buried in Tokyo along generals of legend and important politicians.

Visiting the grave
From Asakusa, we had to take three different metro trains in order to get to the temple where he was buried, a temple called Gokukuji. The Tokyo metro system is very intuitive and the staff was very helpful with pointing out our route, so it went smoothly. The temple was beautiful, and I was positively surprised to see young guys of my age walking around in traditional kimono talking to their casual-clad friends — walking around at a burial ground in denmark dressed in classic danish clothes ala folkdance would make people, if not laugh, then at least exchange looks.

We dressed up in our karate clothes and paid a visit to Masutatsu Oyama’s grave, where we paid our respects and took pictures together with the master.

The atmosphere around the grave was tense and authentic, it really was an experience I’m going to relish for a long time.

Honbu
Honbu is the name of the “main dojo”, headquarter training facility, of the international Kyokushin karate school. There are two Honbu now, because of a legal dispute after the death of Masutatsu Oyama, so they’re called “old” and “new” Honbu.

We paid both honbu a visit and took some photos to mark the occasion — a requirement of our karate pilgrimage.

Kawaguchiko
After a brief stay for a few days in Tokyo Asakusa, we traveled with JR down to a town called Kawaguchiko with a nice view to Mt. Fuji, in Japanese called Fuji-san. It was a rather small town, mostly serving as a hub for travelers to the mountains, but also carrying it’s own little isolated community and a number of good and not so good restaurants. We were lodged in a hotel called Kawaguchiko Station Inn, just in front of Kawaguchiko station, thusly named. Fun fact: When you step out of the train you immediately feel like you’ve entered a city in a Pokemon gameboy game due to the atmosphere and the peculiar, loud 8bit music tune coming from the streetlights to signal for blind people. This music is audible from the hotel rooms from 8am to 10pm, so it also works as a makeshift way to keep track of getting up and getting to bed.

The hotel itself was very nice, with authentic japanese style rooms, Asakusa Smile being bunkbeds, and with free tea(for those so inclined), futon roll beds on the floor and hot spring “onsen” bath, which was very nice. The atmosphere on the hotel was incredible, but the breakfast was a letdown — a piece of airy half-exisistant quasi-bread with butter, for the price of 500 yen a piece, money that could easily buy you breakfast for two persons for two days in an expensive japanese supermarket.

Mt. Mitsumine
Following in the footsteps of our karate master Sosai Masutatsu Oyama we hired a tourist bus to take the group to Mt. Mitsumine, a lush forest mountain with a lot of temples and shrines. The mountain was one of Oyamas favourites, and he often went there for training camps. The mountain was so important to him, and he important to it, that he posthumously has been given a memorial shrine larger than his very grave on top of it — so of course we needed to go there.

The mountain is incredibly beautiful, but on the way up my camera got damaged from the heavy rain, so I have no pictures myself of the summit itself, but once I get them from the others I will edit them into this post.

As mentioned before, there was incredibly heavy rain up there, so we were suited up and training on top of the mountain in the beautiful gardens, covered in mud, our kiais echoing all the way down the mountain sides. It was an incredibly intense experience that I will remember fondly for the rest of my life.

Mt. Fuji
After some rest in the onsen and the hotel room we were gearing up and setting out for the next objective: Fuji-san, the tallest mountain in Japan and an active volcano, it’s snowy peak taunting us from above.

We drove with bus up to the mountain, met up with our guides and started walking up the mountainside at nightfall, so that we’d reach the top at dawn to witness the sunrise, one of the most legendary sunrises in the world. The trek upwards was much more steep than anticipated and was a true test of endurance, altitude sickness and exhaustion taking it’s toll on all participants. For hours we climbed, making brief stops at the various checkpoints before pushing onwards towards the summit and the sunrise, leg pains and thundering headaches pounding through us like a hailstorm. We were lucky that the weather was solid and it didn’t rain at all — rain on that mountain is said to be fatally dangerous — but two hundred meters from the top, the most steep and tough 200 meters of them all, I had to stop because my condition was considered dangerous by the guides — I’d collapse if I continued from headpains due to altitude sickness, so I had to return to the nearest checkpoint and wait for the group. It was alright though, as I got to witness the sunrise from there as well, and it was beautiful. The others later told me that they were too exhausted and in too much pain to fully appreciate their victory over the ancient volcano, but we all agreed that once we got rid of our sickness and cold and pains, we would have a great experience to look back on.

I, for one, intend to one day return to that mountain and reach the top at any price. But not today. Not tomorrow. Sure as hell not anytime soon. But someday, Fuji-san, someday!

This is my first blog post from Japan, where I am going to spend the next two months. I want to chronicle my travels and share my experiences with you people through this channel, any comments, suggestions and ideas are very welcome in the comment section.

A bit about the project: My friend, Lui, and I are karate buddies and have traveled from Denmark to Japan to stay all July and all August in order to experience something completely out of the ordinary. Japan has been a dream for us for years, and now this dream finally comes to fruition. We’ve heard a lot about the country both in mainstream media, from friends and family and through karate associates, history litterature and much more. Words cannot describe how excited we were for this adventure. That it is finally happening is still a mystery to us both. To introduce the team:

Lui, my travel companion:

Per, myself:

Both just arrived at Ueno station in Tokyo, on our way to our first hostel, Asakusa Smile. At this point we had zip idea of how to get there, so we walked around asking our way with people who spoke abysmally little English. The trusty tourist information did however point us in the right direction, and we soon arrived on Asakusa station with with Tokyo metro. The plan was to stay in Asakusa for a few days while getting some first impressions of the legendary Tokyo, visit some nearby temples and train in a kyokushin dojo near Shibuya, before traveling further on to Kawaguchiko(a village near Fuji-San, the tallest mountain in Japan)

A bit about Asakusa
Asakusa is a district in Tokyo mostly known for the availability of the finer arts (theater, temple sites and the like), secondly known for it’s cheap hostels and last but not least its rundown facades:

Asakusa also have a large golden statue that looks a lot like a carrot. Now I’ve been told by a Canadian I met in Kyoto later on that the statue has something to do with… beer. I’m going to have to do some more research on that.

Lodging
Our hostel in Asakusa was called Asakusa Smile, situated a few hundred meters from aforementioned statue in the most desolate street you can possibly imagine. The hostel itself was alright, but the reception was closed from 12 to 15 o’clock, so we had to wait in the smothering heat(it was at least 30 degrees celcius) and with insane jetlag from the 13 hour plane trip. The staff was kind enough to let us store our luggage inside the locked reception so we could go explore until they opened. When they finally opened we got our room, an 8-bed dorm on the fourth floor (in Japan the ground floor is the 1st floor).

All in all Asakusa was a nice place to stay, and you slept well on their beds, and the atmosphere was cozy, but the desolate location was a dealbreaker for future lodgings. We’re not returning there when we return to Tokyo, that’s for sure.

Now, from a certain viewpoint these clans can seem a bit too archetypal — a bit too set in stone, a bit too generic. One could claim that the clans encourage clichés and impedes creativity. Indeed, that is often the case. Many players choose their clan for their favored disciplines(supernatural powers) and out of very dry, generic templates of “I want to play a CEO type character, so I’m Ventrue, I have refined tastes and live in a penthouse appartment” and the like.

The clans, however, can also be used as a tool of reflection — mirrors into yourself, a method of exploring your own personality as percieved by yourself as well as those around you. Consider yourself a new player, only now learning of the different clans and their identifiers. At this point you are struggling to try and identify yourself with one or some of the clans, as to better make a choice. You take online quizzes, ask those around you which of those descriptions fit you best and so on and so forth. You then settle for a couple of favored clans that you identify with better than the rest. But what happens when you choose a clan that fits your own view of yourself, but you then fail to roleplay it in a way your peers find feasible? Perhaps then you realize that the way you think of yourself is not the way you are percieved by your friends. Perhaps you see yourself as a social predator, feeding on your lust and your passion and seducing your way to recognition like the Daeva — while your peers perhaps see you more like a leader type, dominating your will onto others and forcing recognition your way like the Ventrue. This kind of testing out your own and your peers’ views of your identity is great, unobtrobsive and unconfrontational way of reflecting upon yourself. And a great opportunity to scrutinize your peers’ view of themselves in turn.

As you go on and become an experienced player you grow bored with archetypes, however. You start exploring roles completely contrary to yourself. You want something different. This experience not only helps you define your identity through defining what your identity is not — it also helps you understand the mental workings of those you normally do not approve of. If you are a staunch conservative, not accepting dilly dally, being of the firm belief that only he who works may eat, and you try to play the role of a street bum, you are forced into someone else’s mindset. You are forced to think as they would. And all of a sudden you understand them better. You probably won’t change your opinion, but your understanding will increase out of your usual range. What’s more interesting is when you start making comparisons to your own identity. You might be incredibly different persons, but there will probably also be places where your outlooks and views intersect or even overlap. Finding out those is another great revelation.

Lastly, once you’ve been over both archetypes; yourself and your opposite — you start growing bored of archetypes altogether. You start, deliberately, creating characters that act and think in ways that are not typical for their clans. A mekhet might not care for knowledge and secrecy at all, living the good life with sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll. This is where the clans have served their purpose. This is the final lesson they teach: how to combine aspects of personalities into feasible, interesting new concepts. To boldly go where none has ever gone before.

But it is a journey that never ends. The human psyche is a well without a bottom. The limits to what you can learn from roleplaying lies at the far reaches of space. Good luck out there.

I’d be happy to hear any comments on this.

Requiem_for_San_Francisco.pdf

Freedom. It’s out there. I’m going out there to greet it and to share adventures with it. Are you along for the ride?

With these words I open this blog in the hope that it will live long and prosper. I will fill these pages with my thoughts and philosophies regarding all the things we can’t see, touch, smell, hear or say.

To quote Doc Breen: Whether you are here to stay or just passing through to parts unknown: Welcome.