The Weekend: Club Barbeques and a Hike!

I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed from being out all night at 7:00 AM, only on one hour of sleep, and took a train all the way to Kyotonabe to join the car club with their mission of cleaning the garage and parking lot. I helped out for about three hours, before deciding I should head back home to take a shower before heading to my next club activity, a BBQ with the weight lifting guys. Luckily I was able to take the Doshisha shuttle bus back and sleep on the way. I got back to my dorm and unfortunately fell asleep for an hour instead of taking a shower and just had to head for the BBQ anyways. Oh well, I changed my clothes and put on new deodorant, best I could do.

The muscle club BBQ was great! I figured we were going to dinner somewhere, but we cooked at a big open walled event center where a ton of other college age students were all hanging out and cooking as well. The guys even let me handle the griddle for a while which was pretty awesome. We cooked and ate a large assortments of meat, and ended it with some yakisoba. It was nice to get a little closer with some of the guys there, because usually I would only bump into them at the gym occasionally, and its not exactly the place to be having long chats.

From there, I took a bus 20 minutes to the location of the car club's BBQ. It was being held at an alumni's house, which was pretty crazy. This was a five story residential building that had been remodeled, where the bottom was a garage, the next level the dude's stone mason workshop, the next a shop to work on cars, the residential floors, and then a open rooftop where the BBQ was held. I got to watch a beautiful sunset while chatting with the guys. Each year of students took turns introducing themselves to the alumni, which I joined in on since my Japanese was decent enough. Towards the end, my friend Ken Ken invited me to go with him on a mountain cruise, but I decided I needed to head home and sleep since I hadn't properly rested in a while, and was planning to go on a hike the next day with Alex. On the way back, my friends Danny and Bedhira found a little anime expo in Kyoto station, and asked me to grab a pic with their favorite character.

Alex and I had planned to leave the dorm at around 8:00, but I was so tired when I got home that I forgot to set my alarm and ended up waking up at about 9:00. Luckily Alex and I had no other plans, so we got ready, headed to Seven Eleven and grabbed some snacks, and made our way to the bus stop that would take us to the hike.

Upon arriving to the stop, we waited for about 10 minutes watching busses past that didn't match the number we needed... Until we realized that the bus we needed didn't run on Sundays at all, so the entire hike was out of the question! We quickly did some Googling and found ourselves a different hike, but with a much longer commute: about two hours using the train systems. We took the Keihan line to the Sanjo station, transferring to the Tozai line. Then transferred again at Yamashina station, hopping on the Tokaido-Sanyo line for about an hour, before transferring one last time at Maibara Station to the Tokaido line, and getting off four stops later at Kashiwabara station. Phew!

From the app Alex had found for Japanese hikes (equivalent to All Trails back home) it was estimated to take about 5-6 hours for a complete trip. The weather was overcast and cool, perfect for hiking! The trail started out taking us past an old poultry farm, and through some dense trees. There were some brutally steep sections at the beginning. Eventually we hit a ridge and had easy going for a while, but then the weather started picking up. Light rain and strong wind battered us whenever there was a break in the trees, and the temperature dropped dramatically. I was hiking in shorts, tanktop, and a overshirt, which was absolutely no good, but luckily Alex had brought an extra hoodie which saved my life at the top. At the halfway point, we ran into the only other people we saw during the entire duration of the hike. I joked that the weather was great, to which they looked shocked before they realized I wasn't serious at all, but they were quite confused by my clothing choices to say the least.

Near the end of the hike we finally broke past the tree line, into a large field type terrain with tons of rocks and boulders. Here the wind was brutal since there was no cover, and it continually pushed us around as we made our way to the top. We finally summited, grabbed a photo, and then headed down before we started freezing. We hauled our way down the rest of the mountain, only stopping once so I could make a PB&J!

We got back to the station at about 6:00, and waited for the train. I realized how trashed my white sneakers had gotten from hiking through the mud, but are the best shoes I have for extended hiking/walking at the moment, and I thrifted them for $10 back home so I really don't care that much. My current goal is to make them a nice black/brown shade by the time I leave Japan. Alex and I napped on the train, and hit up our favorite ramen shop before heading back to the dorm, where I promptly fell asleep at about 10:00. Alex and I are highly contemplating climbing Mount Fuji, so we are looking to hike every weekend in order to train. Wish us luck!