Scary, Scary, Scariness

In the beginning, there was God. And he did talk to some bloke called
Abraham, and Abraham did some things with his son and a lamb, and God
saw that it was good. Then God did talk to Moses and Aaron, and
persuade them, and an entire race of people to take up extreme desert
ulrtramarathoning from Egypt to Israel. And God did see that it was
good (if a little tiring). God did then rest for many years, until he
was bored, and did pick some poor unfortunate called Jesus to be a
prophet, and cause him to be executed by the Romans.
Many more years did pass, and God did have an identity crisis. Bored
again, God did simultaneously (theologically speaking), talk to a guy
called Mohammed, and create an entire set of Kingdoms and realms for
an Indian named Siddharta Gautama to discover, explore, and invite
others to be quiet for a very long time, and explore with him too.
God saw that he had inspired many nations, through many forms of
herself, and had caused many people to see along a common theme of
being nice, and ignoring CofE hymns, which he granted to Lucifer in
return for a section of hell to heat his hot-tub, God saw all was
good. He did rest for many centuries, and recline in clouds, playing
table tennis on Wednesday evenings with his host of Angels. But the
twentieth century did come, and God did go off his rocker. He did
whisper sweet nothings into already unstable men, and inspire them to
take their riches, and build an ENOURMOUS gold plated shrine in
Japan. He told these men to tell others that shining crystals at soil
counted as organic farming, and that people could be healed by
shining these same crystals at them. The men were inspired to build a
neon fish tank to line this shrine - as God did say she liked feeding
the fish, especially those little blue twinkly ones.
Then God did come to his senses, did stop eating the sushi, and did
see that he was talking to mentals. She did realise her mistake, and
did make the rest of the world wary and cynical about such scary,
scary, crazies.

I shit you not. http://www.sukyomahikari.org/
Guess how I spent my day.

The 200 mile an hour entry

I've discovered a game. Possibly a little cruel, but funny nonetheless. The Japanese have a national obsession with bowing; shop keepers bow to customers, friends and strangers bow to each other on the street, and instead of the little "cheers," wave that drivers give to each other in the UK when someone lets you into a queue, drivers bow to each other repeatedly at the wheel (it's a wonder they don't hit their head on the horn). 

I'm actually writing this entry on the Shinkansen, Japan's answer to British Rail. We're currently cruising towards Kyoto at a mind bending 200 miles an hour. A speed so fast, that it takes us around seven minutes to accelerate up to it, and makes the view an epileptic blur of lampposts,   trees and heavy industry. Every time the woman comes in with the trolley service, she thanks everyone for being on the train, and then bows to the whole carriage. At the station, everything is exactly precise. When Japanese trains are scheduled to show up at 1403, they bloody well show up at 1403, and there are lines painted on the platform to show you exactly where the doors to each carriage will stop. On the platform opposite us, the train was "delayed" by 30 seconds, and the guard on the platform apologised personally to as many people as he could, bowing profusely and thanking them for being patient. And the game I've been playing is rooted in the custom of bowing.

There's a hierarchy of bowing and an etiquette to observe in every situation. The person of lower status should bow both first and lower. Shop workers will bow lower than customers for example. And if the person of higher status bows lower, then you bow again, lower than they did. Though it's very bad form for the person of higher status to bow a second time. So the game is, how low can you get someone else to bow? 

Japanese politeness has another quirk to it too; that of welcoming people. I've already mentioned that the trolley woman thanks everyone for travelling on her train when she enters the carriage, conductors on buses do this too, personally thanking every passenger for choosing his bus when they get on. Volume is everything. I think the feeling is that, the louder you holler your thanks  and greetings, the more you meant it. Invariably on entry into a shop, there's some woman who shouts "Gozaimas!" in your direction. If you consider that, many stores will have hundreds of customers a day, that's quite a pair of lungs that woman's got to have. Even in a supermarket, you pass any member of staff and they thank you for being there.

 Yesterday, I climbed Mount Fuji. Far and away the single hardest mountain I have ever climbed. Relentless in it's elevation gain, there is no, literally no flat sections on the climb, and no respite from the descent either. The other problem with Mount Fuji is that it's a tourist mecca. I have no problem with other people on the mountain, the thousands of people who opt to drive further and climb the easy route are welcome to it. But I do draw the line at the souvenir shops at the top, and the caterpillar tracked tractors that chug up and down the mountain to resupply the shops and cafes dotted around the mountain.

The actual summit of Fuji is relatively little visited. It's on the far side of the crater to the top of the trails, and it's home to the very un-picturesque Mt. Fuji weather station. Just before the top, as a final "screw you!" the trail climbs a final steep section, covered in deep volcanic ash. Akin to walking on dry sand on a beach, this stuff isn't easy. I arrived at the bottom of this, looked up to the weather station, and there's a fell runner stood next to me, dressed in nothing but running shorts and a t-shirt to my two layers on top, trousers and walking boots. He looks at me and said "I am Yamato – you speak English?" I confirmed his suspicions that, yes I do speak English, so he carried on "Fine – what your name?" I told him. "Okee Mike-san, I race you to top. Ready, set, go!" And he shot up off this incline. I attemped a run after him, and arrived at the top gasping for oxygen and water. Yamato-san was waiting for me. "You very good Mike-san. You race much?" No. "You do altitude much?" No again. "Fine Mike-san. We now race back round crater!" No. Really no. "Okee, please to meet you Mike-san, goodbye!" And he ran off into the mist.

The inhabitants of the weather station had seen me by now, and were welcoming even me, in my unkempt hiker state to their windswept, cloud covered, freezing corner of Fuji's spectacular crater. I suppose life's not that exciting recording rainfall at 13,000 feet.

The Tokyo Green Tea Party

Madness in contrast. Black and white, hot and cold, peace, war, control freakery, anarchy. Welcome to Tokyo!

Rice for breakfast (a nation of students - clearly). Then headlong into the Tokyo rush hour. But not, not yet anyway, and something I had also noticed last night. There are bits of Tokyo, especially here in the north of the city, that are relatively sedate. No busier than The Grove in Ilkley, and far less busy than Leeds or Huddersfield. Especially true in the Temple grounds. The hotel is on the edge of a seemingly important temple. Inhabited largely by monks, tourists, and cats, its main contributions to the cacophony of the Tokyo soundtrack are coins being hurled at shrines, the temple bell, and the Churchill-esque camera poses of the Japanese tourists (PEEECE!)

Now you can have your rush hour, and the hilarity of the Tokyo metro system. Way cheaper, way cleaner, and way more on time than the Tube, but nonetheless incomprehensible, ("Wait, this character for that station looks a little like the one in the guide book...") When combined with the disconcerting site of the man in white gloves who pushes people on to packed departing trains, and catches them as the door opens on arriving trains, the Tokyo subway is an excellent way of parting with 160 yen, and spending half an hour.

Wandering around Tokyo, one of the most noticeable changes is the air conditioning. Nearly every office worker, and shop workers in the big stores wears a suit, not ideally clothed for the muggy weather. Air conditioning gets cranked up full blast (God knows how much that costs!) and makes walking past shop doors like a thermal barcode.

The bemusing moment of the day award goes to the entrance to the Imperial Gardens, something that's completely free, and yet you have to get a ticket. A small piece of plastic you pick up from the man at the entrance, and then give in to him again when you leave. (Why do you need this plastic?) I think it's all part of a national mentality of semi-control freakery and redundancy. Demonstrated also in the huge police overstaffing of everything. At least five coppers are assigned to every road works, each one equipped with a luminescent baton to wave traffic around the hazardous maze of warning signs they've erected to point people away from the one open manhole. So prolific is the police presence that they don't have squad cars, they have squad buses. No wonder crime is so low in Japan.