What ludicrously busy month October was! To start it off, Michi and I went on a four day hiking trip to Kamikochi in Nagano Prefecture. We had hiked Mt. Yarigadake there several years before, and I had gone back to try to hike Mt. Hotaka last year but was rained out. This year, we were planning on hiking the "Daikiretto" route, a kilometer long scramble along a knife-edge ridge with lots of ups and downs. A hiking guide book of this route said something to the effect of "If you see a big pile of cigarette butts, you've either just come through something nasty or you're about to."
The trip started out really well. We made good time to our first lodge, and got a good nights rest. The weather and views the second day were great, and we made it to our second lodge just before it started raining. That's where things went pear-shaped. The forecast said it would rain through the next morning, and then turn to snow, and we had planned to hike this death route where a single misstep could lead to hundred meter plunges. SO, we decided to hike down a different route, spend the night at a different lodge, then return to Tokyo on Friday, October 12th as planned. The route, which I argued for and which Michi argued against, was a nightmare. Even from the light rain the night before, it was slippery and quite steep, with lots of mud to slide in and a lot of rocks with slick faces to slip off and jagged edges to cut yourself on. It was supposed to be a three hour hike to the next lodge, but it took us about six hours.
When we finally arrived, it turned out that the lodge had closed for the winter season literally the day before. We didn't know, as we hadn't planned on staying there originally anyway. By this point, the rain was beginning to come down, the temperature was dropping and the sunlight was fading. We could have stayed at the emergency winter shelter, but decided to press on to the next lodging, another several hours away.
To cut the story short, we made it to a really nice hotel around 7PM, having started hiking that day at 7AM. Michi's headlamp had run out of batteries the day before, so we had been hiking in the rain through unlit forest and mountain trails for about three hours with only my headlamp to guide us when we spotted the lights from the hotel. We were soaked, and we didn't have a reservation. Luckily, the hotel staff let us stay, and it was actually cheaper than staying at the mountain lodges. We pulled off our soaked clothes, took hot showers and went down to soak in the luxurious hot springs before passing out.
After spending Friday recovering in Tokyo, on Saturday we went to a wonderful performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute. The tickets were pretty expensive, but we both really enjoyed the sets, costumes, and of course the music and singing.
The next week was somewhat uneventful.
The following weekend, we went to Meiji-mura, an open air museum housing many buildings from the Meiji-era located near Nagoya. The motivation for making this rather long day trip was multi-factored. I had been interested in seeing one of the few Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in Japan, the old Imperial Hotel, for several years but had never gotten around to making the trip. It was demolished in the 1960s, and the lobby was rebuilt in its current location a few years later. Then Michi's company announced that they were holding a "walking day" to promote their employees' health, and one of the locations was Meiji-mura. So off we went to Nagoya.
I must say, it was amazing. The Imperial hotel itself is pretty well cared for, and exploring it only made me feel a little sad that more of the hotel had not been preserved. It is a real treasure of design.
There were several other buildings that were interesting as well, although the Imperial Hotel was the main dish. For example, they had the house where Natsume Soseki wrote several of his famous novels, for instance, "I am a Cat" and others.
Just last weekend, I visited the in-laws's place, which they had recent had renovated. Before, it was a typical old style Japanese apartment with design and layout from the 1970's. They completely redid the interior partitioning, and redesigned the kitchen, bedrooms and living rooms to more modern sensibilities. It looks great now.
And finally, we get to the end of October. Michi and I attended Paul McCartney's concert here in Japan on Halloween. It was a great performance, and he belted out Beatles classics, his own pieces from the 70s and 80s and even a few tunes from his latest album, which weren't half bad. Like the Rolling Stones, he still gives his all in his performances and he can still rock it when it counts.
The next few months will be busy as well, but probably not quite as packed as October.
