Bandai-san

Konichiwa,

due to some trouble concerning my right to vote in the upcoming national election I made a spontaneous trip to the German Embassy in Tokyo. In case you are interested, this is how it looks like:

Very welcoming.

Unfortunately, they couldn't help me. I am very angry towards myself and German bureaucracy that I most likely won't be able to participate in the election. What kind of Democracy denies one of its citizens the right to vote ten days before the election even takes place. Apparently this one.

But I have much more pleasant stories to tell. The last two days I had the privilege to accompany Isoji and his daughter Yuu northward to Bandai, a volcano that blew off his summit together with its northern flank. Remarkable about this eruption in 1888 is that there was no magma involved, just steam. And the problem with these eruptions is that there are no precursors, they just happen without warning. The villages north of the volcano were immediately buried by the massive landslide. Today, the area north of the mountain is littered with lakes and ponds, filled with water from the rivers that were disrupted by the huge displacement of land. It creates an immensely beautiful landscape. Too bad that, on our first day, a taifun was approaching. The weather could have been better but who the hell is surprised by this anymore. It would certainly be more surprising by now to hear me report nice weather. So yeah, it was raining, and it was foggy, and it was very windy, but it was also a heck of a lot of fun.

Yuu and me.

The trail was very nice, only overshadowed a bit by the rain and wind.

Watch out for low hanging branches, Isoji...

We climbed up to the top of the cliff, which now stands in the place of the former summit of the volcano. And this is the magnificent view from the top:

We could at least see parts of the cliff.

Well, it's something.

As a reminder, that the vocano is still active, you'll have the constant smell of sulfur in your nose, originating mostly from this abandoned hot spring.

This one has certainly seen better (and drier) days.

Smelly water reaches the surface all over the area, and it is waaaarrrmmm... and it bubbles.

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles.

As you might have thought, we didn't spend much time at the top and after our descend we proceeded to the volcano museum. Probably the most remarkle thing on display, in my opinion, was an ancient chinese seismometer, built in 132 AD! Simply astounding.

Looks weird but it works.

We spent the night at the home of Isoji's friend, TT. We had a delicious meal and thankfully he hadn't drunk all the beer yet. He also offered us probably the best sake I ever had until now. I might have drunk a bit too much. Thanks to TT and his family for their hospitality! I very much enjoyed the stay.

Kanpai!

The next day we went to see the landscape that the debris avalanche has left behind. To be more precise: lakes! Lots of ponds, small and large lakes. Check this out:

Speechless.

Pathway along the shore.

FISHIES.

The red pond. I shit you not. That's what it's called.

Nice stuff.

We took a hiking path along many ponds. Simply beautiful. There are however bigger lakes than this.

Yep, that's big.

There was unsurprisingly a cloud hanging ontop of Bandai-san. On the following close-up picture you can just barely see the top of the cliff.

Almost...

Our last stop was a very beautiful volcanic cone called Azuma-Kofuji, which is part of the Azuma volcanic complex. It sits on top of a plateau and therefore is not too high itself. Climbing up takes just about 10 min. Here is the view into the crater.

My first proper crater.

It was also incredibly windy.

I think we should sue our barber.

Thanks again to Isoji, Yuu and TT for this amazing weekend!

Right now I am already back in Germany and am fondly looking back to my time in Japan, all the new friends I made and all the experiences I had. I am sure this is just the beginning of my love for Japan.

Thank you all for following my adventure.

Cheerio,

Nils

Fuji-san

Otsukare sama deshita,

this weekend Shinji and I climbed Mt. Fuji, the highest mountain of Japan with its 3776 m above sea level. I have something very important to teach you about mountains: It's cold on top. And guess who didn't exactly prepare for a winter trip to Japan. I ended up wearing jogging pants underneath my pants and my water proof pants on top as well as two shirts a sweater and my soft shell jacket. I was surprised to find gloves and a scarf in the pockets of my jacket. Those are the moments when you are really proud of your past self. I think I would have probably died without that scarf but let's start from the beginning.

We arrived at the starting location to climb Mt. Fuji in the early afternoon of Saturday. We chose the north eastern approach which starts at around 2400 m a.s.l. We stayed there for about an hour to acclimatize ourselves. There were a lot of people. The weather at that point was nice enough to see the summit.

Wait, no fog?!

From here we proceeded to our goal for the day, our accommodation. The plan was to stay the night and continue climbing early in the morning so we could see the sunrise from the summit. It is a fairly easy climb up to the accommodations, of which there are many on this side of the mountain creeping up the slope. The mountain is prone to many mudflows (lahars), especially in spring when the snow is melting. Here you can see a safety measurement meant to protect you on your way to the top.

This one already saw some action.

All the remnants of past lahars really put things into perspective.

This concrete structure didn't survive.

In the last picture you can see the supply road which can only be traversed by this thing:

Looks like fun.

And here you can see some of the cabins, most of which were already closed since it was the last weekend this year the mountain would be open for climbers. The next season starts in June 2018.

Still no fog, what is going on?

We were staying at the third cabin from below, situated at about 2700 m a.s.l. where we arrived at about 4 pm. Here is the view:

The town there sits at about 800 m a.s.l.

It was a really cozy little cabin but staying at this altitude is really expensive. Just using the toilet costs about 200 yen (1.5 euros or 1.8 US dollars). 

The interior of one of the cabins.

We went to bed early so we could start climbing around 2 am. If you are still wondering how it is possible for me to have such nice weather then be at ease, it was raining when we started our ascend. It was a good idea to put on the rain gear anyway since it was freaking cold.

We didn't make it to the top in time for the sunrise but it was better that way. This is what the summit looked like at 5:30 am:

There is the fog. It wouldn't be proper otherwise.

It was a good decision to stay at 3400 m and wait for the sun to pop up instead of continuing further up the mountain. But let's not tease you anymore, here is the famous sunrise:

Here it comes.

Woooohooooo.

It was a bit cloudy as you can see. The view was breathtaking nonetheless.

Noice.

At latest at this point you feel like you are really climbing a volcano.

After the sun finally made it above the horizon to warm us up a bit, we proceeded to conquer the last part on our way to the summit.

The entry to the summit. It is a sacred mountain after all.

At this point the scenery turned into the familiar fog saturated panorama. The wind was also blowing fiercely. This is what the crater rim looked like:

Be careful not to be blown off.

I was really excited to see Fuji's main crater which is more than 200 m deep and has an incredible diameter of about 500 m. But I couldn't see anything. After a short rest we began walking towards the highest point, the real summit, located on the opposite site of the crater.

Me with all my clothing. I was still freezing when I wasn't moving.

Icicles, that's how cold it was.

After climbing more than 1000 m we finally reached the real summit. Shinji was really happy, since this was also a first time for him. Last time he climbed Fuji it was too crowded to make it to the real top. Win win.

Welcome to the top of Japan.

From here on we started our descend since we had to catch a bus at 1:30 pm. We took the southern route to get a look at the craters from the last eruption of Mt. Fuji in 1707, the Hoei eruption. It is one of the best described historic eruptions in the world. Ash fell on the city of Tokyo, then called Edo. The volcano has been quiet since that eruption and the next eruption is overdue. This is the route we took:

Watch your step.

You can see the sea.

Getting close to the crater rim at the slope of the mountain, this is what we saw:

There is a bloody cloud sitting in the crater.

When we actually reached the crater rim we experienced a couple of minutes of the cloud lifting and the crater was revealed.

Pretty big. Sorry, no scale.

The size of the crater becomes a bit more apparent from the bottom:

Scale?

Maybe if you compare the two pictures you get a feeling. It is hard to describe it without being there. But with the sight of this crater I was satisfied and we caught the bus on time to go back home. All in all an unforgettable experience. Thanks to Shinji for taking me there and giving me advice on how to avoid altitude sickness.

My next and last trip will go to Bandai, a volcano that lost one of its flanks. Should be interesting. Isoji is taking me and one of his daughters to Bandai and we visit an old friend of his. He says we should come soon before he drinks all the beer by himself. Sounds like a reasonable fella. I am really excited.

See you soon,

Nils

Hokkaido

Konichiwa Minna-san,

I just came back from a five day trip to Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of Japan. I wanted to see myself, the island that was avoided for the most part of Japanese history. The indigenous people, the Ainu, have been inhabiting the place for centuries. The island was eventually conquered and the Ainu treated as slaves and people of lower class. During the Meiji Restoration , when the emperor took back control over the government from the shogunate in the second half of the 19th century, the island was essentially turned into a colony, with many Japanese moving there. Today it is a firm part of Japan but you can clearly see the late start of development. Another trait that separates it from the rest of Japan is its maritime temperate climate. This means pleasant temperatures in summer and shit tons of snow in winter (I definitely have to come back in winter). The land is absolutely gorgeous with its many many mountains (mostly volcanoes, duh) and natural beauty.

I took a plane from Tokyo Haneda International Airport to Chitose (Sapporo) International Airport which takes about 1.5 hrs. I then rented a car, borrowed a tent and started driving towards Toyako. Toya is a caldera that was created 110,000 years ago and now forms a picturesque lake (the "ko" in "Toyako" means lake). Here I camped at the lakeside, and when I mean lakeside I mean DIRECTLY AT THE BLOODY SHORE:

My little green tent.

I couldn't resist... This is the view outside the tent in the morning:

It was very cold early in the morning.

That island there in the middle of the lake is called "Nakajima", which literally means center island (I know, very lazy). It's also the new volcano that has been growing since the caldera formed. Right on the opposite side of my camping ground was one of Japan's best known volcanoes: Mt. Usu. It erupted in 2000. Right next to it is Showashinzan.

Mt. Usu in the middle and Showashinzan on the left side. Don't worry
the white stuff is just a cloud.

This one has a rather peculiar history. Showashinzan and the plateau it sits on did not exist prior to 1943. That place was just as flat as its surroundings. In just 2 years the whole area was uplifted and lava made it to the surface creating the barren cone you can see in the picture. It stands at almost 400 meters above sea level. The water level of lake Toya lies at 84 meters a.s.l.

Showashinzan literally means "Showa new mountain", where "Showa" refers to the time period of the reign of emperor Hirohito.

Interestingly enough, even though the lake is made up of fresh water, there were a bunch of seagulls:

Weirdly out of place.

The Japanese word for seagull is "umineko", which literally means "Sea/Ocean cat". Don't ask...

The sea actually isn't that far away, just about 5 to 10 km.

Back to Mt. Usu and its eruption in 2000. That eruption created numerous new craters as well as a lahar (mud flow) that destroyed parts of the town of Toyako (yes, same name). They left some of the remains standing for people to explore. Guess what I did. This is, what I think, the entrance area of a hot spring and spa building:

I wonder why it went out of business.

The main road connecting to the capital of Hokkaido, Sapporo, used to run through the area that was devastated by the lahar. The bridge crossing the small river was moved about 90 meters away from its original position.

Lonely bridge looking for a road in your area.

On the way to its resting place it scraped an apartment building.

The apartment building sued the bridge for domestic violence.

From there it is only a small walk up to the biggest crater of the 2000 eruption:

Quite big. Another crater is right behind it.

The local government installed massive barriers to prevent damage from another such incident in the future:

It has to look nice though.

Let's stop talking about Usu and move to the next volcano: Yotei, also called "Ezo-Fuji". "Ezo" is the old word for Hokkaido and I hope you all know what Fuji is. This mountain might not be as high as Mt. Fuji ("just" 1,898 m), but it definitely looks stunning:

Everybody should have one, a "Fuji" I mean.

While driving around I noticed something. There were some huuuuge cliffs of exposed material which looked rather intriguing. At first glance it looks like sand but the fact that there are so many volcanoes in the area I though it might be ash. Good thing I brought my binoculars. Upon closer inspection I could see pumices and sometimes denser rocks. These must have been deposits of pyroclastic flows. There was nothing unusual about it except the size, just look at it:

Just massive. At least 20 meters.

This one is even larger.

I drove from the pacific coast to the coast of the Japan sea, which are actually not too far apart around here.

Japan Sea side.

Pacific Ocean side.

If you stuck around until this point I commend you and present you with something special. The sunsets seen from the camping ground were absolutely mind blowing. I tried to take pictures every day and here are the fruits of my labor:

First day.

Second day.

Third day.

It is amazing how different they are from each other while still being beautiful. This will be it for my trip to Hokkaido. Thanks for sticking around and reading the whole thing. Next will be climbing Mt. Fuji together with Shinji to see the sunrise. I can't wait.

Cheerio

Nils