12th Nov 2006

Woke up at a crazy time of 430am this morning…I knew I'd be much slower than normal this early to get ready to leave the house by 6am…Stupidly I went to bed at about 1…trying to arrange my packed lunch for the adventure ahead.
Fool.
Anyway, I set up my camelbak, pack my lunch, shoes, harness and everything I think I could need for a day trip. It's rather cold out, so I put on the 5 million layers that I bought yesterday…

Oh yeah, yesterday, I made an attempt to prepare for today and looked for some non jeansy trousers that would be good for outdoor stuff…walking and climbing…something that wouldn't weigh a ton when/if it got wet…This mission didn't go so well…mainly because I refused to go anywhere but Muji and UniQlo…which are the cheapest places I know of. So, no trousers….but I did buy some thermal leggings (1000yen – ahhhh cheapness….) from Uniqlo and then some stripy leggings from Muji for 1050yen…which sorted out my fashion and coldness issue for Yugawara…

So, I'm now wearing thermal leggings, stripy leggings, baggy shorts, my thermal skin layer, t-shirt and a hoodie…and a scarf and a woolly tea-cosy on my head (sorry, hat). And get a ridiculously early train to Tokyo station…which got me there much earlier than I needed…the train leaves at 724 and I was there at about 10 to 7. so it's all good…much better than being late! It wasn't actually as hard as it could have been to find the right platform…which was wonderful…as it actually gave me time to buy a ticket…

I get on the train and make my way to the front of the carriage where we agreed to meet everyone else…at Yokohama, Annalisa gets on and we find the french guy (greg). Who was told to look for two asian girls talking in english…that wasn't too hard…

The train ride is about 1.5 hours…I have a little nap…and wake to find that Rei has appeared! Hurrah! The group is nearly complete… unfortunately an american girl (a friend of the french dude) just missed the train by a minute…(at yokohama) and so can't make it…

We get to Yugawara and get a taxi to the nearest crag, where Bill said he'd meet us. Bill had taken the FIRST train (which left at about the time I got up) to get some routes in before we got there…

I should really explain…none of us have any gear…and Bill has kindly agreed to come out with two ropes, his quickdraws and guide books just so that we can climb! How nice is that?

So he'd been self belaying off top ropes all morning…waiting for us to get there.

It's Crazy there are sooo many people here…several classes are going on…apparently this is the busiest Bill has EVER seen it…it is the start of the season and I guess it was raining yesterday, which may have made people reschedule to today… anyway we get a few routes in…I'm really happy because I actually lead a couple of things…

We then move on to small crag further up the mountain…which is overrun by children and parents on some kind of climbing deathwish… I have lunch perched on a rock and observe some of the WORST belaying and organisation of climbing EVER. It was painful to watch…who ever was meant to be supervising the group was doing a god-aweful job…or he/she was just trying to kill all of them…

I was told that some of the other climbers had been subjected to half an hour of screaming by a boy who was stuck halfway up the wall…who refused to go either up or down. They tried to coach him down from the ground, they sent up one of the supervisiors…then finally sent up his mother… FUN! Think it was driving everyone else mad…

Anyway these crazy people had about 5 ropes (top ropes) through one chain…and all five ropes in use at the same time…with children climbing past other children whilst some were being lowered onto others heads…being belayed by other small children who had no idea what they were doing being supervised by mothers who had about as much knowledge of belaying as a snake has about tying shoelaces. There was a horrensous amount of death-defying slack invovled…

We had to leave after climbing one climb so that we wouldn't watch anyone die. Argh…they just didn't realsise how serious the whole situation was…FOOLS.

We then move on to the last crag of the day…which is nicer and quieter…but with the most painful rock ever….the limestone is very sharp. Infact my problem wasn't the smallness of the holds….they were fine…it was the intense pain involved in having all your weight on sharp pointy bits of rock which were trying their best to work their way into your blood stream…anyway it hurt…but still managed to finish which was nice…

We saunter down the mountain…it's getting dark and Bill calls a taxi to get us back to the station…which takes rather a while to arrive. Most likely due to the number of climbers who have also called it a day and are trying to make it back home… on the bright side ours gets here first and we pile in…get to the station, buy tickets…with just enough time for everyone to grab a beer or snack from the combini and leg it on to the train…which arrives on the platform just as we are getting to the platform…

So. It's beer and snacks on the way back. Unfortunately, as I'm on antibiotics, there's no beer or brandy for me! Apparently, they have a tradition of beer (and brandy and chocolates) on the train ride back…which sounds good to me! There is also a bit of pull-up action on the train hand rails…which is a little dubious because we are in the carrage RIGHT behind the driver…and apparently they have been nearly thrown off the train before for trying to boulder all the way around the carriage…

All in all, an excellent day…with only a little rain at the beginning but the sun really warmed things up…I'm tired and drag myself home to have a nice hot shower and enjoy my bed…

Even better, I get intercepted by a girl on my floor who seems to have made too much food and forces some of it on me! Great!...i was just about to make some boring instant noodles… so that sorts out my food problems! And I get to try some phillapino food…:D