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Published: September 9th 2008
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Japan! The land of the rising sun, samurai warriors, stealthy ninjas, sushi, high tech gadgets, sumo wrestlers, cherry blossom (although you get that in other countries too) , heated toilet seats, geisha girls, hot springs, sake, love and pod/capsule hotels to name just a few things associated with this prosperous Asian country. I couldn’t wait to get out there and experience all of these things for myself, except for the cherry blossom - wrong season!
We left Beijing for Tokyo on the 23rd July, stopping over briefly in Shanghai, which we found amusing since our travels had begun there. I felt a slight longing for my old life in Shanghai then, but that quickly passed when we boarded our flight bound for Tokyo.
We arrived in the evening and had our first taster of Japan’s rail and public transport systems and we were surprised at how easy, convenient and clean it all was. I remember staring at the Tokyo metro map in the guidebook before arriving in Japan and feeling utterly lost, envisioning the 3 of us getting sucked into the underground metro system never to resurface, because to me, the metro map honestly looked like a piece of
paper attacked by a 2 year old armed with coloured crayons. It made no sense to me and this is coming from a girl who grew up using the London Underground! In reality though, the Tokyo metro system isn’t half as complicated as I thought it would be and I quickly realised my previous fears were unfounded and was soon relatively competent at navigating through it.
Fuji Rock Festival at Mount Naeba, 24th - 28th July 2008
Our first night in Japan, spent in Tokyo was just a brief stopover, as the next day we headed about 2 hours north west of Tokyo to Mount Naeba, for the Fuji Rock Festival. When we were planning our trip and deciding which countries to go to, we said wed try and do Fuji Rock if we went to Japan, as Stacy had never been to a festival before and I’ve been desperate to go to Fuji Rock for some years now. Fuji Rock did not disappoint!
On the train from Tokyo we met 3 fellow festival-goers from the UK; Simon, Ben and Emily, who we joined forces with for the long festival weekend. We found ourselves a nice camping
jump!!
our first hostel in Tokyo spot at the top of a particularly steep hill, which proved a little tricky to navigate with heavy rucksacks on our backs (as well as later in the weekend, slightly inebriated in the dark!) and we set up camp for the next 4 nights, them in their 12 man tepee and us in our “4” man tent (which was so blatantly a 2/3 man tent!) that we’d bought in Beijing. Cosy would be a generous term to describe the 3 of us and our large rucksacks squeezed into that tent but we managed it and it certainly became part of the Fuji Rock experience for us.
I’ve been to a number of festivals in the past but none can compare to the atmosphere or actual festival site of Fuji Rock. The festival site was stunning, set within the Mount Naeba ski resort, mountains making for a perfect backdrop to the bands we watched on various stages throughout the site. Fuji rock had a massive recycling campaign with practically everything - plastic cups and bottles, paper plates, wooden chopsticks/forks being separated for recycling and the toilet paper in the portaloos (yes, the loos had toilet paper!) were made from recycled
cigarette packets! Even after a day of festival-ing, the site had barely any rubbish on the floor, a different situation entirely compared to UK festivals. A vast proportion of Fuji Rockers were Japanese and they were so accepting of us foreigners to their festival, which coupled with the festival site and the cleanliness made Fuji Rock on of the best festivals I’ve experienced so far. Had we had the same line up as the 2007 or even the 2006 Fuji Rock Festival, it probably would have been the best festival ever! Saying that, the line up we had this year wasn’t too bad, I got to see the Presidents of the United States of America again, experience Rodrigo y Gabriella for the first time, who were amazing, and see other bands such as Asian Dub Foundation, Bloc Party, Feeder, Primal Scream, The music and Underworld, to name but a few. We even randomly met 2 members of Asian Dub Foundation while we were partying on the Saturday night, as well as one member of Primal Scream!
As well as Ben, Emily and Simon, we got to know a group of 4 Japanese guys who were great fun to be
around and Cameron, the legendary Australian who was up for everything and anything and certainly kept us all amused. Fuji Rock wouldn’t have been the same without them!
We were blessed with magnificent weather at Fuji Rock, blue skies overhead and the sun shining down on us. Every morning we woke up to a hot, stuffy tent and quickly moved to lie by the open tent door or outside on the grass. The morning of the last day was the hottest yet and we all hoped for a light shower to cool us down. Seems like that was the wish of everyone there as we got our light shower… which was soon followed by a torrential downpour! Within minutes we were soaked through, but that didn’t stop us! We carried on watching bands and dancing through the rain and mud, only returning to the campsite to change clothes later that evening, though we all got caked in mud again when we returned to the festival site later that night. What a way to end a festival!
Hakuba Alps, 28th - 31st July 2008
The next morning we packed up our belongings, said farewell to Ben, Emily, Simon
the girls eating my food
while waiting for our train to Fuji Rock Festival and Cameron and made out way back to the train station. We weren’t able to find accommodation back in Tokyo for after the festival so we headed to Hakuba Alps for a few days of recuperation instead. It took us the best part of a day to get to our hostel but it was definitely worth it as the hostel was so cosy and clean with the friendliest, most helpful staff that we immediately felt right at home. It was great to finally shower (we hadn’t showered for the entire festival weekend, urgh!) put on clean clothes, eat a decent meal and sleep on a proper bed after a weekend of roughing it.
We stayed in Hakuba for 3 nights and spent most of our time there doing some much needed relaxing at the hostel and checking out what the nearby towns had to offer. On our final full day myself and Stacy rented bikes and did a 15km bike trail around the local area, including the cross country ski route of the Nagoya 1998 winter Olympics and around a beautiful lake which harboured a floating trampoline that we were desperate to play on, but alas were beaten to
it by the kids at the water sports centre. I loved our time in Hakuba and could have easily have stayed there indefinitely and become an outdoorsy kinda girl, biking and trekking in the summer and skiing in the winter.
But it was soon time to move on, next destination Hiroshima with a brief stop in Nagoya.
NB. Go read Stacy's blog at www.mytb.org/Stace-in-the-Sun
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