Out East on the island: Lake Akan

As time goes on in Japan we`re finding ourselves with lots of free time at work. It`s going to take creativity and go-getter-ship to make ourselves feel more useful, but I`ve got a bag of tricks to pull from. Even though the work load is less than challenging, my relationships with my schools are feeling more and more homey and happy.



Outside of school we`ve been dedicating ourselves to acquiring cell phones (we`re so connected now!) and soaking up summer before the half-year long winter sets in. In fact, it`s been feeling like Fall ever since this weekend. I`m tentatively loving it. Fall`s my favorite season, but I`m scared the second I rejoice about it a blizzard will sweep in and crush Fall into Winter.



Last weekend we took an end of Summer trip to explore the Eastern side of Hokkaido at the Eastern Welcome Party for JETs. We rented a van with 5 other Sappsters (all rental negotiations thanks to Crystal) and Brian drove us out to Lake Akan. We had a tough time with the navigation system and a side trip to pick up tents; none of us had ever driven in Japan before so it was a new sort of adventure for everyone, but despite all the obstacles we arrived, still smiling, around 3 AM to the campgrounds.



The next morning June caught us as we were waking up and invited us on a hike to the top of a volcano that overlooks the lake. We`d been eyeing that walk in the Lonely Planet, so we were stoked to have somebody with a better idea of how to make it happen around to make it happen.
We picked up another happy camper in the parking lot and by 9:30 June, Brian, Lechey and I were off.



We got going in the wrong direction at first, but it`s lucky we did because it was a gorgeous little walk with such beautiful things to see, like this scene on the forest floor.



And this place, that translates to "the blue place". Aptly named. The water is that color from the volcanic activity in the area. We encountered multiple signs about the dangers of hiking on an active volcano. And the dangers of bears. Next time I`ll get a shot of the bear signs. They`re really funny - bears with two paws up in full attack-to-obliterate position and massive I`m-gonna-eat-your-face-off, fanged mouths. Every Japanese hiker we passed had a bear bell, though I`m not sure how much bears like the sulfur-fume-coated volcanic peaks where most of the hike took place.

It was a pretty tough hike up the steep sides of the volcano. We did a loop that took us up one side and down the other. It was a relentless climb followed by a relentless descent, but well worth it. The forests were lovely, and once they petered out the views were stunning. It was a perfect day for a hike, even though a typhoon had been on the forecast. In my mind that day marked the beginning of Fall in Hokkaido. But in reality there`s actually a national holiday to mark the Autumnal Equinox (brilliant Japan!), on which I hope to find myself hiking again.



This was our first glimpse of the crater (though we smelt it a long way off).

The loose footing made the climb tougher, but the perfect weather, lovely temperature, and amazing views made it that much more rewarding. The crater was massive on this volcano.

Here`s a little panoramic video to give you a better idea of the views.

At the top we met Alan and Shu, other JETs from Sapporo, who`d climbed up from another route. We had lunch together at the summit before trying to avoid falling off the mountain side together on the somewhat treacherous way down. The hike took most of the day, and at the end we soaked away the stiffness in a beautiful little rustic onsen (public bath with natural hot spring water) at the bottom.

Though Brian and I are used to bath houses from being in Korea, this one had some unexpected surprises. Most notably, the outside portion, which is still separated by sex, was not fully separated. One of the screens that separated the two was missing, or never meant to have been there, but from the angle at which I was heading out it looked as though it were blocked off. So I was quite surprised to walk out, look to my right, and see there a man sitting as nakedly as I was standing. Surprise!

Back at the campground more people had arrived and Simon was cooking up a massive, delicious, falafel filled dinner for everyone. It got nice and chilly, but what with the party and the hot foot onsen we hardly noticed.

Sunday we had just enough time to cruise around the tacky Ainu village before driving back to Sapporo. The Ainus are the indigenous people of Hokkaido, but like most indigenous people whose lands were settled by outsiders... the history is pretty bleak. But in 2008 (yes really, only 2 years ago) they were officially recognized as indigenous people of Japan! Check them out on wikipedia. This town is like Cherokee, NC, but not quite so high a level of touristy development. Close though. Disturbingly close.

We got to see some Ainu carvings and marimo (the ball-shaped algae for which the lake is famous) and then got on our long way back. Here`s Marimokkori, the personified marimo with an erection that is one of Hokkaido`s mascots.

It`s a play on words that combines marimo with mokkori, which according to my dictionary is a

"bulge in a pocket or clothing" or "`tent` an erection makes against pants or bedsheets". Somehow, and blessedly, this is perfectly acceptable as a mascot for the island, which leads to hillarious marimokkori dolls, often with some function to it`s mokkori. For example, on one doll you pull it`s bulge and it vibrates. Another you push it`s bulge and the eyes change from 00 to ><>

I love Japan.

Here are the rest of the photos from the weekend.

Shannon's pictures are here!

Mongolia through Shannon's lens, Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

You can read more about our trip in older posts. It's only 4 more days til we begin our next big adventure! We're not sure how much internet access we'll have, but we'll try to keep this updated with photos and stories of our travels.

Central Mongolia - the beginnings

First day on the road. One of very few paved roads.

Our Soviet jeep in the Mongolian landscape.

Tibetan style stupas at Erdene Zuu monastery.

Young monks calling to worship with conch trumpets.

We flew from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, on the 11th where we geared up for our departure the next day. We'd read how awful Mongolian food can be, and seeing as how we'd be eating it for a long while, we opted for Indian in UB. Also, I was feeling quite a lot of trepidation about eating meat for the first time and wanted to put it off a little while longer. I stand by our decision to get foreign food, but let it be known that where there are no chickens to be seen, you shouldn't order chicken. We learned this the hard way. Shannon came down with a nasty bout of food poisoning that eventually landed her in a Mongolian hospital. They got her back into shape for the trip, but gave her some drugs that gave her intense anxiety the next night. We later read in the Lonely Planet in the health section that the greatest risk to your health in Mongolia is a Mongolian hospital. Luckily she pulled out of it safely and now has a story for the grand kids.

Tsagaan Nuur (White Lake) was one of the major highlights of the trip. Our horse guides, Sanbo and Biumbuch, got good and chummy with us, we got to stay with nomads, learn Mongolian games, drink Yak vodka, and we got to eat marmot. Blowtorched marmot. That's right.

The road to White Lake

Cheese drying at a ger on White Lake

Staying with nomads is what we thought we'd be up to the whole trip, but it turns out most families on the itinerary had extra gers where tourists sleep. But in Mongolia you aren't even welcomed in, you're assumed in to any ger you find. Around the lake the families didn't host tourists ever and they had no idea we were coming, but our guides would walk right in, find the dried cheese stash and make a fire and some milk tea even when no one was home. The family would come later and completely casually say hello and go about their business if they were shy or hang around for cards if they were less so. Hospitality is an old custom in Mongolia and was at one time a matter of survival, and probably still is. If you go though, it's polite to either pay 5000 Tougrug for your bed and meals (roughly 3.50 USD) or give a useful gift such as a wind-up radio or flashlight, batteries, duct tape, sewing kit, or crayons and coloring books for the kids. There are lots of kids to give fun stuff to.

Many families settle in small groups when they put up their gers, so the first family we stayed with was in a set of 4 or 5 gers where everyone shared in caring for the livestock.

A family of nomads moving for the winter

The best rainbow in the history of all time ever anywhere

They had yaks, goats, sheep, and horses, and that night we helped the women in a baby yak round up. This was so that the babies wouldn't feed during the night for morning milking. Shannon tried her hand at yak milking next morning, but I didn't give it a go until we got to the waterfall much later in the trip. I was full success though! It's strange, the teats are really slimy because they let the young ones suckle to get it all flowing before milking, and the slime makes them slippery and hard to pull straight down.

Best yak herders in town

Our ger owner, Otoma, milking that yak

Cheeks

Brian, Shannon, and Sanbo riding off into the mountains

There are a ton of photos in these slides, so if you want to see them bigger or slower or download them, click the slide show and it will take you to the website where they're stored and you can look at them closer there.

In central Mongolia lots of the milk products, which makes up the majority of summer food, come from yaks. Even vodka comes from yaks, though it's only 20% alcohol. There's not much water for cleaning either, so the one pot in a ger is used for everything and everything tastes kind of yak-y. Yaky became our descriptor for anything tasting animaly, even once we got to the Gobi and there were no yaks anywhere and the flavor was probably sheep. Yaky instant coffee is hard to stomach, but yaky milk tea is pretty good. Milk tea is green tea mixed with fresh whatever-animal-that's-around's-milk, butter and salt. It's more of a soup than a tea, but it warms a body up when it's freezing and raining and windy out. It's served without question at every ger in Mongolia as soon as you walk in the door.

Back to the blowtorched marmot bit - Biumbuch had shot this thing right before we arrived on the scene. He froze it and we started our horse trek during which he and Gilki, our translator, had a crush; and also he liked us because we played card games and drank vodka and the boys wrestled and had a jolly old Mongolian time. So when we got back he wanted to hang out more and share his marmot with us. He was so proud and excited about the marmot process, bossing his friends around and taking control.

We have lots of video of this part too, but Brian's going to compile it all so it'll be on the blog later. For now, you can see all the steps in these pictures. Again, these are only half the pictures, I'll post Shannon's in a couple of weeks when she gets back from Australia.

After White Lake we went to some caves, a rock formation, Tsetserleg town, and a waterfall before leaving central Mongolia for the Gobi.

If school stays as slow as it has been I'll post the Gobi later this week. We're busy procuring visas and booking flights and eating as much Korean food as possible before our go day. There are only 17 more days of teaching til we're finished. It's hard to believe we've been here nearly a year, and harder to believe that we'll be coming home soon(ish).

Manila and Coron: Philippines Day 1-4

Day 1
It was Christmas Eve and David, Duck, Brian and I were off to the Philippines! We arrived in Manila around 11 PM and took a cab straight to our hostel. Friendly's Guesthouse certainly lived up to the name. When we arrived and checked in, the guys at the front desk told us there was a Christmas Eve party going on upstairs in the common area. We went up to check it out and lo and behold, there was a full scale feast of all kinds of pork and beef and chicken for the carnivorous amongst us, and even fish and veggies for me and Brian. There was Filipino brandy and rhum flowing freely, and Benjie, the most friendliest of the friendlies kept bringing us bottles of wine. And even better still, it was all free!

We enjoyed the scene and the vittles for a while before heading off to an early bedtime because our flight next morning was an early one.
Day 2 - Merry Christmas Day!
But the flight was delayed a couple of hours, so we got the free lunches pictured below. They were terrible, so we played hand jive for keeps with em. Then we were off to Busuanga Island and the city of Coron. Once our little prop plane landed we were into a jeepney (the public transport of choice for longer rides) and off down the dirt road to Coron. The jeepney dropped us right at our lodging - Crystal Lodge (see end of post for contact info) to be precise; best damn place I've ever slept. To get there you have to walk down a tiny alley, then onto a boardwalk beside a mangrove thicket and on out over the water. The entire place is built over the water on stilts, wholly out of scrap wood, bamboo, and wicker with the exception of the tin on the roofs and the porcelain of the toilets. Bathrooms, by the way, in the Philippines are called comfort rooms, or CRs, and most are just a toilet bowl, no seat, no back filled with water. Most CRs come equipped with a water spout and a big and small bucket. To wipe, you fill the small bucket with water and rinse yourself. To flush, you fill the big bucket with water and dump it in the bowl. I don't know how you dry off, I brought tp.

Mai (the owner) showed us around our cabin. We stayed in the last hut farthest out on the water and it must have been the best hut on the block. It was breezy, so no bugs and it stayed cool, the view was gorgeous, and we had our own picnic area and hammock outside. Mai and her husband Ronaldo were great too. They arranged our island hopping, recommended places to eat, helped us get food together for lunch on the beach, and were great company just hanging around the common kitchen. Their nephew Morgie was there on holiday and he showed us the ropes (he's 5). He was especially helpful in the realm of Good Cat/Bad Cat (the 2 furry friends at Crystal) politics and current events. As well as pointing out the most excellent dead squid in the fish trap.

Around Coron town all of the tricycles (transport of choice for short trips) were decked out in reindeer heads, scuba divers wrapped in tinsel, lights, glowing stars and flowers, and other Christmas paraphernalia. Everyone wanted to personally tell you hello and Merry Christmas (and later in the trip, hello and Happy New Years).

That evening we climbed the 700 some odd steps to the summit of Mt. Tapyas where there's a big white cross and an amazing spot to watch the sunset over Coron Bay. It was hot going for our winter acclimated bodies, but well worth our efforts. I imagine it was the most merry Christmas anyone could have when they're half the world away from home.

Day 3
The day after Christmas Mai arranged an island hopping excursion for us with her friend Joy and Joy's husband as our captains. Mai cooked us some rice and put the food we'd bought at market (2 kilos of tuna steaks for 2 USD and fresh veggies) the day before together and we were off. Joy's bangca (the Filipino narrow boat with wide bamboo outriggings) was the tiniest we saw the whole trip, and the water was choppiest that day. But it made for an exciting, constant bailing adventure. First stop - Siete Picados, a marine wildlife reserve where there's never been any dynamite fishing (a common reef wrecker in the Philippines). Unfortunately, it was an extremely windy day (the boat to El Nido that left that day had to be rescued by the coast guard, in fact, the one the day before that sank) so the water was really murky and we were cold as it was only 8 AM, but we still managed to see some beautiful reefs and colorful blow fish and best of all, a harribon! They say there are only 100 of these small eagles left in their native habitat (normally further south than Palawan), but we saw one that morning.

And from then on the day just got better. Next stop was Lake Cayangan. The hike up takes you to a small cave and gorgeous vista of the almost physically painfully beautiful lagoon from which you've just climbed. The lake itself is brackish and clearer than bottled water. The sunken canoe picture below was taken at around 25 ft. and it looks just like it did in person. And that's when the batteries died in the camera for the day. But after swimming and raft paddling there we went to the similar but perhaps more spectacular Barracuda Lake. Both are surrounded by greenery and limestone cliffs. Second to last stop was lunch on a beautiful beach that I don't know the name of. Joy and her husband roasted up our fish and okra on an open fire and doused with the traditional Filipino adobo sauce (soy sauce and vinegar flavored with hot peppers) and salsa it was the best food we ate in that country. We ate and lounged for a few hours before finally heading to the Skeleton. This is a ship wreck, the shallowest part of which is at about 20 feet, but that's the upper tip and it's sloped steeply down from there so it's tough to snorkel without fins (as we tried). From what we could get down to see, it was impressive.

That night we took a tricycle to the hot springs not far from town. They were lit with the paper stars that may have been permanent or may have been Christmas ornaments. It was beautiful and the water was perfect after a chilly day out in the wind.

Day 4
The next day we were up early to eat banana pancakes and get on the boat to El Nido. We had plane tickets to Puerto Princesa, but opted to skip the flight+bus ride for the boat. We found out later that this was a risky move but our trip was next to perfect. And when we got home we had an email waiting saying that the flight had been cancelled anyway and we get a refund! We're so lucky. We were on that pleasure cruise for about 8 hours and arrived in El Nido at night, so we had no idea what to expect the next day. But walking the streets at night was surreal. The town only has electricity from 8 PM til 6 AM, so from around 6:30 til 8 everything's candle lit. We arrived around 7 and walked past candle lit street side shops, racing the other passengers to find lodging for the night. Lucky for us, we found Hanny. Hanny lives in Puerto Princessa, but his brother owns Hadefe's cottages, and he told us we could get a room there.

At this point we broke all the rules of Philippines travel. Brian and David split to go look for Brian's shoe (fell off pack on the boat, never recovered). Duck and I followed Hanny through the enchantingly, but nervously dark streets to the beach where we waited for someone to come from the lodge with a flashlight. 2 men came. One with a light, one with a motor bike. It didn't occur to me until I was out of site down a pitch dark dirt path in the woods with a strange man driving past a graveyard in the Philippine night that perhaps I should not have separated from Duck. But luckily for us all, Hanny and Emille and their entire family turned out to be angels and El Nido probably isn't a part of the Philippines where your guard needs to be up. But these things and more we wouldn't know fully until the morning.

More to come on our Philippine adventure. For now, the contact information for the wonderful places we stayed. From the four of us, I'd say they get 8 thumbs up.
Friendly's Guesthouse www.friendlysguesthouse.com

Crystal Lodge (Mai and Ronaldo)+63(920)801-6058 http://www.divecal.com/CrystalFS.htm

for boat to El Nido Sea Dive Resort (you can pay with visa, approx. 50 USD)

Hadefe Beach Cottages 09209523280 and 09206005975 (have to google island code, I don't know it) www.geocities.com/hadefes.cottages