[TRAVELS] The Day I Met Buakaw, and Lived Happily Ever After

The Idea

The thought of training in Thailand, even for an afternoon, has lurked in my mind for a while. The thought grew stronger with each of the frequent trips I have had to make to Bangkok for a live deal in recent months. A full slate of Friday meetings and the chance to have the wif swing by after some business of her own made the prospect ineluctable.

And if you were to do it -- to put yourself through the hell and toughness and above all the lack of air conditioning -- why settle for just any of the many, quality Muay Thai gyms sprawling across Bangkok and the rest of the country? Why not make sure you can witness one of your real heroes in action as a result?

So we arranged for transportation, a guide-slash-translator, and confirmed that Buakaw would be training at the Por Pramuk Gym that particular Saturday.

The Trip

Chachoengsao Province, Bang Khla, the Bang Pakong River, all exactly as they have appeared in K-1 promotion videos preceding Buakaw's appearances.

Not much can be said about the journey. Endless highway. Then some not-so-highway, narrower streets through town. A small sign indicating the turn-off for the gym which the unacquainted would surely miss, followed by some dirt roads. Then fresh-water shrimp farms. No gas station, no food stall, no 7-Eleven, just fresh-water shrimp farms.

A few kilometers on the backroads before reaching the gym, we ran into Buakaw and the team running. They were already halfway through their afternoon warm-up run. Chai, our go-between, asked if I wanted to join them. I demurred, thinking (i) it to be excessively awkward for a first encounter, (ii) I was not yet appropriately dressed for the activity, and (iii) it might wear me out a precious little too much before whatever else it was the trainers had in store for me. Wimp.

The Gym

Gym training with Nis. Six pad rounds.

Nis -- whose name is apparently Sanit; go figure -- taught me quite a bit about technique in a short while. Along the way, I had some horribly embarrassing bouts of stage fright, such as dropping the wrong hand on front kicks more than once.

Knee strike: worked on left knee only. Left hand on opponent's head, right on his clavicle. Push down as you strike. Knee comes up, hip juts forward, but head and shoulders arch backward. Plant left foot forward. Always move forward. Use your hands to push opponent backward at the same time to set up the next strike.

Right hook: never used, according to Nis. When striking with the right hand, use cross only. Perhaps because a right-handed opponent will always be able to see the right hook coming?

Power-side mid kick: don't throw too high. Lean head into your blocking arm, which should be straight up and perpendicular to the ground. Teaches approach of throwing the kick-side hand away.

Keep chin tucked always. Including when throwing the elbow. With the right elbow, your elbow points should end up in line with your chin and nose. Throwing the elbow any further exposes your right side to a counter. Chin tucked inside your shoulder, inside the opening of the V made by your right arm.

For a right-hander, stepping forward always means moving the left foot first. Stepping backwards always means stepping backward with the right foot first. Never forget. Drill drill drill.

Nis didn't seem to mind the switching rather than stepping before left kicks. I wasn't quite sure whether he similarly approved of the cross check (e.g., left shin to block opponent's left kick) but I think it was OK.



After 5 pad rounds -- consisting of 2 pad rounds, a break to let Miyuki work out, 2 more and another Miyuki break, and 1 more round -- Nis asked me, "Tired?"

"One more," I responded, pantingly.

"You like Muay Thai?"

"Yes. But I'm no good."

"Nah, you not too bad. You come here train. One week, two week. You get better."

That was heart-warming. And then we set off into our last round.

Obviously, Nis probably just wants my money. That's his job after all. But part of me thinks that, maybe if I were so bad that it wouldn't be worth it to be stuck teaching me again in exchange for my small amount of marginal income to the gym, he would never have said those kind words.




The Man

It's like you can see Buakaw's bricks in 3-D. His hits -- repeated middle kicks and knees on a bag and punches against swinging spare tires -- sound and feel incredibly sharp and painful in live 3-D as well, even when half a gym away.

The downside of working out was having relatively little time to watch Buakaw himself train. We had only a few minutes after we were done to watch him wail interminable, rapid-fire punches into some swinging spare tires.

After his training, Buakaw graciously came by to join us for some pictures. While we waited for the photos to come out of the gym's digital photo printer (the only 21st century convenience we noticed on the entire premises), we chatted.

His English was quite good. Much better than his Japanese, of which he said he could speak "only leeeee-tle bit." We could carry on a pleasant conversation among the three of us, to the exclusion of our guide and go-between Chai.

I think the first thing I said to him was that he had a good fight against Warren Stevelmans in Los Angeles, just a week or two prior for Muay Thai Premier League. He responded with a question in some unprecedented combination of English words (and maybe a hand-and-finger gesture) which somehow indubitably meant, "Did you watch it in person?", to which I had to reply that I saw it on Youtube.

I confess to and professed much bro-love for Buakaw. "To me, even the Andy Souwer fights -- you won all of them." He thanked me a couple of times for that statement.

We also talked haltingly about the movie "Yamada." None of us could figure out whether it had been released yet in Japan on top of Thailand, but Buakaw said that they promoted it in the arena in August when he took on Makino at Thai Fight in Japan.

I asked him twice about how long more he plans to fight. I think he understood the question but chose to ignore it. Just in case it really was a language issue, I asked the question of Chai in Japanese. Rather than translate, Chai responded himself, saying that Buakaw was close to retirement, that he was tired of the training and the grind.

Buakaw's minimum purse, I'm told, is 2 million yen (roughly US$25,000 at current exchange rates). So he can't fight in Thailand anymore; no stadium or local show could possibly pay him that.

According to Chai, for his first fight as a single-digit-years-old child, Buakaw made about 200 yen. And half went to the gym owner.



Buakaw's reticence on the previous query meant I never got the chance to ask my money question: What do you feel that you still need to do, i.e., who do you think you need to fight, in the rest of your career?

Filippo from Yokkao, who was visiting the gym that day and with whom the wif and I chatted before our training session, was not optimistic that his promotion could piece together Buakaw vs Giorgio Petrosyan II. He mumbled that one of them wanted only K-1 rules. I would have to imagine that's Petrosyan; after all, it is Buakaw who left K-1.



Though yet unmarried, his love was of the more typical variety. He made a laughter-filled remark about "1 . . . 2 . . . 3!" Japanese women in response to my wife's question about the presence of any girlfriend, which provoked her equally light-hearted admonishment.




The Future

We also met the future of the gym, in Buabarn Por Pramuk. He sat next to Buakaw, who said he was already "Baby Champion" of Thailand. Miyuki found him to be absolutely adorable. Now she wants to sponsor him.

He trained longer than everyone else that day, the last training day of the week. After Por Pramuk Gym has produced fighters like Namsaknoi, Chokdee, Buakaw, and Ponsawan, it will be worth watching little Buabarn.

[TRAVELS] Best Rides So Far: #1

I first rode Eejanaika without any idea what it was. Until last year, I had not been on any kind of roller coaster since a winter 2001 trip to Yomiuriland, whose offerings are not exactly heart-pumping. Still, it was more than the wife (I suppose girlfriend at the time) could handle, and in the interest of maximizing the share of our diversions that we could enjoy in common, I honored her preferences thereafter. In fact, mechanical amusements almost never crossed my mind, and I found ample adrenaline fixes through other activities.

I broke my thrill machine fast with a January 2007 visit to Fujikyu Highland, a maneuver that the wife labeled a mid-life crisis. Once I was through the gates, I did what most Fujikyu virgins do: I headed straight for Fujiyama, the park's most famous attraction. I had picked out Dodonpa's name through ambient buzz at some point in the prior few years, so I headed for that one next. Only after exiting Dodonpa did I notice that there was a third big mass of steel. Still, I hadn't heard about any major attraction besides the two I just de-planed, so how important could this third one possibly be?

My thoughts were on the order of, "That red one looks kind of cool. And it's big." Moreover, I selected the left side when I came to the fork in the queue, relying on the Harrods principle of right-side bias in crowd flow. That meant that nearly all of the track was obscured from my view, including the lift hill and elements of the first portion of the ride and all the nice twisty, inversionary bits.

I had no idea that I would be strapped to a massive harness that could have come straight out of “Universal Soldier,” which left my arms and legs free to dangle. I had no idea that the train would leave the station by moving backwards, then flip my seat 120 degrees or so to the rear to point my toes skyward, then right the seat up just in time to climb the lift hill -- again backwards. I had no idea when the lift hill would end, and that when it reached the top, it would crest into an anticipation-filled faux drop, only to rise toward another hump as it rotated my seat until my spine was parallel to, and my eyes were staring straight at, the ground 76 meters (250 feet) below.

The train fell off the ledge into the 90 degree drop with my eyes wide open, and the earth rushed straight up at me. After that point, I really didn’t know what was going on.



To figure out what Eejanaika did on the rest of its course, it took me a ride or two more and some level-headed research and maginations in the bathtub a few days later.

Halfway into the face-first drop, the seats rotate, in the direction of your heels, so that it is now the apex of the rider’s head that points at the earth. The track then bowls and re-ascends into a full, gargantuan loop. At the same time, however, the seats also spin the rider in a complete circle around the axis passing through your hipbones, subjecting you to a few serious forces. Eejanaika rights you upside just as the track races toward the end of the large drop coming out of the loop, and just in time to snap a picture of your face. (After roughly a dozen tries, I have concluded that you will always lose to the wind and the Gs in the war for control over your facial muscles, no matter how cool the customer.)

The cars then hurtle skyward again and enter the ride’s most unique verse, the 360-360. While this is best explained as the spine of the train moving 360 degrees around the hill-shaped track while at the same time the seats rotate in a full circle, in truth the rider is never actually suspended upside down. The combined motion instead results in the rider moving in a large circle with some undulation and moderate variation in the tilt of the vertical axis. But if you can manage to forget the physics and completely relax, the 360-360 is simply a few glorious seconds of weightless, satori-al relaxation.

Coming out of the 360-360, though, the rider would be well-advised to hold on tight for the most rickety part of the track, especially if dangling from the 2nd row, left side, outside seat of the green train. Eejanaika takes on altitude again and makes a large boomerang around the outbound end of the ride station, during which the riders themselves mostly held in a wonderfully ajar angle – legs afloat in front of you, your body aiming somewhat downward in a diagonal, vulture-like way, but with the vector of the train’s progress almost pulling you along by your right shoulder.

The train then screams past the queue made up of those persons who, as I did on my first ride, chose left at the fork. A 180-180 is timed to the next hump, effectively a half-inversion that turns you around in the opposite direction and gives you a view of the track from whence you came. With the cars now on the outside of the track, Eejanaika pulls out its last major trick and momentarily whips the rider around one more loop and straight toward nothing but gravel, unobstructed by track. The rider is saved by the track regaining height to close the circle, but not before you are convinced that your feet are about to be dismembered from you by the ground speeding by just below you. At the conclusion of the loop, Eejanaika pops you violently and painfully into a final half-inversion and slams on the squeaky brakes, and the remainder of the ride’s intense G forces flattening your asscheeks into your seat.



Eejanaika is still my favorite coaster ever, fourteen* rides later. It is certainly not getting any smoother with age, so those who bruise easily – feelings included – are advised to add to the crowds at Disneyland instead. But for the undaunted, you must experience it yourself before this thing kills somebody.

And the rotation of the rider into the face-down first drop is the most “Oh Shit!” moment that tubular steel can offer.

Important resource:
http://www.h2.dion.ne.jp/~coasters/eejanaika/eejanaika.html

[TRAVELS] Best Rides So Far

I am just about one year into my personal coaster renaissance -- actually, five quarters is more accurate -- and have done more benign thrillseeking in that time than I would have imagined possible for someone in my lines of work over that period. The park-hopping has come with some regrettable expenses, such as time with children, activities actually enjoyable to the wife, and jiu-jitsu practice time.

Needless to say, the thoughts that follow are mine, and I would like to think that there is much that separates me from a large number of those overactive coaster enthusiasts. For one thing, I am not overly sensitive to the pain that can come from riding coasters. People talk of all manner of headaches, stiff necks, bruises, snapped tendons and broken cartilage from this or that ride, but I frankly can't remember ever suffering any of those ills. We all know I get beat much worse in sparring at the dojo, especially when I'm short on practice and sleep. (The asswhuppings are all the more painful because -- let us not forget -- I still suck, even after all these years.) In fact, I don't really insist on smoothness in a roller coaster. You might say I even enjoy a little roughness on a ride, perhaps if no more than to know that I'm there.

Second, I am not easily impressed by packaging. I guess this is what the connoisseurs call "theming." I admit that well-coordinated packaging can magically transform a mediocre roller coaster into a good one. Space Mountain remains a sentimental favorite of mine, even if it is no longer the same ride I first enjoyed at Tokyo Disneyland about 25 years ago. But let's face it: Space Mountain is basically one part Wild Mouse to two parts other kiddie coaster with a big dark box and Christmas lights thrown over it. Most other attempts to put rides in a nice package meet with far less success, and instead tend to come off about as contrived as Counting Crows. Meanwhile, for a ride that is already fantastic on its own, good packaging may carry negligible marginal value.

Third, I may not covet airtime quite to the extent that other frequent riders do. I certainly enjoy negative G forces, weightlessness, etc. but haven't really thought enough to make distinctions among "floater" or other varieties of airtime. In my view, there are plenty of other things that a ride can be designed for besides airtime and yet be thoroughly entertaining. Speed for its own sake, for example, is fine with me.

And so I submit my simple opinions as to the best thrill rides that I’ve experienced so far.

[TRAVELS] The Anti-Q [Part 4]

(Time to finish this thing up. This past weekend, I finally had a chance to take a real trip to a real place for the first time in a long while, and it was damn fun. Will try not to waste much more time on this kind of crap.)

So with Indiana Jones fastpasses in hand, we headed for the cantina. Actually, Kayo headed for the little girls' room whereas I headed straight for my long-deserved first beer of the day. We finally reassembled and took spots in one of those 30-minute fast food lines that earns Disney its riches. Guess who in the parallel line? Abuser Dad. He went way out of his way to avoid eye contact, even when I called out to him in my usual friendly way. It was lame.

Food bad. Beer good. Wine bad. What made the lunch was the live mariachi band. It was the best I'd ever felt at a Disney park. I took a five-minute break to pick up Raging Spirits fastpasses as well.

Indiana Jones OK as usual. Raging Spirits horrible.

On to the comically racist Arabian port. The Sindbad ride was fine. What was better was coming out to see the characters in full force taking pictures with the proletariat. Of course, with the crowds we couldn't manage a picture with anyone except the resolutely unattractive, mangy monkey from Aladdin. And then the live actors came out. Jasmine was astounding. I placed her at 17 years old, ASIJ Chofu campus, then walked away from the illegality of it all. Thankfully Kayo snapped a few pictures.



Then another line, this time for the Magic Lamp thing. Behind two girls in full Disney gear: Minnie ears, miniskirts, neon pink tops. Oh wait, scratch that. The two girls' ages added up to 120 or so. The whole line was dry heaving. Oh well, where else can you see this (if you're into that sort of thing) besides Disneyland? Then again, I suppose Exotic Erotic night in the Castro is a viable answer.

Magic Lamp cast was quite poor. Much worse than my first experience, not worth a third.

Boats, popcorn, end of day. A thoroughly memorable Disney visit, complete with a near fight, honest mariachi music, hot Jasmine, and dozens of people dry heaving at the sight of geriatric Minnies. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Which is why I should have stopped there and gone straight back to civilization. Instead, I wheeled by the gift shop and bought my girls the caricatured mini-replica of the Flounder coaster at an irrationally exuberant price. Checked it out at home the next day, and the lift hill didn't work smoothly. Not happy. Disney. Made in China.

In sum, fully satisfied by this visit, and I probably won't need to check the place out again for a long time.

[TRAVELS] The Anti-Q [Part 3]

We should have walked, but we elected to wait for that utterly pointless electric railway to Port Discovery. By the time we got there and walked a bit more to Central America, it was about a quarter to noon. I knew there would be beer at this part of Disney Sea, but I retained focus and ran for the Indiana Jones fastpasses instead.

We wouldn't be able to use the Indiana Jones fastpasses until 90-120 minutes later or so, so we decided to check out one of them shows. Mystic Rhythms, I believe. We lined up about 25 minutes before the 12:15 curtain, something we would never do if not for the fact that the rest of the Disney fandom seemed to be doing the same, and then the strangest thing happened.

While Kayo was looking at her map, a little being that we the people of Hawaii refer to as a menehune suddenly apparitioned itself right behind us. For those among us who aren't culturally savvy on the old legends of Hawaii, Mr. Menehune is best described as resembling an 84-year-old midget Inca (scratch that, I haven't done any research on average Inca stature during the relevant period).

Mr. Menehune started going off on Mystic Rhythms, saying that it usually clocked in at between 20 and 21 minutes in length, but on one rare occasion it came in at 22, and that he was wont to watch it twice in a day followed by a beer and pork-and-beans at the Yucatan watchamacallit, and that the best seat for first timers was right side, ten rows from the stage, but that because he wanted to touch the butterfly (?), he was going to angle for a left bank aisle seat. He went on and on. This dude was fascinating.

So we asked Mr. Menehune, "It's obvious you come here a lot -- how often?"

Mr. Menehune told us that he has made over 3,000 trips to either Tokyo Disneyland or Disney Sea. We quickly found out that the whole cast knows this guy. They are almost certainly magnetized by his affection for beer, which is the noblest trait of humankind.

This guy is awesome. We tried to get a picture with him after the show, but thought better of it in honor of his privacy, and then he disappeared into the wind.

And finally it was time to honor the menehune with a beer. Or two. And a glass of wine. Which is precisely what I did at that ridiculous excuse for a Mexican joint next door.

[TRAVELS] The Anti-Q [Part 2]

I dang near got into a fight at Disney Sea.

After a brief stop for some typically horrid and overpriced Oriental Land food, we made it back to Tower of Terror. A few minutes into the fastpass queue, I noticed a fastpass on the ground. I picked it up, perhaps with half a thought to using it myself or donating it to Kayo, provided that no claimants appeared.

Not long thereafter, though, a girl of about seven or eight started backtracking along the line, looking at the ground, followed a few paces back by her father. They had just started getting into one of your run-of-the-mill parent-child arguments, when I guessed what the root of the problem was and stepped forward with the dropped fastpass. The father took it from my hand without a word, compared it against his, and then, with his hand in a fist, rapped his daughter hard on the top of her head. Then they tried to recover a few spots in front of them in the line.

As they were moving along, I yelled at him, saying that there was no reason for him to hit his kid. He turned around and shouted, “We have our own way of educating our children.” I responded that what he was doing bordered on criminal, especially in everybody’s Happy Place, but he kept going and put some distance between us.

So I took off my sunglasses, which were the most expensive but fragile thing I had on me, and handed them off to my queuemate, and then chased old f**kface into the first of the Tower of Terror stalling areas. I caught up to him from behind, laid a very courteous slap on his right shoulder, and (making sure I said this loud enough so that the rest of the docile Tokyo Disneygoers and cast members could hear it) explained, “And you didn’t even thank us for recovering your ticket. Just what kind of education are you talking about?” Of course, there were a few more Japanese F-word equivalents mixed in.

I’d gone through a few candidate initial maneuvers in my head in the preceding few seconds, and because he was wearing a horrible blazer with an oversized lapel, I had been giving more passing thought to Osoto-gari than other approaches. But it was a waste, as he immediately and profusely apologized like a pansy. And unfortunately, the rest of the Tower of Terror experience proceeded without incident.

That was my adrenaline high point of the day, which kind of made everything else anticlimactic.

This goes without saying, but all this time, the only thing the rest of the losers in line could do was wear that “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!” expression on their silent faces.

But with our second uneventful Tower of Terror ride squared away, it was finally time to enjoy the best of what Tokyo Disney Sea offers: beer.

[TRAVELS] The Anti-Q [Part 1]

April 12 was sunny and warm, a perfect day to spend at Disney Sea. That's what the other half billion people in the park thought too. OK, to be fair, it was more like 350 million at Disneyland and 150 million at the Sea. Still, it was the first time in about 20 years that I can honestly say I had a good time over there at the old landfill. Best. Disney. Experience. Ever.

On the eve of the trip, I will admit to being a little hesitant to hand over yet more money to the Disney and Oriental Land empire. I have tried to like the place, both Land and Sea, on the four occasions I've visited in the last half-year. In fact, in the space of a mere five weeks, we visited Maihama in a wide variety of every permutation possible: solo visit to Land; wife and kids at Land; all family members (humans, that is) at Land; and me and wife at Sea. Unfortunately, we've always felt empty, broke and disappointed after every visit (but at least the kids' smiles made it almost worth it on those two particular occasions).

But I decided to try again anyway. For one thing, I figured that it would be my last real chance to hit a park before the 12-day work weeks returned with regularity, and my parkhopping partner-in-crime was about to re-enter dance boot camp as well. Besides, I had a few lingering memories of the last time I felt like I wasn't bleeding money to Iger, which was when I timed a visit to Disney Sea to coincide with the arrival of a typhoon. (That time, the storm kept the people at bay for a precious few hours, during which I nabbed multiple rides on everything that remained open. Then the typhoon subsided enough to embolden the masses, which forced us to take refuge with the expensive, not terribly tasty lunch at a Hotel Miracosta restaurant.)

I was going to try to do it the right way this time. I resolved to pay full fare and arrive before the park opening. This wasn't the easiest thing to do on four hours' sleep and a slight hangover, but I was determined to get my money's worth. But once I got to Maihama, and then to the monorail, I started to feel that dark, pithy feeling in my tummy. The crowds everywhere. The faces of frustrated parents and grandparents at 8:30 AM. That "I hate Disneyland" feeling.

Of course, "hate" is going much too overboard but it flows off the tongue better than "dislike." I'm not 100% sure why I dislike Disneyland. Yes, cleanliness, efficiency, and orchestration are all good things. But perhaps it's the same reason I don't like even the best of the Spielberg films. Needless to say, I marvel at his witchcraft and ability to create total immersion, but in general I prefer art to leave me a little breathing room. (Not to say that I'm immune to oppressive pure intensity, though. After all, I think of Richter as the greatest pianist in recorded memory.)

At least the Disney Sea lines weren't a third as bad as the Land lines. At 8:45 or so we were a couple of hundred people deep in one of maybe a dozen lines, waiting for the 9:00 AM opening. We didn't clear the front gates until a good ten minutes past 9, and then I took off with both of our tickets, heading for the Tower of Terror fastpass shack.

I sprinted in the precious few areas where there was enough room to do so, but otherwise had to resort to a poor Barry Sanders impression. At any rate, under no condition was I going to allow myself to come to a walking pace anywhere. I caught a few looks and comments at the edges of my vision and hearing, all conveying some sort of "There's no running at Disneyland" sentiment. Well, I needed some way to get a little exercise at the park to compensate for the ubiquitous junk food, so I'm afraid I didn't have much choice. Besides, I hadn't done any running since a short 3-mile session on the prior Tuesday.

Just as I neared the fastpass shanty, I caught sight of another sprinter trying to overtake me on my right from a different angle. Fat chance, so I accelerated and blocked him out as necessitated by the rules of engagement. Meanwhile, Kayo did her job and had completed her more comfortably paced jog to the regular queue. This was her first Tower of Terror experience. (No point in describing the rides, I guess.) We hit Journey to the Center of the Earth next, then walked back to Tower of Terror to exercise the fastpasses. And finally the fun part of the day began.

[TRAVELS] Fuji 2007

As a matter of physical exertion, I've found that the Mt. Fuji climb gets easier every time. It's not necessarily because I really know my way around; although I've used the same route to the summit on each occasion, that being the Yoshida-guchi trail from Kawaguchiko-guchi 5-gome, that didn't stop me from almost taking the wrong turn with about a kilometer or two left to go. On my first chance to lead a group of my own, that would have been a disastrous embarrassment.

Rather, I just seem to be in better shape every time I take the trip. Let's hope that trend continues, even after I enter the resolutely unhealthy hellhole of my next job. The trip in rushed commentary and pictures:

First trip ever made in the Ham-mobile with the usual captain at the helm on three hours' sleep and a full day of lawyerly work. The hike started at 9:15 PM. Summer Associate #1 took an impressively aggressive pace for the first hour, but the group lost gas quickly. 11:47 PM put us at one of these Station 7 huts:



For the uninitiated, the fact that the stations at certain stages are drawn out across several, sometimes far apart shacks can be frustrating. We crossed this regal and important-looking torii at the strike of midnight. But it was still Station 7.



The first sign of Station 8 would not come until almost exactly an hour later.



The temperature started to fall rather quickly at this point, and the wind picked up as usual. The UFC60 T-shirt would not cut it anymore, and I quickly went from long-sleeved rashguard + UFC60 T-shirt, to long-sleeved rashguard + long-sleeved T-shirt, to long-sleeved rashguard + long-sleeved T-shirt + sauna suit top. On the bottom, the surf shorts + Uniqlo cargo pants combo worked well for the most part. I estimated that we would summit with an hour to spare at this rate, so I convinced the group to take shelter for a quick meal at the old Fuji-san "Hotel." The nourished boss ready to move the crew along again at just before 3:00 AM (check the racing stripes!):



At this point that things started to suck. The rain was now in a regular pour. The single-file train of people up to the summit slowed to a crawl which meant no time to sit down and rest, but rather standing in place for minutes at a time to get pelted by cold rain and colder wind. There is no such thing as waterproof, but my gear was less waterproof than most, and for the first time ever on a mountain, I started to get worried. My temperature was dropping quickly, even after I quickly removed my shell to get a fleece, hat and neckwarmer on. I know nothing about hypothermia except how to spell it, but I was nearly convinced I was going to get it. I have no pictures of this miserable part.

Despite the weather and slow trail of zombies, I think we summitted just in time for the sunrise that never appeared behind the thick mist. Instead, this is what you would have found at the time of sunrise:



Trust me, no one looked better in that rest hut. Our group reassembled and finally started to recover after ingesting some hot liquids.



Admittedly, for at least one of us the hot liquid was some bad sake. And a cold beer chaser.



Finally, the sun began to peek out from the clouds on our way down. 7:29 AM:



Two minutes later:



Crushingly handsome mountain man:



The sun still had its work cut out for it in ridding the mist from the Subashiri.



I then decided to use my cheap Arnette sunglasses as a filter. Clouds,



Clouds,



and Sun.



Some ice left on the mountain, which I'd never seen before,



where I risked a little frostbite to leave my signature.



Unexpectedly, my two favorite shots came from my cell phone which, come to think of it, does have a 5 megapixel camera in it.



The other money shot.



8:41 AM. The back that supports a demanding family. Green always goes well with another hue of green.



Total hike time: about 13 hours, 45 minutes. The majority of us had only spent about 27 hours awake in a row. No ceremonial beer at the bottom for me, but instead a grape-flavored soft-serve ice cream cone. The group reboarded the car after submitting to my ironclad anti-skankiness procedures, which involved liberal use of wet sani-wipes and plastic bags.

Needless to say, I tried to convince the rest of the team to go to Fujikyu Highland (click here for the April trip report) on the way home. I even did an up-close drive-by of Eejanaika by the park's rear entrance to convince them, but no dice. They were all tired or something. Pansies. But I didn't complain much, knowing that a massive meal of steak frites and a ham-and-egg omelette awaited me at a nice brasserie back home.

[TRAVELS] Fujikyu Highland

It may not be obvious from my writings to date, but I am just a little bit of a coaster maniac. So on Thursday, following weeks of planning, I took a trip to the revered Fujikyu Highland. It was a long time coming -- after all, it was only my second visit in roughly as many months.

The trip was fantastic from the very start. I headed out to the old peoples' part of town to pick up my co-venturer Kayo. Maybe two kilometers from the rendezvous spot, I got pulled over by a cop. Driving in a lane reserved for buses from 7:30 AM to 9:30 AM, he said. I had no idea bus lanes existed, and there certainly aren't any in my part of town. Also, I was tailing a big van, so I probably missed any signs on the curb or asphalt. But I just wanted to get to the park as soon as possible, so I copped to everything. It never even occurred to me to try the clueless gaijin card. The officer was a nice enough guy, but he took his sweet time to write out the ticket and advise me of the 6,000 yen fine (that's 1,200 yen more than a day pass at Fujikyu, mind you) before I was let on my merry way.

Now suitably late, I gathered Kayo in the passenger seat and motored onto the expressway. I recommended to Kayo that we keep our juiciest stories for the slow lines at the park (namely Dodonpa), so our tour of the Chuo Expressway was filled with only innocuous conversation. We were making good time despite my run-in with the law, and we were on target for a 9:30 AM arrival, only 30 minutes after the park opening. That's when the empty gas tank indicator light came on.

Cursing my luck and any other recent users of the Ham-mobile, I saw no choice but to pull off at the next exit, the sleepy town of Tsuru. I got a half tank of gas in the car and turned around to get back on the freeway. Except that there's only one on-ramp, and it heads in the opposite direction, back toward Otsuki. I think this explains why the off-ramp toll booth operator had that wry smile on his face when I asked for the nearest gas station.

Our only choice, all the way to Fujiyoshida, was the surface streets. The traffic meandered at a slow country bumpkin pace for a few kilometers, then gridlocked. Ahead of me was a blue-green car whose driver kept craning his neck up and around the traffic jam.

That's when it happened. Captain Insano suddenly yanked his blue-green car onto a small side street and sped off. I thought quickly about his haste and his local Yamanashi license plate, then took off behind him. Thus began Inaka Coaster. Kayo's job was to keep the blue-green car in view as it darted around tight corners and ducked behind old houses. My job was to focus on staying with the many curves in the narrow road while keeping the car from rolling over onto someone's vegetable crop or plowing into a pedestrian grandma. It was tough, and Captain Insano vanished from view after about 6 minutes' chase. Needless to say, it was a blast and we were laughing the entire way. I figured out the rest by using the navigation system and eventually got back onto the main street. It was still crowded but tolerable. I figure that Insano saved us a good 30-40 minutes. We drove through the park's very ugly entrance monument at 10:15 or so, then careened into the nearest reasonable parking spot.

Muhammad Ali jacket: Check.
Sunglasses: Check.
Camera: Check.
Very appropriate silver sneakers: Check.
Money: Check.

And then we went in.

I had our queue strategy all worked out. I expected that first-timers and casual visitors would line up at Fujiyama, the brand name ride of the park. As it turned out, that line was spilling out all the way into the sunshine, several switchbacks past the Fujiyama ticket window. So we stuck to the plan and unhesitatingly headed for Dodonpa. In the car, I asked Kayo whether she'd be OK with going straight for Dodonpa without a warm-up ride. I described the ride dynamics, especially the launch and the large hill, so she could make an educated decision. She said it would be fine; still, I had my concerns because of her lack of prior Dodonpa experience. We got into line just inside of the 60 minute marker, but the ride was running at peak with three cars and our wait was probably only 45-50 minutes. During the wait time, I was able to tell one of my better recent stories, which of course cannot be repeated here in print. Finally, we boarded the Mother car.

I knew what to expect from the ride, and that made it better. The launch was exhilarating. I had my arms up for all of the lightning-quick acceleration to 172 km/h (106.9 mi/h) and then some. The negative Gs at the top of the hill were great too. I tried to amplify the effect by, again, keeping my hands up. Kayo loved it. She said that there was no way she could have conceived what the aircraft carrier-like launch would be like without experiencing it, but it was better than anything she imagined. She is also apparently quite the negative G-addict.



(That's not Kayo, by the way, just some lucky random girl.)

When the car pulled back into the station I caught a peek at the line, and it looked to be about an hour. So the queue strategy next required us to head straight for my favorite, the 2006-built Eejanaika. Several Dodonpa riders shared our view and headed in the same direction. Kayo marvelled from the ground at the beautiful track and the incredible first drop, but I managed to dissuade her from wasting time taking pictures right then and there. We got to the queues, one each to the left and right sides of the track. Social human nature dictated that the right side would be longer, and theory held true to form. We elected the left side for the first Eejanaika ride of the day and waited around 35 minutes.

I gave Kayo the wilder outside seat, and the 90-degree drop stripped her of consciousness. I don't know if I heard another thing out of her for the rest of the ride, and she would later say that she had no idea what was going on. (I suppose that's the way it goes unless you study up on the track details a little bit.) So she didn't realize when we were in the full-full (when the cars rotate 360 degrees around the track while the seats themselves rotate 360 degrees laterally in relation to the track), and there was no way she was prepared for the camera point.



I, on the other hand, was ready. In response to a request by some girls I know from work, I pulled out the Kenju face. For those who have never seen it, it is a semi-famous facial expression in Tokyo business circles, most often seen in connection with busted M&A deals and aborted takeover attempts. Elsewhere, I put my faith into the design of the harness system and spread my arms and legs out as much as possible. It was splendid, and was at least every bit as exciting as my first Eejanaika adventure in January.

Kayo got re-steadied on her land legs in the photo shop and in the souvenirs area, where I picked up a justifiably unattractive Eejanaika T-shirt. We glanced at the Eejanaika queue and noted that it was about the same length as earlier. I asked Kayo whether she wanted to line up for the same ride again or Fujiyama before we grabbed some lunch. She suggested we check out Fujiyama. I had no objections, thinking that the morning's Fujiyama crowd had probably moved further into the park by now.

No one. We raced up the Fujiyama station structure to the top level and boarded car #1 in only about 10 minutes. Unfortunately, we were in the second row. The choice first row seats were occupied by none other than Kim Jong-Il and a large Asian Pat, which was quite contrary to what the media has led us all to believe about his tastes in female (?) companions.

Fujiyama's lift hill and first drop are pretty exciting, and the view of Mt. Fuji as the train slowly crawls around for the second drop is beautiful, but as a ride it has been vastly eclipsed by Dodonpa and Eejanaika. All the same, the length of the ride almost always justifies the relatively short queue time, and if you have strong ribs and neck muscles, the Togo torture section at the end can be somewhat fun.

Back down at the photo shop, it took us more than a few seconds to find our picture. So powerful was the presence of Kim Jong-Il. I was upstaged by the interrigent dictator but undaunted, and when the photo shop girl asked me for my order I did not hesitate in the least.

"One photo . . ."

She nodded and punched away at her machine.

"And three mugs." (Fujiyama is the only ride that offers a souvenir mug.)

She stopped pressing buttons, and looked up at me like I was crazy or something.

"Three?" she said. It wasn't so much a question as her re-stating it to herself in an attempt to comprehend it.

Thanks to my Sherlock Holmes-like powers of perception, I could sense that she was not going to let me have three souvenir photo mugs, for whatever incomprehensible reason. I offered, "Three is impossible?"

She replied, "Well, it takes two hours to make one, and we are only open until 5 PM." I wouldn't exactly call that an answer to my question.

"OK," I said, "How about two?"

"Two?" Again, in the same tone. Photo shop girl gave me no response. "If it would help, I can come back to pick them up tomorrow." More incredulous silence.

I gave. "I can only buy one, huh?" She assented, and that was the end of our fruitful negotiations. Kayo remarked that the only way I was going to get another mug was to ride Fujiyama again. More on that later. But we do have that momentous, life-changing ride with Kim Jong-Il captured on porcelain.



(For those of you that don't quite recognize the rittle ronery Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, keep in mind that the wearing of glasses on Fujiyama is strictly forbidden.)

We went off in search of lunch. We looked at menus one after the other, advertising nothing but the most health-endangering choices. Our quest for healthier fare took us just about around the entire park. It was then that we noticed that the queue at Eejanaika was very short. The right side queue wasn't much longer than the left, and it looked to me like a 20-25 minute wait. We scrambled onto the end of the line and patted ourselves on the back for deciding to do our second Eejanaika run before eating, rather than after.

Then the heavens smiled, and we got the first row, Kayo on the inside, me on the outside. It was astounding. The first row shrieks all the way through the straight drop from the lift hill. All the movements are more violent. I tried to smile for the camera this time but my face muscles wouldn't cooperate due to the intense speed and lurch of the cars. At some point during the latter half of the ride, I hurt my left thigh when my body inadvertently curved into a ball and a sudden direction change whacked me against one of the steel safety handles. It might have been my greatest coaster experience ever.

No mementos this time, so we resumed our lunch hunt. We eventually came to the realization that non-hazardous foods were somehow outlawed on the park grounds, and gave up. We checked into the Lagoon, a cafeteria-like operation in the middle of Fujikyu Highland. I figured that if I was going to eat badly, I was going to max out on badness. I ordered a katsu curry and a melon soda. Of course, there was no way I could finish it. I reasoned that I would have time to digest all that junk while waiting for Dodonpa.

Kayo asked me for the time and I responded that it was 2:15 PM.

Kayo said, "Didn't that girl at the photo shop say that it takes two hours to make a mug?"

Which meant that, if I wanted another mug, I would have to ride Fujiyama by 3:00!

Seconds later, we were back in the Fujiyama line. And not 15 minutes later, way before our 3:00 deadline, we were back in the photo shop. My arch-enemy was still on duty. I think she recognized me. She asked us to select between a photo and stickers.

"No more mugs today?" I politely asked.

She shot me that look again, the same one she wore hours earlier when she said, "Three?"

"No," she replied. "We are done with mugs for today." She was joined behind the counter by another staff member who was making mugs. While Kayo and I discussed whether to get a photo or stickers, I distinctly saw the photo shop succubus walk over to her colleague and do a nudge nudge, wink wink as if to say, "This guy is that serial murderer I was telling you about."

A little forlorn (OK, maybe it was just me), we settled for the stickers. During lunch, I had received a special email request from Geppuko to do the 「アメメ」 (the "Ameme"), Baby Amelie's gesture to convey implacable grief and global suffering, or even just light incontinence or mild confusion. I don't think I could have pulled it off any better, if I do say so myself.



We were nearing our goal of riding the big three of Fujiyama, Dodonpa and Eejanaika twice each. All that was left to do was to get into the hour-long line at Dodonpa. Right behind us in the queue was a white dude, solo. Clearly one of those abhorrent roller coaster dorks. Kayo suggested I strike up a conversation with him. I was offended.

But maybe I should have, because it might have been karma that put us in the last row, this time in the Father car. As soon as the coaster dork realized he would be in the first row of the next car all alone, he lit up like the Death Star. I envied him.

I enjoyed our second Dodonpa ride nonetheless, and it felt just as good as our first in the morning. For the camera shot this time, I re-enacted a special gesture called the koregurai? -- it is meant to indicate how long my long my jet-black locks were way back when I wanted to be a girl. Just kidding.



I checked my watch. We had accomplished our six-ride goal at just past 4:10 PM. That left plenty of time for Fujikyu's famous haunted hospital (a walkthrough of over 600 meters containing nothing but inadvisable things for pregnant persons), or so we thought. The attraction was already shut down for the day, and the zombie doctors wearing blood-stained lab coats were outside smoking cigarettes. Labor regulations, I assume.

We filled out the remaining time by riding the park's version of Drop Zone and the extreme Viking-styled PaniClock. We fought through the crowds to buy last-minute gifts and knick-knacks. And then we were done.

Well, I love Fujikyu Highland. I could even be persuaded to buy a park attendant windbreaker if they sold it.

[MUSIC] Abbey Road

I met my wife for a quick dinner. We caught up on the events of the day, one that followed an entire pitch-black morning of Maggie tantrums, met in turn with escalating disciplinary methods that began to scare their own designer, namely me, the head of the wolfpack.

What most caught my ear about today's recap was that my wife dug up one of my Beatles albums and popped it into the CD player, giving the kids their first exposure to this genius band, the white Earth, Wind and Fire. It was Abbey Road. I had always pictured that children derived their initial impression of the Beatles through the hold-your-hand early period. But if they are going to learn Beatles, they might as well start with the best.

Well, I guess it is a very close call between Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper's. But I've always suspected myself of attributing too much credit to the reprised theme in Sgt. Pepper's as an unacknowledged progenitor of hip-hop. Abbey Road, by contrast, is fascinating in the number of its pure instances of genius. Both by the collective band and by each of its individual contributors. Walter/Wendy Carlos one moment, amazing sweetness thirty seconds later, unexpected blues a minute after that. Perhaps it is the variety of ideas that is so arresting that it almost never occurs to one how disjointed the menu is.

Let's not forget about Revolver or Rubber Soul though. Maybe that's for another time.