Warning: This is another ‘Mike doesn’t want to leave Japan and thinks writing blog posts will make it all better’ post. The title is also an attempt to sound even more menacing than this entry, although I don’t think it’s going to be quite as useful to the prosecution when they prove my insanity in court.

At any rate, I have now fully moved out of my dormitory in Nishi-Kawaguchi. It was a pretty draining experience. Last night after being roundly destroyed at poker for the final time, I joined most of the exchangers in a trip to the park at night, where we feasted on beer whilst mosquitos feasted on us.

Then today I spent the day moving, and also cleaning my room as best I could so as to get the full deposit back. (Also I guess for the benefit of whoever lives there next) It was not very much fun, by the end of the process I smelt like a delicious mix of sweat and bleach. So that’s Bleat. Or Sweach. Take your choice. Both will kill you.

Then it was time to move all my junk to my friend’s apartment. I say friend’s apartment, it’s actually the flat the volunteers for Junten school live in. That’s right, for the next four days I’m staying in the flat I first moved into almost four years ago, in 2006. I’m sitting in the same room now. Nothing has changed except I’m older. Depressing or what?!

On the 5th, I move to Chiba to stay with Leon and Saori, who climbed Fuji with us. It’s a very different place to Tokyo, so I will take lots of lovely photos and write some blog posts. They also have super cute dogs, so expect a Youtube video called ‘Chiba Inu sneezing! SO CUTE!’ with 500,000 views to appear in the next week or so.

To wrap up, here’s one of my favourite photos from Nishi-Kawaguchi. I posted this on Twitter and Flickr, but I can’t remember if I ever posted it here or not. It’s the view that meets you as you walk towards the dormitory I lived in. It wasn’t always this pretty, but it was a nice little stroll. Except when you were tired or drunk, and it was hot or raining. Then it was terrible.

Landscape Photos | Photos Of The Climbers | Youtube Video (Soon!)

They say it’s one of the things you have to do in Japan. I’ve been asked by plenty of people, both Japanese and foreign, if I’d ever climbed it. Despite the hype, I’d never really understood why it was heralded as such an experience. I understood that it was a big mountain, with pretty views and an important role in Japanese tradition. Sure, it was something I wanted to do some day. Because my dad is a mountain maniac, I’ve been up plenty of mountains in my time, and it’s never really gripped me as something exciting.

Until now, that is. I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I really ‘got’ why people go mountain climbing now. I am aware I just signed myself up to thousands of walks with my dad, but whatever. The five of us had an amazing experience and, despite the sunburn and horrendous pain of Aerosinusitis, I’d say this was the single greatest thing I’ve done in Japan.

This is the brave team that stomped up the mountain. (L-R Andy, Me, Ralph, Saori, Leon). Rather than cover this blog in pictures of us sweating and displaying symptoms of mountain madness (at one point Saori was convinced we were being chased by mountain ghosts) I have put all the photos of us here.

Anyway, after taking photos at the 5th station, changing into the sharp clothes you see in the photo above, and meeting up with our guide and the rest of our group, we set off. We were optimistic, not knowing that the average walking speed for a Japanese mountain group is about the same as a tour designed specifically for snails. “Why don’t we bloody well hurry up?!” would become a theme, nay a chant, for most of the ascent. Since we started at the fifth station, which is near the cloud line already, it didn’t take long before the views became spectacular.

It was a quite cloudy day when we were ascending, but honestly once you’re above the clouds it’s not a problem. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any sweeping photos of the Japanese countryside, but I did get plenty of pictures of clouds! The sky itself was a rich clear blue, so it wasn’t really an issue.

If you climb from the very base of the mountain, you spend an entire day walking through fields that are basically flat. So everyone goes from Station 5. On the first day, we made it to station 8, which is within striking distance of the summit. What’s amazing is that there are like 5-6 ‘hotels’ situated at station 8, which is over 3000 meters above sea level. So from 7pm until 1am, we slept at station 8. Or we tried to. There’s no beds. Just rows of sleeping bags.

We set off again at 1.30am, and headed for the summit. We joined what looked like a candlelit vigil – hundreds of people walking in lines, their torches creating a glittering snake, weaving it’s way up the mountain. It was pitch black and very cold. We were also getting very high, and breathing was becoming difficult. It was at this point that Saori came down with altitude sickness, and couldn’t go on. She returned to station 8 with Leon to sleep off the illness, whilst Andy, Ralph and I continued upwards. It was a big shame as they didn’t get to witness the view from the summit, but I’ll just make them go next year instead.

We reached the summit of the mountain about 10 minutes before sunrise. Those ten minutes were bitterly cold and depressing. But humans are funny things – once the sun’s there, we’re happy. The view that greeted us was unbelievable. These photos can’t do justice to the experience, but here they are anyway.

This is the view just before the sun broke through the horizon line. The rate at which the sky illuminated was amazing. Also, the multilingual chorus of ‘Ooh!’ from everyone at the summit was fun.

This is the most beautiful sight you can imagine. The sun slowly moves up through the horizon line, and the entire sky looks like it’s burst into flame. I took video of this on my little camera, so I’ll put that in a video, but again cameras and so on struggle with this sort of thing. It’s not really the same unless you’re there, anyway. It was mind blowing, it really felt like we were watching some surrealist film.

Not really much I can say about this, except if I had to title it, I’d call it “Japan: The Photograph”. Mt. Fuji. Shrine. Tourists.

We stayed at the top for about 30-40 minutes. It was still very cold and there was some wind blowing, but the views were taking everyone’s mind off it. Eventually though, we had to succumb to the temperature, and began our descent. This is where the whole experience went kind of rubbish. Getting down to station 8 wasn’t too difficult, but after we ate breakfast we spent about three hours very slowly winding our way down paths made up of loose rocks. The sun was beating down mercilessly. My sunburn is pretty bad, and my lips are so chapped they are currently bright red. People keep complimenting me on my choice of lipstick. I would say the descent was more challenging than the ascent in some ways, although that’s probably due to the lack of sleep and exhaustion. I did take my favourite photo of the day on the way down, though.

I think that’s a nice way to end this post. I would recommend climbing Fuji over pretty much any other experience in Japan, although I recommend you read up on it first. There’s a lot that can go wrong, and nothing is worse than coming close then not being able to ascend. All in all, an amazing experience. Can’t wait to get forced to do it again by my father in a year’s time!

Landscape Photos | Photos Of The Climbers | Youtube Video (Soon!)

821. A rough estimate of the total number of days I’ve spent in Japan. It’s probably a little lower, as this year hasn’t ended yet, but I am rounding up because the higher the number the more impressive! That’s how business works!

I mentioned previously that I’m leaving on August 11th and going back to university. I went into depth in the previous post about what’s going on in the future, so if you’re interested go read ‘Next Year & Beyond‘. Today I’m going to take a look back at what I’ve done in my time here, what I still want to do and everything in between. I will try and keep it fun and light so it’s not too boring to read, with gratuitous use of poorly edited images and non-sequiter jokes. SUDDENLY, GIRAFFES.

Comparing my gap year (when I was 18-19) to this study year abroad (21-22), the most obvious change, and the thought that I find the most comforting, is my language ability. I’m essentially self-sufficient now – back in 2006 I would run for help every time the big bad scary man spoke that weird language. It’s refreshing to think this year I managed to contract a mobile phone, book transport and poison myself with undercooked chicken all by myself.

On the flip side, I do feel like the ‘magic’ has gone a bit. I’m aware that makes it sound like Japan and I are sexual partners, but geography turns me on. I feel like this last year there’s been much less personal discovery for me than last time. I remember my first trip to karaoke, first trip to a shrine, first time realising I’ve been on the wrong train for the last hour. They are still fun (except the last one) but the element of ‘Oh wow!’ is gone. But there’s not much you can do about that. Although she’d been before, my mum’s visit made me check out a couple of places that I don’t really go to anymore, and our last day in Hakone was one of the best days of this year for me.

The other day I was feeling content and happy, like a cat who just ate a whole bunch of fish. So to snap myself out of this mood and return to being the pessimist you all know and love tolerate, I went and re-read this blog post, which I wrote before I came here on my exchange year, in which I set myself some goals. Here’s the final tally;

I am pretty happy with my Japanese. It’s still got a (disturbingly long) way to go before I’ll understand even 10% of what my people always yell at me in the street. Something about how I should put the gun down and step away from the bank teller? I don’t know. Other than that though, pretty much failure on all accounts. Regarding Korea and Hokkaido, I’ve really not done a huge amount of travelling in general this year. Plenty of day trips, but the only real trip I took other than Hakone was my voyage to Nagano, which was awesome. Korea and Hokkaido will still be there next year, so I’m sure I’ll make it then!

As for performing something and Shorinji Kempo, both of them just weren’t going to work. I did go to Shorinji practice once, but it was on Wednesdays which helpfully I work on. As for performing something, I suppose I could have lived my dream of fronting an electro-rock-jazz band, but in the end I joined the racquetball circle instead. It’s all the camaraderie and sweat of being in a rock band, without any of the fame, money or financial potential! Yeah!

I guess it just goes to show you never really know what’s going to come. I made those plans with an image of Sophia University that just wasn’t accurate. I still had a great time, and I even managed to land a job here. So all in all, a pretty cool year. Here’s to another fun 821.

Thanks for reading this huge amount of words about me and nothing but me. I am aware it’s becoming a bit Hollywood-happy-ending, so I will finish with a picture of a t-shirt that my friend Andy and I discovered the other day. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions as to it’s meaning.

Yesterday, I received some amazing news, which has more or less settled what I’m going to be doing in the future. I am aware that first sentence makes it look like I’m going to have a child but it’s not that. It’s even more exciting because I’ll be making money! So here’s what’s going to happen to little old Mike for the next year or so.

The remainder of my study abroad year. It’s going past way, way too fast but I’m determined to make the most of it. I have university right up until nearly the end of July, meaning that I only have a week or two to get some travelling in, but as long as nothing goes horribly wrong I should be climbing a certain famous mountain in the end of July.

Studying hard at Sheffield university. It’s going to be one hell of a busy year. Japanese degree. I’m also going to be taking an English teaching course, possibly two. Japanese Language Proficiency Test in the summer. I’m going to try to pass the top level, but if not no huge loss. Kind of want to get it out of the way, though. Oh, and since after this things get super serious, I guess I’ll be partying like a monster for a year. Do monsters even party?

If I manage to graduate, I get from around June to September off. But then things get serious…

Ok, this is where things get serious. Starting September next year, I will be working at Junten School, but this time as a full time teacher! YEEEEAAAAAHHHH! It’s been talked about and mentioned a few times, but yesterday I accepted the contract and wheels started turning. It’s a huge step forward, and it’s job security. I can finally stop being so defensive of my student finance. I’m going to go bet everything on Japan winning the world cup. Oh wait.

I’ll be doing six months of training, so I won’t actually be teaching until around April 2012. The school is currently in the process of designing the course I’ll be teaching, but from what I can tell I will be teaching advanced English to students who have lived abroad, and also taking some regular level classes too based on staff numbers.

At the meeting yesterday I was told the course details will begin to be set in stone as of October this year, in other words once I’ve gone back to England, so they can avoid my amazing suggestions like ‘Candy Floss for all teachers!’ or ‘Teach the children to perform classic Disney songs!’ Once I know exactly what I’ll be doing I’ll let you know!

There’s a few other things I want to mention. Firstly, I appreciate the emails but I really can’t help you land a job in Japan. I’m sure there are some good guides out there, and plenty of people willing to give advice, but I’m really not the one to ask.

Secondly, this blog. I’ve been turning it over in my head and I’ve finally reached a decision. I’m going to continue this blog until around August next year, in other words after I finish university but before I come to Japan. At that point, I will open a new website, with a brand new blog. Japan Is Doomed will continue to exist, and I will never get rid of it, but I think after the end of my education it will be time for a fresh start. That said I may well change my mind and continue on with Japan Is Doomed as it is. I’m not sure, what do you think?

I’ll keep taking photos for Flickr and making videos for Youtube, under the same account names.

That’s about all I can think of right now. If anything changes I’ll be sure to write it on here. I’m aware this post has been a bit dull but if you stuck with it and read the whole thing, you win a prize. Check under your seat!

It’s been a long time coming, but here’s my latest Youtube video, in which I make fun of America, England, Japan and Switzerland! Alienation RULES!

As I mentioned in the vide, I’ve been really, really busy recently. I’m teaching a lot, and also trying to get as much fun in as I can before I fly home. I can’t remember if I mentioned or not, but I’m flying August 11th. I’m going to spend my last 11 days in Japan staying with my friends Leon and Saori in Chiba, which means 11 blog posts about their adorable dogs.

Of course this all relies on me not succumbing to the heat. Urgh!