Totally Tokyo

Woodstock on a Mountain Side

Since we have gotten here, a friend of mine has been determined to find an Open Air Party. An open air party is a concert of sorts that happens, well outside, with a bunch of DJs and you camp out. We got word of one happening, called Autumnal Equinox Tribal Dance at Mt. Mizugakiyama, and automatically went to Shibuya to purchuse our tickets. I guess we did not plan out everything well in advance. Such as, we didn't find where the location of concert was being held until after we purchused the tickets. We spoke with the guy that old us about it, and his bussiness was helping throw the party, and he said it would be about 2 hours away. I got help from a student that works at the Office of International Students with directions, and it seemed to be a little bit longer then 2 hours, but no worries. Early morning Pasha, John and myself started making food for our 2 day journey. It consisted of apples, pasta, dry cereal and hard boiled eggs; college kids can live for long amount of times off of unusual things. We started on our train route to the campground, a route that consisted of taking 4 different trains. The route was absoultly beautiful. When we left Tokyo we were in the middle of land we had never seen before. The ride its self was amazing alone. The air smelled, tasted and felt different. We saw lands that were actaully peoples yards where they grew and havested different foods. After we ended up at our final destination 4 hours away from Tokyo, and out in the middle of no where, we realized we were still not there. We learned later that we were 2 hours away from the campground, and the directions that were given to us made us get off before our stop. We made friends with locals, which was harder than usual because, since we were no longer in the metropolis of Tokyo, english was more and more rare. They were kind enough, probably be cause our despair was coming across regardless of the language barriar, to drive us to the train station that we were suppose to get off at. They called the number we had of the camp ground, and we learned that we would have to take a taxi to the campground from the train station they were driving us to. Our mini road trip with our new friends consisted of jamming out to the only american music they had which was: Backstreet Boys, Culture Club, and some songs from the Top Gun soundtrack.
Once we came to the correct train station, we hailed a cab and started climbing a mountain which our camp ground was at the top of! A 9,000 yen cab ride later (nearly 90 American dollars, imagine taking a 90 dolalrs taxi cab straigh up! we were HIGH UP THERE!) We ended up at our concert in the middle of japan in the middle of nowhere on top of the tallest mountain I had been on to dance until the sun came up! The camping ground was beautiful, the only thing that surrouned us were the peaks of other mountains. The night was amazing, met a ton of people, all of which were surprised to see 3 foreigners find there way to beautiful secreat nowehre land on the top of mt. Mizugakiyama (they probably hide this place from everyone because it was to die for). There were DJs that played all night. The night was so clear, the clearest night I have seen, but probably being away from the light polution of Tokyo helped, but I saw every star. The three of us made sure to be up for the sunrise, which was so memorable. The sun breaking over the peaks of the other mountains to our camp ground was, ahh not even describable! It felt as though we were the first people to see the sun of that new day. Every day since we have been here Japan in the morning is overcasted, but not that day. Early afternoon we headed to find a town on the mountain to grab the bus that would go down to the bottom. We followed a river the whole way, for 3 km. It seemed as though this place couldn't be more perfect. We took an express train home which cut a commute by an hour, and even the long journey home was beautiful because it was beautiful weather.
The concert held a lot of memories, the people there were more than interesting, and we experienced lands that no one in our program will probably ever discover.

posted by Stephy-ru @ Friday, September 29, 2006