Mount Mitake

A mere two hour train ride outside of Tokyo, still in Tokyo Prefecture, here is what we saw as we walked from the train.

Thatched rooves and trails. The odd lone hiker or local.

5 minutes later.....This was the start of the trail to the river. 

So hot Dan! Thank goodness we had a cool river to jump in, with small pools to lounge in.

Surrounded by beauty.

Lots of wonderful birds. Here, a white Heron.

Quiet places to sit and reflect on nature.

A suspension bridge to a temple, and a church we didn't find but had seen up high from the highway.

This place made someone think about caring for family.

I had seen on a map that there was a stone monument on this river to honour Basho, an ancient poet.  The monument was further down stream than we could get, but in his honour I had brought with me the book of his poems that Imme gave me just before I left Creston.

With my soul enthralled

By the beauty of the scene,

And my heart pierced through

Thinking of those bards of yore.....     Basho late 1600's or Shelley early 2015

Before we were totally overcome with the beauty...Japanese civilized hiking provided a sake distillery for fortification and rest.

Some folks were finding lots of bouldering to do along the river. I'm sure it was extremely slippery.

Sarah and Helene we could bring you here!

Little bouldering and picnic scenes along the way.

We found our hotel when we walked up to the highway above the river at Mitake, just right there.  Pretty simple place BUT super people. One of whom, Izumi, invited us to go Kayaking with her in the rain the next morning at 7.

Is Izumi thinking ,"why am I doing this." 

  Thankfully Dan thought to tell her we'd never river Kayaked before. So Izumi took us to a slower part of the river.

It was speedy enough! We both had great fun, and both dumped out. Izumi was an amazing guide. She and her brother have competed and her brother was on the National team.

 When you lose your boat Izumi can flip it up from sitting in her boat,  and then skewer it in the cockpit with her boat tip and paddle it to shore while you drag yourself out.

Doesn't this look like toad rock! (Below)

Then after sharing a fabulous 7/11 breakfast, no kidding, great healthy eating takeout food there.

Rice wrapped with egg, rice with shrimp in a mushroom and cheese sauce, sushi, ..... Great coffee and a sake for Izumi.

Up the Mitake tram to midway up the mountain. Then stopped to appreciate Nelson Chocofeller. I have waited a month to eat this! 

Good hiking exercise all over this park. The crowd is quickly divided amongst the shops in the little town near the tram, the gazillion trails, river and waterfall play spots, and  restaurants.

Just when I was flagging a bit we found the old climber we'd been told about. He is an uber fit 70 something year old (take note Candace) who lost his dear climbing buddy about 5 years ago. He and his buddy climbed the Eiger together. There is a large monument on the mountain for his friend and this man has built a crazy little shack to sleep in and serve guests his favourite recipe for hot mulled wine. We were sweating plenty, but he says he waits until it actually gets hot out to serve chilled Sangria. What a great way to remember a dear friend, to toast him again and again. I can see it now a little hot mulled wine stand at "Bucky cabin."  Campi to all!

Official BSCIS opening with a few "friends"

Well... BSCIS is now officially official, certified, fully accredited and certified BC Offshore school. Our little school, shepherded by Margaret Compo, our BC Offshore Ministry of Education consultant, has now received all of the paperwork. Now students from our school will receive both a BC Dogwood Certificate as well as the fully accredited Japanese highschool graduation certificate.

Sounds straightforward and simple...yes? Well, as in most other things I have experieced here this was another mind-blowing experience.   

We spents weeks and weeks in meetings planning the 2 hour visit of the Minister. First of all the parties involved were quite complex: BSCIS (that's me), the Board of Directors of our sister school, the BC Trade Commission office of Tokyo and the Canadian Embassy, and most importantly the Minister's office. Every detail had to be worked, reworked, translated, passed by the Minster's office etc. etc. etc. Where would the flowers be offered? Who would offer the flowers? Who would be in which picture? Who would sit where? Would the BC flag be in the center, or the Japanese flag or the Canadian flag?

This was my first expereince being immersed in planning a VIP visit and it gave me a new respect for the work that goes into visits of people like Obama!

Nevertheless, after all the dust settled we were ready!

As it turned out we all orchestrated a very successful visit. The Minister came to our school first to tour the facilities and meet the students.

I had met Minister Fassbender at previous meeting with the Provincial Principal's Association and was impressed once again at his on-the-ground warmth, genuine interest in kids and our program.

This was an opportunity to exchange gifts of friendship between BC and Japan. Check out the beautiful prints!

From there we were driven in a convoy to the most central Tokyo Keio Plaza hotel, a huge beautiful hotel right across from city hall. I sat in the van next to the Minister and had a fascianting conversation about the state of education in BC and some of the up-coming issues (this conversation did make me feel grateful to be in Japan at this point!)

This was the formal opening ceremony with about 30 media reporters, senior representatives from the Japanese Education bureau, Ministry personel, BC Trade Bureau personel, Embassy personel, parents, teachers and students. It was quite the deal. The owner of the school consortium we have here received the formal certificate from the MOE and we had speeches from all parties involved.

The most touching part of the Ceremony was when Makiko did a little pledge directly to Fassbender about her commitment to the program. 

From there we had an intense media scrum with media from all across Japan.

The day ended off with a sumptuous dinner and reception put on by the Canadian Ambassador at his residence.

 We all enjoyed eating amazingly delicious "Canadian Food" dishes (check out the menu; what do you think?) drinking delicious wines (three different ones representing areas from across Canada... of course) and networking with Embassy, BC Trade Delegation, MOE and Japanese MOE VIPs.

As you can guess, I had a lot of fun and I got a great kick out of this. Yes... this was definitely a different kind of day than I have been having in the previous years at my other schools!  :)

Shelley's welcome back: from robots to earthquakes

Welcome Shelley! This adventure really is so much richer with two of us! And yes... I really HAD to celebrate her 60th with an adventure mystery tour of Tokyo by bike.

We bicycled across the city to really get her back into the pulse of this throbbing city from street corner to freeway overpass. (It turns out that Tokyo-ites have a real passion in their freeway exchanges because their designs are unique in the world. You can even buy a book of the exchanges! Click here to see some of them.)

The whole weekend was a surprise with an eye to what she enjoys doing.

We cruised through the center of town, stopped at a gorgeous book store with English language books (!!!!) and had a classic lunch at a patio restaurant under a massive oak tree. From there we peddled on through the city, under more overpasses and down to the water front where a water taxi whisked us and our bikes across Tokyo harbor to the ultra modern neighborhood built on reclaimed land called Odaiba. 

The vistas of Tokyo were amazing. 

We of course had our bikes with us so we swooped around the bay and off and around some of the sights including... The Statue of Liberty. Hey if NYC has one why can't Tokyo? 

We spent the late afternoon lounging in our hotel's sumptuous pool and hot tub that were built on a massive patio overlooking the harbour. From there we meandered around the area to check out the evening scene. No... This does not look like front street Kaslo at 8:00 PM on a Saturday.  :)

Check out this huge building that is turned into a disco light show; how do they do it?

Or maybe this, a five story high transformer performing for the crowds with a Manga movie being projected on the skyscraper behind; check out the size of the people at the robot's feet!

After our meander in the area, we were just coming down the massive marble staircase in the lobby of our hotel when everything began banging and clattering. The massive chandelier was swaying. All of the blinds of all of the huge windows were crashing against the wall. It was quite a shake. We found out in the morning it was 7.8 on the Richter scale. We rushed to stand under one of the massive marble pillars. The staff there was helping people move to save places. 

This really shook us up... No pun intended but everyone around us took it in stride.

Once again, this place is amazing. Nothing fell over. Nothing was broken. Not even wine bottles came off the shelves. Everything was fine. Nothing happened in Tokyo other than some subways were stopped for 15 minutes. The elevators were all shut off while they got checked. 

This photograph with the cake was Shelley's birthday cake that we had out on the deck after the earthquake. This evening made us both think of Carole King: "I feel the earth move under my feet".

The next morning again found us exploring this area by bike, past huge ships at the docks, 

around massive skyscrapers and along green ways where we stumbled on thousands, yes thousands of young people dressed up in all colors of the rainbow with t-shirts that all said "color me RAD". They were excited, were dressed up and totally excited about this event. After several halting conversations we gathered it was some big annual 5km race on Tokyo for Peace and Love where runners run through massive clouds of rainbow colors to end up in some final colour fest. 

Check out the web site here.

Amazing what we learn every day here!

On our way back across the city by bike of course we had to drop in at the Jamaca Fest for some food and a rest before we headed back to our home nook of this amazing city.

So... Now no more happy 60th for Shelley. Been there and done that. Our present is to be together, to be alive to what this world has to offer and learn more everyday.