The morning climb

The perfect view of the river on the way up. Wow this water is cold! Nagano is much cooler than the rest of Japan. The air is cool and dry. In some ways it reminds me of Canada.









(Upper left pic) I took a little brake by the river and young Japanese boy started speaking to me in perfect English. It turns out that he lives in Michigan U.S.A. now. His parrents have been sending him to the U.S. for 8 years now.
(Upper right pic) Considering I hadn't slept for a few nights I took the oppertunity to have a little 30 minute snooze on the trail. Right on the trail. I slept like a log and had no idea that this photo had been taken until recently.
(Lower left pic) Me walking though a medow on the way up the mountain.
(Lower right pic) The tent sight. Note all the traffic. Crowds always seem to be a problem in Japan.

















Some shots of me on the glacier on the way up. Yes that's right! A glacier, a glacier in Japan. Really small and is not there every year but most years.
(Bottom Left pic) Me trying to look cool on a peak. Notice the bigger belly. This can prabably be contributed to good cooking. Ummmmm. Pass the Sushi.
(Bottom right pic) Noriko and I on the peak of Kita-Hodaka. Noriko is the one in the red shirt and I am the white guy.

Dislocated shoulder again!!

Yes I have dislocated my shoulder. I was in class and I slipped on some flash cards I was teaching with and bam! I went down. My shoulder came out the kids were jumping around me and I had to find a way to get it back in. So climbed on top of a desk and pulled it back into place by grabbing the leg of the desk. I called into the office and told them what had happend and I was told. Please sit down on a chair and contiue teaching. CANADA! Here I come. I am sick of the way I am treated by employers here. This is the last straw!

Any way here is the X-ray of my shoulder. Note the the 6 staples from the previous surgery a few years ago.

Nagano, Kamikochi, Hodaka

I took the night bus from Nagoya to Kamikochi after work. Got to Kamikochi early Sunday morning. We started the hike to the mountains around 7:00. The hike for the first 11 km is on a winding dirt road that looks very much like any cottage road in central Ontario. The only difference was that the road winded along a beautiful meandering river. The closer we got the mountains the water in the river became more and more blue.

The forest was host to the most delightful and elaberate bird calls I hav

e ever heard. The forest was alive with sounds and green. Sounds of birds, wind in the tree tops and this beautiful river.

The wonderful thing about the Japanese moutains is that you are always likely to run into some very colourful characters. Like this elderly man I met on the road up.

And here it is the, the peaks to be climbed. The Hodaka range. Next blogg more stories and pictures