Ueno
The diploma award ceremony for molecular nutrition was in Nihonbashi, so I looked for a place to stay nearby.
This time I stayed at HostelOwl, a small handmade capsule, but it was comfortable and next to a public bathhouse for only 2,500 yen. I would recommend it to climbers going to the Tokyo area.
I used to stay at the Intercontinental for a month when I was in Wellington on business and at the CandlewoodSuite when I was in Kansas for a month.
https://www.ihg.com/candlewood/hotels/us/en/overland-park/mkcgv/hoteldetail
That's I had to stay in a hotel room all day long, working 16 hours at a desk, so I think it's worth it to pay this much.(Actually company took care of the cost)
From there, I grew to the point where I could complete staying in a tent stay all by myself in the mountains, even in -25C cold.
I've come a long way, come to think of it.
Confidence that no one can take away
So this is the confidence that no one can take away from me.
range of experience.
I have a wider range of experiences. It broadens our horizons. My perspective is much wider than normal Japanese, and that is my source of confidence.
I think that is the meaning of having experience and being adulthood.
If I were to stay in a hotel all the time, you will only know what's like this hotel and that hotels... I think it is boring.
Memories of Ueno
This time, after the diploma ceremony, I had dinner with climber friends in Ueno.
What made me happiest was that I was able to treat that older, senior climber to dinner.
I have excessive amount of love and I just want to love without being taken advantage of.
The young climbers takes advantage of you and oversea climbers too. I am not that dumb.
This older climber supported me when I was trying to be an alpine climber. He still gives me advices and support me. When I went to Hatatate iwa middle ridge, he was my second climber.
It is a route that offers a miniature version of an alpine route, starting with rappelling but requiring route finding and in the top you will join in to hikers.
I still have a picture of it as a proud moment in my life. If I were to die, I would recall that moment and remember him as an important person who climbed with me.
Ueno
In Ueno, the cherry blossoms had not yet bloomed. I remembered that when I was in college, I came from Osaka to visit the art museum in Ueno to see an exhibition of Georgia O'Keeffe.
My childhood was full of good museum days. My mother was a graduate of the Tokyo Women's Institute of Fine Arts, so it was a tradition in my family to go see every major exhibition that came along. So the art museum and the forest attached to it became my home.
When I was in my first year of college, I was longing for Tokyo and visited a classmate from junior high school who had gone on to Hitotsubashi University, but was surprised to find a one-room apartment in a distant suburb (Machida) that was not Tokyo in name only....
My friend who went on to Waseda University lived in a boarding house near Toshimaen, which was not even a one-room apartment, and had a shared bathroom. I was surprised at how rural it was....
Seeing this, I was living in a student dormitory in Minoh, an hour by bus from the last train station in North Osaka, and I thought that the big city was just as far away from the city as if I were living outside of Osaka.
After seeing O'Keeffe's exhibition, I immediately went to work in the U.S. and lost all longing for Tokyo and the big city....I now prefer to be in a nature, country side.
It was as if, after visiting Laos or Ryu-dong, me losing interest in crags in Japan.
I was able to go back to Ueno, the place I had always longed to visit, and treat my senior who had taken care of me so well....
Thinking of my long and distant journey, I felt that I had grown up completely as an adult.
Yes, the age of crying and saying, "Help me Dad! " is over.
I was no longer at the age of crying out.
Of course, seniors give us all kinds of life advice.
Especially as I myself am now at the age of starting to age, how I should face the rocks...those things, of course, are taught by those seniors who have already gone before me.
I have always thought so, but free climbing is, from the alpine point of view, just an Enjoyable Climbing after retirement (laughs). Nothing serious.
A young man took my picture.
In Ueno Park, where the cherry blossoms had not yet bloomed, there was one place where only one cherry tree was in bloom.
I wandered around there... because I wondered if someone would take a commemorative photo of me. That's what I was thinking.
Then, a young man in his twenties, who looked like a young, flirtatious guy, recognized me... and despite his appearance, he quickly understood and said, "Shall I take your picture?" I could tell that he was a very considerate man because of the way he said it, which was very easy to get into my mind and without any pretense.
People judge people by their appearance, and we learn this in our adult life... Of course, after my office worker days when I strolled around Marunouchi in a suit, we learn that people are influenced by their appearance, and if you want to get good service, you have to wear a good suit... And then, as an adult And as we grow up, we learn that looks don't matter....
Inner Father, Inner Mother
The mountains of Okuchichibu raised me: the Southern Alps and the Maeho North Ridge. The days in Shosenkyo.... The ascent of Mitsutoge. Climbing with Iwacchan in Okuchichibu and Ogawayama. The time with the late Mr. Yoshida. The days of multi climbing in Insubon. And ice climbing days.
My mother is the students who followed me in yoga.
