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| Great Escapes | The Great Yamanote Hike | (Entered Apr. 04, 2006) |
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Tokyo might have a gazillion train and subway lines zigzagging all over the city, but if there was a contest to see which line truly represented Tokyo, the winner would be the Yamanote line. Yamanote means 'mountain's hand' but please don't ask me why as I have no idea. Other lines are just as crowded but the Yamanote does something the others don't, it circles the main downtown core in an endless loop, (while most of the others go back and forth from one end of the city to the other) stopping off at pretty much every single major commercial/business section, not to mention most of the main shopping areas as well. If you were to ride the Yamanote for one complete rotation, arriving back where you started from, it would take almost exactly one hour. But why ride when you can walk? This was the question me and my buddy Mike pondered last weekend, whether it was possible to hike around the mother of all train lines. You'll remember Mike from last year when I went to Australia. Anyway we set out on a bright Saturday morning full of hopes for adventures to come our way. Here I am at Shibuya station, a bold explorer heading out into the unknown. Behind me is a fellow pioneer already too daunted by the journey ahead. We left him playing tetris on his mobile phone.
The stop after Shibuya was Ebisu and we quickly realized the theme of our hike, 'climbing things that should not be climbed'. Mike and I tried to climb on top of Ebisu station but our plans were thwarted by a security guard who happened upon us in mid-climb. He was pretty nonchalant about it though, he seemed to pretend not to see us at first. Perhaps the sight of two grown men acting like fools embarrased him?
Here we find the two intrepid explorers posing in front of some darkened glass, who needs a cameraman? You will notice Mike is using his very old mobile phone to take pictures. Sadly, none of his pics made it onto my website, Mike knows he needs a new camera and is working to remedy that problem....
It wasn't long before Mike became hot and tired, and needed some refreshment. I of course kindly waited for Mike to drink his fill, stoically not needing refreshment myself, (plus I didn't want to mess up my hair).
More wandering brought us to the PIPE! After much deliberating and daring the other to cross it, Mike heroically risked life and limb crossing the muddy river below, but I decided to use the bridge like a normal person, (or chickened out if you want to call a spade a spade).
Next we happened upon a wall. Who can look at a wall and not want to know what lies on the other side? Certainly not us. Up I climbed to the obvious approval of the woman in white. Mike got there before me and reported that it was perhaps the emperor's private summer palace or some such, and came back down as a few arrows whizzed by over his head.
As we continued on, we caught sight of our quary, the fabled Yamanote line. Actually it passed us kind of a lot, we started to understand better why people do the Yamanote line by train, instead of on foot... we weren't ready to give up yet though!
Next we wandered into the Garden of the Gods! Here I am striking a suitable pose to earn the gods' favour. Statues of various gods and white marble pillars abounded. So what does one do when confronted by a white marble pillar? Climb it of course.
Here I am after completing my ascent, much to the gods' delight.
And here's Mike. The gods were well pleased.
Hours had passed and the descent of darkness matched the ascent of hunger in our bellies. In a moment of weakness I was lured onto the tracks by the great train, but lo, I came to my senses and leapt to freedom just as the train came rushing by, (yes, I do all my own stunts). Alas, I found out after from Mike that these weren't real train tracks, hunger was making me delusional.
At last we came to Ueno station. We had experienced and endured much, and although we didn't walk the whole line, we managed to walk half of it. Mike called for a celebratory pose to mark the occasion. Anyway total elapsed time was about 7 hours, but if you subtract time out for climbing and other adventuring, it would've probably taken about 6 hours. A rough estimate puts the train at about 12 times faster than a human, and when you think about it, that ain't much! Cheers to Mike and MIke!
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Hakodate - Day 3
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