It's been a great weekend. Actually, after a week of illness I wasn't sure I'd be leaving the house at all over the weekend but I was determined to just soldier on.

Technorati Tags: hiking, japan, photography, tokyo, travel

Saturday saw Charlene, Kazuma and I head out to Western Tokyo to the Okutama region, to go hiking on Mt Mitake: “This mountain is part of the Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park, which spreads over 1250 square kilometers in the mountainous and woody region at the junction of Tokyo-to, Saitama, Nagano and Yamanashi prefectures.” (source) Mitake-san is considered something of a holy mountain and the area around the shrine there has apparently been used as a place of worship for around 2000 years.

We walked for about 5 hours all up, through easily some of the most beautiful, ethereal nature I've seen in Japan. Gorgeous. Especially the “rock garden” area which was built about 70 years ago. I think autumn is the most magical time to see this place - it felt like Lothlorien, with lovely yellowish leaves and light and intense green moss everywhere. I started editing and uploading some pics to a flickr photoset but there are still a lot more to come, so this really just a taster... Please go back in a week or so and check out the finished album. Anyway, at days-end we ate yummy Chinese in Musashi-Koganei and went to the Tokaido Onsen for a long soak. When I woke up the next morning I felt great. Amazing what some fresh air and exercise can do for a sick and weary body.

On Sunday I met with Christian and Yuiko in Harajuku for a coffee and to take some promo photos for a product Chris is involved in promoting (more on that in a few days). Yuiko showed me this incredible button, bead and ribbon shop that I've never been to on Omote-Sando Dori - oh god, what an amazing place! It's tucked away in a little shop just next to the Lawson. If you're a crafty then you will just turn into a pool of dribble, I assure you. Then we checked out the Design Tide Main Exhibition Hall. One of my students, Akiko Fukuda, is an interior designer and she was involved in the Treasured Trash component of the exhibition. If any of you went there (yesterday was the last day for the Main Exhibition Hall), you would have seen some cool looking, pod shaped recycling bins. She designed those, and the hemp-pocket recycling stands.

In the evening, some more students - Misaki and Naomi (my hair dressers) took me with their parents to an absolutely awesome restaurant show in Roppongi. One of the things I love about Japan is just how much you learn to expect the unexpected. Kaguwa restaurant is the place they filmed the Kill Bill 1 Izakaya fight scene although it looks way smaller than in the movie. All I was told was that we were going to an Okama Dans, featuring “new halfs” (the Japanese-English word for transgenders or transvestites).

Well. o.mi.god, it was just awesome and absolutely annihilated any drag show I saw in my clubbing years in Brisbane. They put on a one hour show that featured a strong traditional Edo-Japanese flavour, complete with geishas, dozens of lush kimonos and gorgeous edo style sets that constantly moved up and down and in and out. Occasionally it would venture into a more traditional show-girl flavour with gorgeous sparkling leotards and feathered head-dresses or crazy, sexy neon pieces and lip-synching. It was an utterly sophisticated show, and afterwards I was quite starstruck as some of the girls moved around shaking hands and thanking the audience. You can read a little more at the Gourmet navigator. Oh, and the food was great too. No photos allowed, sadly, so I can't share any of the amazing visuals with you.