Fuji Rock Festival 2008

Getting there...
We left Tokyo on the 19:05 Seibu express way bus [西武高速バス - せいぶ・こうそく・ばす] which cost a meagre* 5400yen return and took us just under 3 hours to get to the Yuzawa [湯沢] bus stop. Despite printing out the map of the bus stop location (in relation to Echigo-Yuzawa station [越後湯沢駅] where the free festival site shuttle bus ran from) from both Google maps and the Seibu bus website we felt a bit lost when we got to the bus stop. The bus stop was just off the highway and not particularly near the town. On the brightside there were 3 other pairs of people looking as bemused as we were when we reached the bus stop. We hung around for a couple of minutes searching for inspiration and possibly some leadership, and then all decided to wonder off in the direction of the signs to Yuzawa town. This involved, first of all, walking down a dark set of stairs to get us safely off the motorway. The maps around the bus stop weren't too bad...and after walking a while we just had to head for the huge, brightly-lit, concrete monstrosity which is the (Echigo) Yuzawa train station. Which all in all took us about 30mins. Even before getting to the front of the station we pasted several flags proclaiming the arrival of the Fuji Rock Festival. As we walked up to the front of the station we could clearly see two tents for the festival - an information point and a first aid tent (should you have been a little overexcited on the journey to Echigo-Yuzawa) and a queue for the free shuttle bus to the festival site. The queue wasn't too bad, and just after we arrived another train load of people arrived...we didn't have to wait long for another bus to turn up...they seemed pretty frequent...I'd say, less than 5mins between buses, but it was pretty packed when we did get on, so we stood, with our luggage, for the 40min bus ride, with someone's trolley bag ramming into my legs every time we turned left sharply.

The site was very lively when we arrived, and tents were already being pitched at very strange angles on the ski-resort slopes. After walking up the hill for 2minutes I was already grumbling to Greg that I didn't want to go much further, but he miraculously managed to find a free flat piece of land close to the pavement hiding in between some tents and just behind a little area someone had saved for their friends using some packaging tape on grass - a method which works surprisingly well. I should also mention, there was a special area cordoned off just for ladies, with a member of staff standing, well sitting, guard at the entrance.

*The price of a Shinkansen [新幹線] ticket is currently set at the hefty sum of 6980yen from Tokyo, Ueno [上野] station without a seat reservation ONEWAY (7490yen with a seat reservation). Double the one way ticket for the return price.

A clearing in the woods on the way to the white stage, with a disco ball....the light was reflecting beautifully off onto the surrounding trees. A big display of candles in a fabric covered dome at the end of the Organic hippy type stage...

Festival Etiquette...
AnyHoooo, the festival. yes. Fantastic stuff, lovely atmosphere, and all my belongings felt safe. No fear of having stuff in the tent, or the tent it's self, stolen. AND you can happily reserve your little spot in front of the stage by plonking down your folding chair or your nice plastic 'leisure sheet' in the desired location, in full knowledge that people will not 1. nick it, 2. move it or 3. trample all over it. I love Japan.
We also noticed it is perfectly acceptable to sleep on the huge grass field that was the green stage, even in the rain - we saw people in a full Gortex outfit, lying on their soaked mat, with some rudimentary plastic sheeting to protect the face trying to get shut eye. How they managed to get rest through the loud music, I don't know. They either couldn't be bothered to go to the tent or they didn't have one and didn't care. Amusing none the less.

Eco Festival...
The festival was also gloriously clean (and green). The portaloos were actually more pleasant than the permanent loos close to the camp site, ok a tiny bit muddy on the floor, but plenty of toilet paper (at least there was every time that I went) and even some places where there were specific urinals for men and women only toilets. Lots of collection points for rubbish and recycling, a system run by 'A Seed Japan'. We noticed that food was dispensed in very similar paper material from all vendors, and drinks all came in paper cups. These were all recycled, as were cigarette packets, PET bottles, plastic bottle tops and cans. Just after you enter the festival site, there were volunteers handing out large plastic bags with a variety of designs on them - they looked pretty good actually and described the recycling process...or where all the items you were going to be throwing away would be going... The bags were for your rubbish (but also doubled as rain jackets for some people during the festival or something to sit on or a rain cover for bags and belongings) happened to be made from recycled PET bottles, and were handed out so that you didn't litter everywhere, even though you never seemed to be more than a stones throw from a rubbish collection point.

Walking around the festival site: (left) big inflatable stars which flashed different colours at night, and (right) a river running through the site, where some people have placed brightly painted stones with eyes on them, you can see all the Japanese in their festival chic...crocs - sandal and wellie form seemed to dominate the footwear here.

Getting from stage to stage...

The Festival was quite spread out...a couple of minutes walk from the middle of the camp site to the camp site entrance where all the washing and toilet facilities were, along with two food stalls, which included a small convenience stand...like if you needed to buy a toothbrush or a crappy rain jacket or ladies sanitation items. The entrance to the festival site was another couple of minutes walk from the entrance of the camp site... then it takes you about 20mins to walk from end to end of the festival site. But to be honest, most of the main stages; Green stage, Red Marquee and White stage were the first three stages you come across anyway.

Queues for Merchandise...
While it was true that there were longer queues for the merchandise tents than the beer tents, this was only true at the beginning of the festival for the first thursday - at the official merchandise tent near the wristband exchange point and for the friday on the first festival day. There are several reasons for this, 1. The Japanese - especially the more experienced ones - are very organised and can often be seen wheeling in cold boxes with pre-prepared drinks and snacks into the festival sites (although cans and glass bottles were not allowed for safety reasons). 2. There were an ample amount of beer tents, so no shortage of supply - nearly every stall which sold food also sold alcohol. 3. The Official T-shirts for Fuji Rock had a huge range of designs, and some very nicely done so that you could happily wear it as a fashion item as opposed to just being another rough T-shirt. 4. There were only a limited number of T-shirts and popular designs sell out quickly (the main reason for there being nearly no queues for the merchandise stalls on the last two days.

The Music...
The Music did actually play...but we didn't see them. In fact we were rather lazy and didn't see most of the things on offer from Fuji Rock past 11pm...like the DJ events in 'late night fuji' or 'Rookie-a-go-go'. Anyway, here is a quick run down of the major bands that we did see (along with some random photos):

Gossip - Despite being on at 1520 in the red marquee there was a crazy crowd who went absolutely mad for Beth Ditto.

Album recordings do not do Beth Ditto's voice justice, the woman has incredible power and tune. She did complain about being hot and stripped off to her underwear at the beginning of the show and at some point wore a towel round her head. But despite the heat she still gave a stunning performance. The atmosphere in the small stage was great, just like a small gig. They mixed in a bit of Pixies - monkey gone to heaven and even Madonna - like a virgin very smoothly during the intro to their other songs.

(Left) Hard-Fi and (Right) Asian Dub Foundation

The Zutons on White stage

A tree with eyes!!! and Benfolds in the rain.

Benfolds was great, but we did manage to get caught in a thunderous downpour which completely soaked every one...we decided to give up on that sunday and go back to the tent to dry off...

Miyajima [宮島]

We took the longer version of a boat ride to Miyajima from the Hiroshima A-bomb dome, which cost about 1920yen each just for a 1way ticket (about a 50min ride). It was nice to take the scenic route in, we took the shorter ferry ride on the way home, which cost a measly 170yen for a 10min ride and then took the local train to Hiroshima station. Miyajima is most famous for it's large red tori which sits in the sea, and deer. The deer have a bad habit of eating anything papery, and will happily rummage through peoples bags in search of maps - and then proceed to devour them.

Approaching Miyajima...

We were met at the ferry terminal by a driver from our hotel (Arimoto [有もと]) and driven to the hotel. It turned out the hotel that we chose was very central, just behind the famous temple of Miyajima. The first port of call would be to ascend Misen [みせん] the highest peak in Miyajima. Taking the free shuttle bus up to the ropeway station, we then took two different cable cars up as high as they would take us. Getting off at the last station there was a warning about monkeys being about.

...and sure enough as soon as we get out of the ropeway station, we see lots of monkeys....and another deer.

Deer being cleaned by a helpful monkey and the viewpoint at the last ropeway station.

My reststop and a deer reading a sign.

After much suffering in the heat I had climbed as high as I could...and stopped at one of the temples along the way to the peak to rest in the shade, whilst Greg went to survey the top. We walked all the way down, much easier and cooler than hiking upwards. The whole area was carefully conserved, with anti-erosion measures installed along the water way. Unfortunately, the route that we had wanted to take down the hill was closed due to one of the temples being under repair from typhoon damage.

Anti-erosion measures and Momiji Park


A lap dog, trying it's hardest to look as though it's perfectly normal for him to be wearing a yukata...

The famous tori and temple

Tori at night

A huge rice scoop - Miyajima is apparently famed for being the birthplace of the humble rice scoop, so they made a massive one and put it on their high street. The photo on the right is of one of the many lamp shades that decorated the town.

On the main high street there was a cute little shop which was based on the sayings of a monk, Jo Taiga [城　たいが] who decorated his sayings with very nice annotated kanji. We bought his 'Introduction to Happiness' which includes things like: "Rather than grieve and feel sad all day. Smile brightly and have a happy day". The artwork and sentiment of the shop was really nicely done.

After our little souvenir shopping trip I sat for a little rest, and was trying to take a photo of a deer hiding behind a big stone tori, when it suddenly sprung into action. It had been lying in wait for humans carrying tasty food. The deer was very persistent and harangued the man until he finally gave in and gave the deer some of the fish-cake on a stick he had been trying to eat.

Zemotions

A short video (in french!) about Politeness, Tolerance and Patience...



Scenario by Christophe 'Trent' Berthemin
Realised by Alexandre Carvalho

Hiroshima

So we went down to Hiroshima [広島] by shinkansen 9th July, I was meant to be presenting at a conference for the JGS and Greg had taken some holiday to join me....OoooOooh! it's expensive, 37,100yen EACH for a return ticket on the fastest train there (Nozomi) and that takes just over 4 hours! But it's alright, the lab paid my train fare for the trip and 3 nights accommodation! (Taking the an internal flight is similar in cost and saves you about 1hour, if you are efficient at getting to and from the airport at both ends; in Tokyo Haneda airport [羽田空港] is not too far from the city centre, but the airport at Hiroshima [広島] is over 1.5 hrs away from the city centre. Anyway, we were lucky enough to wangle a Gakuwari [学割] officially known as a gakusei waribiki[学生割引-がくせいわりびき] (a student discount which you can get on JR journeys over 101km long - I only get 10 of these coupons a year, so I guess I should use them wisely). ALL that aside, this was the first photo that we took coming out into the(significantly less humid) summer heat of Hiroshima; Trams of Hiroshima. There is no metro system (unlike Nagano [長野] or Kyoto [京都]), and we managed to snap both the new and old style trams in one shot.



After dropping off our bags at the 'Comfort hotel Otemachi' [コンフォルトホテル大手町］ we took a walk in the blazing sun to Hiroshima castle [left]. It had all been reduced to dust due to the the A-bomb, but had been reconstructed to show what it should have been like. Apparently, it was more of an administration office/HQ than that of a defence structure...more typical of the late Edo (I think). The inside of the castle (free for students! - and about 300yen, possibly less if you are a normal human) it was more of a After the castle we wondered Eastwards towards a very nice looking garden. I liked the red umbrella in the entrance.

the garden

There were some strange fish in the gardens pond, who swam around hoovering the water surface, and they seemed to be doing it in formation.

We found quite a lot of crabs too, the first one was by some bamboo (far far away from water), which was odd, then later we found a stream teeming with them...

We also spent some time to go to the Peace Memorial Museum, just 10mins walk from our hotel (and also where my conference was going on in an adjacent building). Only 50yen to get in, and audio guides were 300yen, available in a variety of languages. The museum itself has lots of english guidance, so there was not much need for the audio guide unless your eyes or brain got tired of reading. Basically, the museum describes the situation leading up to the Pacific War...the general atmosphere at the time, politically speaking and the wars that Japan was involved in, in Russia and China. It also detailed the harsh living conditions in Japan while at war; the constant hunger and the forced labour of Chinese and Koreans. Then it moved on to the Americans, and their development of the bomb. Worst of all, they described why they used it - which I am still disgusted at: they didn't want to have to explain spending soo much money on the A-bomb project and not have any fruits at the end of it. Tactically, speaking they also didn't want to give Japan over to the Russians (another option to ending the war but they feared giving Russia too much power) which would have saved alot of lives. Scientifically, some people wanted to test the effectiveness of the bomb, which is also why they chose such a high population place and gave NO WARNING - just so that they could see the power of the bomb. nice.

A model of Hiroshima before and after the A-bomb

tears

There were many moving stories of the scenes of suffering just after the bombing, as well as descriptions of the after effects.

On a completely different note; after my presentation at the conference, we managed to get hold of the free rental bikes from our hotel. So we cycled to the East side of town to a large park; where we found a nice little temple, an art museum and a lot of very hungry mosquitos.

After feeding some mosquitos we thought we'd better drink something and so we popped into a cool cafe that we saw on the way; it apparently sold 'CRAPES' - great. and had a huge spray painting of Ultraman on the wall.

That night we had a very delicious dinner at a fresh fish restaurant. They had many fishes in tanks which could be fished out and cooked to order, and we also saw some small octopii which were in lidded tanks to stop them from escaping. I saw at least one fish pulled from a tank, only to be filleted alive. It looked painful - but I bet it was tasty.