Aim for Adventure

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 in: News, Travel

OK! this is what I actually meant to write about. Having some time off, I got in touch with Conrad and Ryan, two old Pipeworks friends who happen to live in the area. Conrad is a JET teacher in a nearby prefecture, and Ryan is an expat living here in Nagoya, doing some sort of systems management for Ikea (which is pronounced イケア, “ee-kay-ah” around here. Say Ikea and you’ll just get blank stares). Back home, we were merely climbing acquaintances with a passing familiarity.

Here, we are brothers, bound by our common trait of not being Japanese. Back home, people do judge you based on how you look, including your cultural heritage, but here, the distinction is much more clear-cut. It’s not about determining which category you fit into, you simply either are or are not from around here. If you aren’t from around here, you are gaijin, an outsider. Welcome to Japan, enjoy your stay; when are you going home again? It’s just another cultural peculiarity to get used to when you’re here. For expats like Ryan, I’m sure he’s gotten used to a variety of these things over the years. It’ll be interesting to pick his brain over this…

Anyways, where were we? OH! Going climbing! Ryan squeezes climbing into his busy schedule by going the first Saturday of every month with a few coworkers, and this time I’ve invited myself and Conrad along. Conrad has been getting a different Japan experience as an English teacher in Ise, a couple hours from any major city. I wasn’t sure if he would be able to come, since it’s so far, but he leapt at the opportunity to come out and hang. The 2 hour train ride was a small penance to pay for a familiar face and some good exercise. I can’t blame him for getting a little cabin fever, stuck in a small town where he only knows a handful of people, and a majority of them are preteens.

We met under the golden clock at Nagoya station and jumped on the metro. A winding path from the station led us to the gym, a strictly bouldering affair with a small reception area and a second level for hanging out and reading manga. The climbing area floor was covered with the plushest crash pads I’d ever been on. The climbing wall was finished wood, peppered with holds, some of which were drilled directly into the wall’s surface. Japanese climbing gyms set a little different than they do back home. The holds on the wall are a near-permanent fixture; they just move the tape around for the most part, or have books for members to diagram problems they make for themselves. It takes some getting used to.

I can’t overstate how good it felt to get some climbing in after my relatively sedentary week of sitting in front of a computer. Being able to hang out with these cool guys was a big bonus as well. We climbed until about 2 or 3pm and returned to the big station in Nagoya. Ryan had to get home for dinner, but Conrad and I had nothing to get back to, so we decided to wander around for a bit. That story will have to wait…

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