Tokugawa Isaseyu, the first Shogun ruler of Japan and the fella for whom this shrine complex was built.

The particularly interesting thing about Nikko is that it's much more colorful than other temple areas of Japan. The Japanese style is usually quite subdued, color wise, and focuses more on simple outlines. Nikko is pretty gaudy in comparison.

These are some representations of the buddha as a child. They're called Ji-zo and have some particular significance that I can't quite remember. They wear hats and clothes to thank them for watching over people.

We camped for the low low fee of $50 in this lavish campsite. Well, they did have running water and serenety. How about that serenity?

We went rock climbing near Nikko on Sunday. The place was pretty awesome, but quite the zoo. I've never been anywhere with so many people climbing, although that doesn't really say a whole lot.

Me after close to 5 hours in the car, with one left to go.

We ended our road trip with a beautiful and stunning view of Mount Asama, the nearby active volcano. It's pretty cool to realize that we hiked to the rim of the beast just a couple of months before it blew.

Remember when I said I was awesome because I busted my bike pedal, well, I just got more awesome. I discovered that in the past week or so my rear rim has developed quite a nice crack in the sidewall. Yay. I usually like rebuilding wheels, but I guess it's a bit different when it's my stuff that I need every day.

It has occurred to me that I post only rarely these days. I can't explain exactly why, laziness I guess. I get pretty wrapped up in my little projects, as i'm sure most of you who read this blog already know. In that respect, it was a pretty busy week this past one.
My new project has been hammering smallish holes into largish rocks. I'm putting up a new rock climbing route. it will be one that no one else has done before, because I'm the idiot putting the bolts up there. There are three main branches of rock climbing; bouldering, traditional climbing and sport climbing.
In bouldering the object is to climb very short but very hard rock "problems" consisting of anywhere from 2 to 10 moves for the most part. In this variety of climbing one does not use any rope because you're usually only a few feet from the ground. If anything, you may opt for a "crash pad" to soften the landing area a bit.

Traditional climbing is regarded by most people as the most challenging mentally as it is the process by which silly humans scale rock surfaces and with the aid of a rope and specialized tools or "protection", they keep themselves from hitting the deck. Protection originally consisted of steel pitons hammered into cracks but recently has come to rely on easily removable "nuts" and "cams" which wedge into cracks and crevices to protect the climber. I don't do this type of climbing.

The last type is the most commonly practiced (at least in the US, Europe and Japan) which is commonly known as sport climbing. Sport climbing utilizes a rope, of course, as well as pre-placed anchors drilled and affixed to the rock. This allows for a more gymnastic and dynamic style of climbing, since the climber doesn't have to worry about putting in his or her own protection into the rock. Overall, this style of climbing is extremely safe, and compared with many other sports, has a relatively low injury rate. For reference ask my brother, he had his tooth crammed through his lip this past summer while playing a friendly match of soccer.

Anyway, this past week has seen me suspended on a rock face laboriously hand drilling holes in a basalt outcropping with an improvised hand-powered rock chisel. It has taken me about 1 hour per hole so far, but I'm looking to improve my rate with the purchase of a bigger hammer. Aside from smacking the back end of a carbide-tipped drill bit a thousand times, I could buy a battery powered hammer drill, unfortunately, they're somewhere in the range of $600-$1000. For now, I'll just kill my afternoons by smacking my thumb with a hammer 20 feet off the ground.

I've been waiting to post about my adventurism last weekend because I've been waiting for the pictures, you see, having a digital camera does no good if you don't bring it. Last weekend we hiked up a mountiain to the east of us called Nekotake. It was a great adventure full of thrills and spills. Well, actually it was mostly cool from the standpoint of the perfect weather and the natural beauty of the place. In other conditions, it might have been considered a slog. The slope of the mountain is really shallow, even though the thing is tall by Japanese standards, 2207 meters. I'll tell the story with pictures.

Here's a view of Lara and Jennifer in front of a Snow-Cat and by extension, the mountain we climbed Nekotake. The resort operates helicopter rides up to the top, but we opted for the hard way, climbing. Fortunately, the slope is quite mild so along with 0 risk of avalanche, the climbing wasn't so strenuous. The real goal is climbing Fuji and skiing down it next month.

The adventure started at the top of a ski lift where we put on our snowshoes and for me, my climbing skins and proceeded upward.

Here's one of the pictures of the hike upwards. You'll notice Jennifer with a snowboard shooting out the top of her bag. In the background are the North Alps of Japan. We're planning on hiking a good number of them this summer.

The clouds that whip over the mountain leave sublimate this frosty coating over the pine trees up here. The japanese call these things "snow monsters" and it's not hard to see why.

Here's a view from the top of the spectacular Mount Asama Volcano about 30 kilometers directly south of us. That's a cloud of sulphurous gas, in case you're wondering.

Here we are at the top. From the left to right we see Simon, Lisa, Dawn, Me,Shane, Jennifer and Lara.
While it took us about 2 hours to climb to the top, the hike down was all of about 25 minutes. It's kind of a letdown to see all your hard work evaporate like that.

As I was pulling in to the alley behind my office on Wednesday, I noticed a strange sensation in my right foot and then suddenly my foot came free of the pedal. Or actually, the pedal came free of the bicycle. I looked down and sure enough, my lovely bicycle had suffered a slight setback as the pedal spindle was firmly attached to the bicycle, but the pedal body was firmly attached to my foot. This presents some obvious problems, in this case, how do I get myself back home? I was fortunately given a ride by a co-worker and endeavoured to fix the pedal the following morning. This also proved problematic because upon closer inspection I discovered that I have completely worn through the bearings on the inside of the pedal, the wee balls were rusty and mangled and no longer functional in the least.

This brings me to the interesting part; it felt kinda good to see the destroyed pedal guts. There's something quite satisfying about wearing out sports equipment. If a car breaks down, of course you just get pissed and think of the money you have to spend on fixing it. For a bicycle however, I just think, "Yeah, I pedaled that thing to DEATH!" It's the same feeling I got from seeing the stacks of old running shoes when I was running a lot. I feel powerful to have made this artificial product yield to my manly power. Additionally, it's an excuse to get new toys, which may be the real inspiration after all.

In a short addendum to the email sent to me by CJ last week, i would like to just mention that this email caused CJ and his wife Clar to be refused entry to their then current fitness club. Apparently the Aspen Fitness Club in Cedar Rapids, Iowa found that CJ's vociferousness had no home in their establishment. Maybe it hit a little too close to home.

I'd like to post an email that I received from a friend of my family's CJ Ong, fitness consultant and multiple time Ultraman Athlete. Ultraman is like an Ironman (2 mile swim, 100miles on the bike and then a marathon) but in Ultraman you do multiply those distances by a factor of 2 or 3. He's finished several doubles and a triple. My point is, this is a guy who knows what he's talking about, and additionally, he's one of the few guys who really looks good in a moustache and ponytail.

I often wonder why America is the fattest nation in the world. With 60% of our adult population consider overweight or obese I offer the following opinion: The fitness club or facility industry is partially at fault.

A poster in a gym that I was recently in proclaims "cardio does not have to be so hard" and that working with the fitness professionals there will provide "maximum results with minimum effort."

Excuse my French but who are we fkn kidding here?

I agree that cardio does not have to be so hard but in reality it needs to be structured intelligently and offered to the members of a gym in a productive fashion. Offering 4 rip roaring high heart rate group cycling classes per week is counterproductive to weight loss! Look at the research.

And as for the farce of minimum effort for maximum results let's get real! People are lazy. So if they think they can get the maximum results in a minimum amount of time that is what they will buy into. And the fitness clubs bank on that. Most fitness clubs foster deception -- just like the infomercials hawking home gyms that will yield a beautifully sculpted physique in just 20 minutes a day! News flash: Those physiques were not built on just 20 minutes a day or with minimum investment! (some were built with the help of a plastic surgeon but that's a different subject!) Why would you want a client to actually reach the "apex" of fitness when you can keep stringing them along with false hope? More gadgets, supplements, pretty workout clothes in plus sizes - need I say more?

At the gym I see a few trainers who actually practice "personal training". Sadly most trainers are nothing more than glorified "fitness baby-sitters" who use a canned program for all their clients - everyone does plyos for six weeks-regardless if you are a grandmother who simply wants to be able to play with her grandchildren or a triathlete looking to improve their performance. The good trainers utilize differentiation and discrimination in their fitness program design as opposed to approaching personal training with a "no child left behind" philosophy.

The "no child left behind" philosophy that permeates many of today's fitness clubs is making America die a slow and agonizing death. It costs the country money in increasing health costs. In most group fitness class settings the emphasis on the part of the management is making sure that everyone has FUN, FUN, FUN. The QUALITY of the instruction is not measured at all by most management but rather the QUANTITY of instruction - NUMBERS, NUMBERS, NUMBERS! And woe be to the instructor wants to teach above the average! They might as well put on pair of safety glasses and be prepared to take a donut hole in the eye - wait it's been done! Here's another news flash: Even those below average (which is 49% of the population) need to be challenged so they can advance.

It's time for the fitness club industry to practice what they preach! One of the greatest athletes of all time is Olympian Dan Gable - he never deluded himself into thinking he could achieve maximum results with minimum effort. And as a coach he practiced what he preached. There was none of this bullshit of standing around with a whistle and a potbelly saying it doesn't do the athletes any good to have me do push-ups along side of them in practice.

It is time to have good representives in the fitness industry. I am offended by fitness class instructors with a roll of fat around their middle telling people to work harder.
Why would anyone want to join a gym where the membership counselors are fat?
I cringe when I see a client working with a personal trainer who allows them to bring the back in hyper extension when doing a standing bicep curl.

It is time for the fitness club industry to shape up! Quit dumbing it down, be honest to the members - quit stringing them along to make money and quit looking at them as a cash cow.

Instead of a fitness apex America is destined for a fitness nadir. It's gonna hurt!

C.J.

I realize that I have often posted about my increasingly AWESOME physique resulting from my extensive weight training, rock climbing and Atkins Diet, but last week I suffered a psychological setback. While comparing arm sizes with Jennifer and flexing in the bathroom mirror, I discovered to my chagrin that her arms are still bigger than mine. I can empathize with my friend Ben Knudson's recent shock to find that his neck size is significantly smaller than expected. I guess that maybe it's easier for me to accept my scrawnyness in Japan where I tower over most people and am bulkier than a good number. I've got evidence, I go to onsens (Japanese communal baths). Ben, however, lives in the land of the large, and what's more, a good number of his friends are pushing 200 lbs.