In Jap-HEN: Ama Hili-Hili in Asia

I spent two weeks in hospital after Mount Kilimanjaro in 2015. The thoracic surgeon said I had suffered such a severe case of pleural effusion, I had in fact done the whole thing using one lung. They had stapled the chest to prevent  the repetition of this in the future. That was not going to stop me from living my life of course. I soon started shopping for the next adventure. The only condition however was an altitude lower than Mount Kilimanjaro. I’m not scared of death but aint no way I’m tempting fate, no Sir. I found the picturesque Macchu Picchu out in Peru. It takes more than 30 hours and 2 connecting flights to get there however. I don’t know if I’d be in the mood to climb a Goddamn mountain after having flown for that long. I canned that idea; chose Mount Fuji instead and informed the troops: The Power of Three, Amahili-hili. Who is the Power of Three you ask. This is the same team that conquered Mount Kilimanjaro back in 2015. 

Kilimanjaro 2015

My brother and the Noz. My people in life and death, LITERALLY. Don’t tell them but my aim was to watch the sunrise on top of Mount Fuji on my birthday, 3 July. 

On your marks!!!

Mt Fuji 2018

Kilimanjaro 2015

We landed in Tokyo and took the train to the hotel. We don’t do cabs when we travel, public transport is the plug. It’s the easiest way to learn the culture. Getting pickpocketed & stuff is part of the fun

We met our tour guides the following day, taking a 2hr minibus trip towards Mt Fuji to start the hike. We felt more at ease & better prepared this time. What is Mount Fuji to victors like us, right? The one thing EVERYONE asked of me from my sister to my Doctor was “Don’t rush it, take it easy” I was 100% with them, I missed Easter lying on a hospital bed after Kilimanjaro, I was not about to repeat that. 

Slowly we started... Pole pole
     

A few hours into the climb we realised this was exactly that: A CLIMB!!!

There was no rest, from the time we left 5^th station, we were on a constant incline. The only rest we got was when we reached water points. What made the climb extra difficult we were walking on lava. Sand from the volcano. You put a step forward, it sinks. We hardly moved, ten steps forward was almost equivalent to 2 steps. It takes twice if not three times the effort, distance and the level of difficulty. Glutes, calf muscles, thighs were all on fire. To make it worse for me was the heat. Even locally, I hike before sunrise and aim to be done before 9am. The only time I do long hikes is winter. Japan was summer at the time so you can imagine how hot it was. 

I whipped out my famous umbrella. Yes the same one I whipped out while riding a camel in Morocco. I am Chizama LOL!!

Noz was way far ahead of us by then. She’s a comrades marathon warrior so really, keeping up with her is a waste of energy. We met at different stations but we had no illusion about staying together, I have one lung problems

Our group was made up of nationalities from across the world. Our leaders were two American guys Miles & Luke if my memory is to be taken seriously. They spoke fluent Japanese. We suspected they were even married to Japanese women, you know what they say about learning a language in the bedroom **wink** The other very cool guide was Kawasaki, a Japanese gentleman with very dry humour. One member in our group was an old man from Canada. We called him daddy. His face was bright red within the first hour. We kept looking out for him, we surmised between ourselves whether he had turned back.  There was also a lady that struggled with altitude, she was sick throughout. Noz offered her our altitude sickness pills. That’s the hikers language, we work as a team at the mountain. We share dormitories EVEN beds, men and women. There’s trust. Names don’t matter, welfare is paramount. That’s life in the mountain. We’re family.

We were up by 1am on summit night. The plan was to watch the sunrise on top of Mount Fuji at 04h30 just like I had planned. We put on our gear and got ready. It was a reminder of Mount Kilimanjaro, that summit night when we all have silent conversations with ourselves asking “Why the hell are we doing this?”

Miles, the head guide explained the plan for the summit. We would do a zig zag resting at five corners to make it up the peak by 04h30. Ok Miles, the last time we did this was 2015 with Stanley in Kilimanjaro. True to form, we formed a straight line one behind the other, overdressed walking silently like zombies. Pole pole!

There were lights up the mountain, other teams were already up. Bloody hell. I kept my focus on Miles’ feet. I did not want to imagine how long and hard the journey was going to be. He led with a comfortable pace, kudos to him for this. He does this every other day, he knew exactly how to make a piece meal out of this mountain.

We reached the summit at 4am. 

                

  Yes amahili-hili did that. This team I have taken to war TWICE and secured victory both        times. I’d kill and die for this two.


                                                 MT FUJI SUMMIT 

 

As for our parents, yes we WILL do this again. Please accept our apologies in advance & do start praying

We were already in Asia, why not kill two birds with one stone. Why not summit the Great Wall of China as well? 

Rewind….

Let us talk about pain following Mount Fuji. For a good 3 days we could not walk. We were in so much pain. We despised even seeing stairs. We would stop and debate whether it was really important to go the next floor. We waited for the lift no matter how long it took or walk until we found escalators. The struggle was real.

 

Do not be fooled by smiles, we were spitting profanity throughout these pictures

That’s my brother acting a fool at the Sumo museum

                                                                                                                                                            

We landed in China. The culture was totally different. Japanese people were different man. We were easily the only blacks throughout our stay there but not even once did we feel different. In fact Japan felt more like Johannesburg or New York. Many nationalities gathered there. I mentioned New York specifically because I finally got the chance to pose next to the Statue of Liberty. I missed the statue both times in NY. Main reason being I had to take a cruise to get closer and I was broke both times. I was not prepared to spend money on a cruise.
                                               

         
LEG DAY IN TOKYO 

Tokyo Times Squre

Back to China, Beijing 
Our guide collected us at the hotel to the Great Wall, a 2hour drive got us to the beginning of the trail. We had totally underestimated this hike. Wrong gear, bad time estimates. It was a mess. I hiked in sandals and carried sneakers to change when things got too bad. It had rained a few days earlier, the trail was muddy. Sigh 

 

 
                         

 Sandals snapped of course. 

We reached the summit a good 5hours later. It was beautiful despite gross unpreparedness on our part. We’ll do better next time, if I ever make it back East. It is not my most favourite continent.

Today I can safely say The Power of Three conquered Mount Kilimanjaro; Mount Fuji; Great Wall of China. That’s power!!! That is strength!!!

 HIGHLIGHTS/LOWLIGHTS/OBSERVATIONS

Let’s go back to the contrast between the two cities: Tokyo & Beijing. 

Beijing, depending on your emotional intelligence was rather unpleasant on different levels. I visited Beijing the first time in 2015. I had a big afro and thought that was the reason behind constant giggles everywhere I went. I was like an animal in the zoo, for people’s amusement. Some took selfies probably to post on Instagram “Look I met leal monkey” shrug

There were three of us this time and I had warned the mates. Same reaction, we found some stealing pics. Every now and then I’d shout Michael Jackson hoping it would trigger their memory. Nothing. Did I mention Google and all social media is blocked in China? Experts say there are ways of bypassing this but I know better than breaking the law in a foreign country so we survived on SMS and calls

One would think with South Africa and China being part of BRICS, there would be better relations. Chinese would be better sensitised to Africans but nope. South Africa we are looking into introducing Mandarin as an official language yet Chinese know very little about us.

The President of China and his entire administration need to do better.

Japanese on the other hand were always glad to help and treated us no different. We comfortably approached people when we could not find our way cos we're tourists that depend solely on street maps and public transport. Tokyo is absolutely beautiful. It is like they took the most famous landmarks across the world and duplicated them. I’m shocked they don’t have Table Mountain LOL! 

As much as they did not speak perfect English they were very helpful and it sometimes felt uncomfortable how often they laugh while giving you service. At first I thought they were doing it for tips, NO. They’re simply doing their job nothing more.

There was an incident that made our entire trip. The three of us are all about food. We EAT, OK? We eat!!! No we don’t eat nonsense we otherwise wouldn’t look this good but food must be available. On the morning of Mount Fuji we were to leave the hotel rather early so my brother went to ask reception to pack our breakfast for us as take away. By his account this is how the conversation went

Brother: (Showing the guy a downloaded picture of sandwiches; fruit and yoghurt to avoid confusion)

Please pack for tomorrow. Us, 3 of us. Room 102/103

Reception: No, no understand. No, no pack. Breakfast 6h30

Brother: Tomorrow, no egg, no bacon, fruit, yoghurt, pack

Reception: No, no pack Sir, no understand breakfast 6h30

My brother insisted on this broken English, just the key words to get the message across. The guy was getting rather agitated. He got so worked up he started speaking perfect English

Reception: Look IN JAPAN, we follow rules. Our breakfast starts at 6h30. We therefore cannot make special arrangements for you

LOL!!! It became our thing “In Jap-HEN” imitating the Japanese accent.

To the people of Japan Arigatou; 

The Democratic People's Republic of China, xie xie

and Thank you for reading