LUSH! Why have I never heard of them before? I've been missing out. When we were strolling around Roppongi in Tokyo we happened upon this handmade cosmetics store. The other girls knew about this, but I was a Lush neophyte. This Lush in Japan was pretty incredible, but everything was in Japanese so I only had my nose to guide me. There was a store lady there who spoke a bit of English, but for the most part we had to figure it out for ourselves.
They had a huge table covered with giant hunks of soap. These smelled incredible, but I fell in love with one in particular. I loved the smell. It turns out it was the Figs and Leaves soap. The website explains that figs are wonderfully nutritious and good for your body, and their little brown seeds exfoliate the skin and aloe vera extract has soothing properties. The scent is the best part: floral, orange blossom and ylang ylang "with an undertone of eastern exoticism." Lush claims this "soap is one of our sexiest." No wonder I loved the smell of it! I also love that this soap is vegan. I also bought this Vanilla and Jasmine bath bomb. I haven't used it yet, but it smells incredible.
I bought a Gorilla Perfume stick that is like a push pop that you can rub on your skin. I love the smell, but I have no idea which sent I bought. Mine is a bit sweet like honey or vanilla. My girlfriend is a huge fan of Karma, with a fabulous spicy sent.
My friend also bought this amazing charcoal face stuff. It is supposed to brighten the skin and it leaves it silky smooth! I don't see this on the American Lush website. It may just be a Japanese thing. The Japanese ladies are really big on the skin lighteners and I know that they use charcoal soaps for that.
Reasons I love Lush: They make products from fresh, organic fruit and vegetables, the finest essential oils and safe synthetics. They make them fresh by hand using little or no preservatives or packaging, using only vegetarian ingredients, and they do not test on animals.
Tokyo is fabulous. I got the chance to stay in Tokyo again last week for our Fuji Adventure. We were in Tokyo for 5 days and we had a ton of fun. I got to stay at the wonderful New Sanno Hotel again. I absolutely love this place. We walked around our hotel area, shopping and eating as we went along.
We also got to spend some much needed down time at the hotel pool and hot tub and booked ourselves spa treatments. I treated myself to a massage and facial. The facials there are fantastic in case you ever get the chance!!
We went out exploring. We rode the subway system like pros and oogled the Harajuku girls in the Harajuku shopping and entertainment district. We went shopping at rare commodities such as Forever21, Gap and H&M.
I fell in love with the Roppongi area. Loved it. We did more exploring, shopping, had amazing views of the Tokyo Tower, and drank margaritas at the Hard Rock Cafe.
We got really lucky and there happened to be a Blue Man Group show the night we were in Roppongi. We got "poncho seat" tickets right up front, so we had to cover up with plastic in case some of the Blue Man paint should fly on us. It was a weird, but really fun show!
Last Saturday at this time I was slogging up (or down) the massive Mount Fuji. I cannot even tell you how amazing it is NOT to be on that mountain today and be warm, dry and not feeling like I might die. Ok, so here we go. I will tell you the adventure of my Mt Fuji struggle.
My girlfriends Becky and Brandy (and her friend from the States, Deb) invited me to go along with them first to Tokyo and then onto Mt Fuji and I excitedly said yes! It was something on my Must-Do-Before-Leaving-Japan list. So, we booked the trip and bought some hiking boots. So, August got really busy. I had tons going on at work and then my friend suddenly came to visit. Never once did I google Mt Fuji or do more than ask a few people who had done it before what they thought of it. I figured I was in good shape, I can run like 8 miles right now, so I'll be fine. We got a list of things to bring on this trip and I really hadn't even looked at it until I was packing the night before and really didn't worry about it. Wrong! I was SO not prepared for this hike.
#1 I hadn't looked at maps or anything prior to arriving on this mountain. I figured kids and grandparents did this hike, it was easy... we got lost TWICE.
#2 I didn't pack appropriate gear. The weather on Fuji changes incredibly quickly. It was cold. It was pouring down rain. Nothing I had was waterproof. Or all that warm. This made for a horribly uncomfortable hike (understatement of the year).
#3 This hike is challenging. It was not easy. In fact it was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
Our bus left Tokyo for Mt Fuji at 2:30 in the morning. Yes, 2:30 am. It took about 2.5 hours to get over to Mt Fuji so we started our hike at about 6am. There are a bunch of different trails to get up and down this mountain. They range in difficulty. We were supposed to take the yellow trail all the way. Well, right off the bat in the start of our hike, back when we actually still were excited about the whole thing, we took the wrong fork in the trail and ended up going the wrong way. Oops. We probably should have realized we were going down when we were supposed to be hiking up the dang thing. Anyway, we got back on track and it immediately sucked. It was like stairmaster hell. It was tough going and it only got harder. The trail has all these stops where you can take breaks and get your Fuji stick stamped. Well, from station 5-6 is long. Really long and a huge wake up call for people like us who thought this would be a walk in the park. We started looking at each other and exclaiming "This is HARD!" and "oh no, I immediately regret this decision." We kept going up and up. The stations started getting more frequent and we started racking up the stamps.
Meanwhile, the trail is super crowded. You can only really hike this trail during July and August, and we did it the last weekend in August, so it was packed. When the going gets hard I start going fast. I just want to get it over with as quickly as possible. This has always been my hiking method and mentality (my sister and husband can totally attest to this annoying habit of mine). Fuji is 2.34 miles above sea level, so we were all feeling the strain on our lungs. I/we are passing people left and right, scrambling up the sides of the "trail" on hands, feet and knees if necessary while trying not to fall to our deaths off the side of the mountain. In the US we get so accustomed to railings and safety. This mountain sometimes had ropes guiding the way of the trail but those babies would do nothing if you were to fall. There was nothing between you and death. In fact on average 3 people die on Fuji every year.
And to top off this situation it was a cloudy and misty mess. We couldn't see any of the amazing views that Mt Fuji offers. We were in the middle of an annoying wet, cold cloud. But, it got worse, so much worse. We kept going up and up past stations 8 a, b, c and d (these stations just kept going on and on and we were like "ummm come on seriously we have to be to 10 by now!") and we are getting our stamps and slogging up and up the rocky mountain cliff face. We keep going and we felt like we couldn't be that far off. We asked a friendly stick stamper how much further and when he announces an hour/hour and a half we all want to cry! Around this time the sky opened up. It starts doing this icy, cold, bone penetrating rain. We whip out our jackets and ponchos and try and cover up as best we can. I was wet to the bone in minutes. Completely soaking wet. Miserable. So the huge finale of getting to the summit was completely lost on us unfortunately. We were running up the mountain at this point and knew that the summit would have shelter and something hot to drink. My hands were numb. My feet were squishing in my boots, my whole body was so wet and cold! We couldn't see anything. We could hardly see a foot in front of our face it was so foggy and rainy. We got under some shelter and with shaking hands took our group summit pictures and got our final summit stamps on our Fuji sticks. We found a seat in the completely packed noodle shop and got hot coffee and soup to try and warm us up. We expected temperatures of about 40F, but with the rain and wind I know it was way colder than that. But, we did it! We were on the top of Mt Fuji! All 3,776 meters or 12,388.45 feet of it.
So, here are the facts. Elevation rise of 12,388 feet, it has a circumference of 78 miles and a diameter of 30 miles. I climbed from station 5 to station 10. It usually takes 8 to ascend and another 4 to descend. We got to the top in just over 6 hours.
This point of the hike was so incredibly mentally challenging for me. I was so tired, sore and miserably wet and cold, but knew it would be hours before I could get warm and dry and I knew that the way down was going to be even more challenging. There was no other option. I had to get myself down that mountain. So, we went back out in the rain and started our decent. Very soon we were confused. We saw a trail that veered off, but it was a red trail, not yellow. And might I add that all these color trails have multiple sub trails all with different names. So, we wanted the yellow trail, but had to pick the right yellow trail. And this trail led us back to the same trail we came up on. Were we supposed to take the same trail down as we did coming up? We didn't think so... but what else is there? That red trail?? We tried asking, but had no luck there. We were out on top of this mountain in the rain looking at maps and I started shaking so bad and for a minute I really thought I was going to be on that I Shouldn't Be Alive show. Words like hypothermia kept ringing through my head. We had to keep moving to stay warm-ish. We figured out (after the fact) that you could have taken that red trail down, but we took the yellow trail down the same way we came up (super challenging by the way) and then at the station 8 hotel our trail veered off again for the actual decent trail.
Going down was no less than awful. At first when we were going down the same trail we went up the "steps" were huge and full of loose rocks. You had to get yourself safely down these natural monster steps and straight down the mountain. After the trail split off it was even harder going. The trail consisted of extremely steep switch backs down the mountain and the footing was rocky. Big rocks, little rocks, all of them moved and shifted when you took a step. At first we started running down this decent trail, but after slipping, falling and almost careening off the side of the mountain we had to slow down. These switchbacks seemed never ending. On the way up at least we had all those stations to break it up a bit. The decent was awful. It seriously felt like my toenails were floating around my sock somewhere. And The loose, gritty red and black volcanic pumice on the descending route got everywhere on my rain soaked and frozen body from head to toe.
On the up side, on our way down the sun miraculously appeared! When that sun came out I think my whole mind, body and soul drank up every second! It was beautiful and most importantly warm. We stopped and snapped a bunch of pictures. That bit of sun was incredible. I only wish we had been able to have some sun at the summit, but I gladly took that little bit we got.
When we finally got back to the bottom I celebrated with a change into dry clothes and we shared a Fuji cake. I'm not going to lie, I was hurting. My body was upset with me! I got this horrible charlie horse in my right calf that made me seriously consider that I had ripped or torn something in there. That pain pretty much eclipsed all my other pains in my feet, knees, hips, butt, and shoulders. How do kids and old people do this hike?! Oh my gosh it was horrible! The hike was challenging enough, but the rain and cold was too much. It was quite a mental and physical feat for me. We may have been miserable, but I tell you what... We laughed so much up and down that mountain. It was either laugh or cry. I will never ever forget that hike and the ladies I got to experience that hell with. I'm glad I did it, but I will never do it again!
So take my advice: plan ahead and do your research, pack your gear light and wear waterproof everything and mentally prepare for a long day (and day after) of pain!
Introducing my new favorite restaurant on Okinawa: Ukishima Garden!
Ukishima is 100% organic and vegetarian. All the veggies are locally grown and most dishes are macrobiotic. No meat, fish, eggs, or dairy are used in most of the dishes. And to top it off they have a great selection of organic wines!
Hope found a brochure for this restaurant while we were having bagels at Cactus Eatrip. We immediately called for a dinner reservation that night. We were so excited and weren't disappointed. We both knew we wanted to indulge in the organic wine, so we took a cab ride from Kinser and the poor cab driver had to all the restaurant twice to figure out where they were located (even though the location did not seem hard to find so close to Kokousai Street).
At the restaurant we completely indulged. We ordered a fresh, crisp salad that was picked from their very own garden out back. We also ordered an appetizer of Orion beer battered veggie fritters that were also so incredibly flavorful and yummy. We both got the amazing veggie pasta with a tomato cream sauce for our main dishes. We had pieces of sugar and dairy free hazelnut and chocolate cake for dessert. How they got that cake to be so incredibly good without butter and sugar is beyond me! To top it off we first ordered a bottle of sweet sparkling wine and lingered so long over our delish meal that we ended up splurging with a second bottle of Riesling. (Good thing we had already decided to take a cab!) It was an incredible meal and I will be going back for sure!!
Ukishima Garden is located in Naha near Kokousai Street. 1400 - 1800 cafe time. 1800 - 2400 dinner time. The address is 1-12-3 Matsuo Naha Okinawa 900-0014. Phone for directions or reservations: 098-943-2100.
While my friend was visiting she requested that we go to the Arin Krin Garlic House Restaurant. I had gone once before when we first got to the island and wasn't impressed and never went back. But, of course I was more than willing to try it again with my visitor.
After having quite a time waiting for a parking spot and parking in their tiny lot we went in and ordered some of the dishes that got raving reviews online such as the garlic pizza, shrimp spring rolls, and fried mashed potatoes. We also ordered a dish described as octopus and asparagus with garlic sauce. We're thinking calamari... ummm no, not so much. This dish came out from the kitchen wriggling. As in alive. We were horrified. The octopus was chopped up and it looked like it's skin had been shaved off and these shavings were waving and moving around on the plate. Nightmare central.
During our entire meal (meal that did not include any of the octopus dish) we watched this poor octopus slowly die a second death. My friend is a vegetarian and I'm not far behind, so we were appalled, but my science mind was at work. I knew it couldn't really be alive alive. After some poking around on the internet and you tube it turns out that soy sauce reanimates the dead tissue of the octopus, squid etc and makes it move. Zombie octopus!
So, if you go to Arin Krin and want to loose your appetite order the octopus and asparagus dish. Otherwise, I'd just stick to the meat and wriggle free garlic pizza.
My little sister from my college sorority came to visit me in Okinawa last week! She was the first visitor I've had and it was great to finally use my guest room and take her around to my favorite Oki sights.
We had a totally jam packed week. Since we only had about a week we had to be picky on what made the list of Top Must Sees.
Aquarium - duh. This place rocks. Dolphin/whale show, sea turtles, sea horses and a giant, huge floor to ceiling aquarium tank. Awesomeness.
Pineapple Park - pineapple wine tasting, pineapple ice cream and free samples! I have yet to buy a ticket to the park, I just like going to the store area and sampling. Is this bad?! The store is huge and sells mass quantities of everything pineapple. We came away with some sweet sparkling pineapple wine, pineapple chocolate covered pineapple cookies, and a dragon fruit.
Bagels at Cactus Eatrip Sam's By the Sea Transit Pizza in the Sky Arin Krin Garlic House - I have a horrifying story to tell you about our meal here.
Ukishima Garden - this is my new favorite place. I love it so much it will get a post all to itself!
It was an incredibly busy and fun week. Even though I still worked, I feel like I got a stay-cation during her vacation. It was wonderful getting to catch up with my dear friend again. I took a ton of pictures, but here is a slideshow movie of some of my favorites.
Right now I need to be packing and getting ready for my Mt. Fuji trip! My friends and I leave for Tokyo tomorrow morning and climb on Saturday. Wish me luck! I'll tell you all about it when I get back.
Life has been beyond stressful these days. My stress level may be a great weight loss diet, but not so good for my blood pressure and sleep habits. When things like this happen I try and stay focused on the positive and a good friend reminded me tonight that we are never handed more than we can handle. I am so thankful for the positive people in my life, their support and wonderful guidance.
I am also so very thankful for this special horse in my life. These are a few shots from last week, unfortunately it was from the very fist day of breaking in my new boots, so my lower leg is a bit willy-nilly in these pictures. I will blame it on the boots completely. ;)
He is so pretty. And so very special to me. I absolutely adore him. Lovelovelove.
Some more exciting news is that I'm getting a visitor! My little sister from my sorority is coming to visit me and she gets here on Saturday. Lots to do before then to prepare for her visit. It will be so fun to actually get to use my guest room and show someone my favorite Okinawa spots.
