Climbing at T-Wall and NORO UIRUSU! - December 15th

Today was the exhibition for our art class, so I got to ogle the neat works that other people had produced in their various classes. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries before I could get too many photos, but I was able to get a shot of my own creation, the winter mug that started off as a mistake (explained in an earlier entry). It turned out quite nicely, and I got some very nice comments from the other students and teachers about it. いい気にならないように。

Recently, Sousha told me about a few alternatives to pump that we might consider for our climbing excursions after school. Today, we decided to check out T-Wall, a local gym just one stop away from Waseda on the Tozai line. It has a much lower registration fee than Pump, but unfortunately, a daily pass is still 1,000 yen more, and there are no student discounts. Nevertheless, we had gone all the way to climb there, so it would be silly to turn back without giving it a shot.

The gym itself has an excellent array of bouldering walls, but at the same time, a rather ridiculous set of rules to accompany them. The walls are considered to be broken into separate sections, which are most noticeable by their changing degrees of incline. Apparently, climbers can't be trusted to not step on each other, so at any given time, only one climber is allowed per section. This rule has two negative side effects: On the main walls, there's almost always a queue of people waiting to climb (which also makes the person on the wall feel bad for taking so long), and it means that the routes are limited to a certain horizontal latitude, handicapping the creativity of the problem-setters. My other complaint about the gym is the pitiful top-rope section, which was abandoned pretty much all night. If they are going to dedicate so little space to top-roping and lead climbers, they might as well ditch it and expand their already extensive bouldering selection. Despite these negative points, the climbing was still pretty good, and decently rated. The upstairs area is considered more advanced, so it was pretty deserted for most of the evening. Sousha and I spent some time up there challenging the harder problems and making up some of our own.

Towards the end of our climb, my stomach started to bother me. It got pretty bad by the time we left, so I figured I would get home as quickly as possible and battle it out. Unfortunately, that meant walking for 15 minutes back to the station, taking the Tozai line to Baba, then walking another 40 minutes home. On the way back, it was so painful I thought I was going to throw up several times, but through sheer willpower and an unwillingness to be seen throwing up on the sidewalk, I kept my bodily functions in check and somehow managed to get home. I spent the rest of the night in the bathroom in a variety of positions, all uncomfortable. I thought I had food poisoning, but when I told my host sister the next day, she assured me that it was the noro virus, which had been circulating lately (and afflicted her within the past week). They suggested I go to the hospital and get it checked out, but I knew that it would pass pretty soon, so I decided to let my body sort it out.

The next two days I was in pretty bad shape. After my evening of pain, I got a nasty fever that left me bedridden and robbed me of any appetite that might've been left behind by the apparent stomach flu. It was during this time that I wrote the "current thoughts for a change" post; it should be obvious that I was feeling a bit... off. In the end, I recovered within the weekend, which was deemed miraculous and infuriating by everyone who had suffered from the same virus for a whole week. Gaijin immunities for the win!