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We discovered a new sport in Japan: sawa-nobori. Rather than hike up a mountain with all the other white-gloved Japanese hikers, you take along your climbing gear and put on your sawa boots (like climbing boots but with pan scrubber like felt at the bottom) and climb up the river to the mountain top. Great fun during the hot Tokyo summers, and good exercise too, especially since you have to hike all the way back down once you've made it to the top!