Keisuke-chan

My climbing buddies are so nice to me! I went climbing on some real rocks today with them. This area has many routes that are still in the process of being made. There are 3 rocks and each one as 3 or 4 routes on the them. Some of the routes haven't been successfully climbed yet. The first person to successfully climb it gets to name it.

So, today we went to rock number 4, which hasn't been climbed at all. It has a lot of nice holds, so it's an easier rock to climb. They let me be the first person to climb it, since the routes would probably be about my level- that way I get to name them.

That also means that I need to figure it out all on my own, which is pretty difficult! I had to choose which holds were good and bad and there was a lot of experimenting. I finished one, it was pretty easy and I am almost done with a second one, which is significantly harder. I named the easy on Keisuke, which turned into Keisuke-chan. Keisuke is a pretty common boys name in Japan.

There is a Japanese historical figure, a diplomat who was one of the first Japanese people to learn English and Dutch, named Ōtori Keisuke. I didn't really know who he was at first, but one of my climbing buddies occasionally calls me Ōdori Keisuke (Ōdori is the Japanese pronunciation of my name). Going with the theme, the harder route will be called Hepburn.

Pretty cool that I'm the first person to climb this rock ever!