At around 1:00 on Wednesday Yuuki, Adon, Tony, Adon's girlfriend Nicole and I packed into Yuuki's car and started our journey to Yamanashi prefecture (one of the prefectures that Fuji is
located in...its so massive its in two of them), which is about 4-5 hours away if you don't get stuck in traffic....which is almost impossible since the major high way we had to go on goes right through Tokyo. Japanese high ways are very interesting. First of all, tolls, tolls, tolls, TOLLS. Oh my goodness TOLLS! You can't drive on a Japanese highway without paying tolls. Now I understand why, when Yuuki lives only 25 km away in Ishioka, why she takes the road that takes an hour to get to Mito for school. To get from Mito to Tokyo alone (and that was only the first 2 hours of the trip) it cost 2500 yen ($30 with the current exchange rate)2nd of all, Japanese highways are quite claustrophobic. Little to no of the "Out on the open road" feeling here. I understand why there were walls closing you in on the high way in Tokyo...their high way system has three-four levels of roads going on at any time...you could essentially have a car driving by the 20th (if not higher) story of some major office buildings at times. However, ever when we were out in more suburban areas like Chiba or Shizuoka, if you weren't blocked in by mountains (Japan is 70% mountainous area), there were walls. And I don't really know why. I
guess Japanese people aren't used to driving on high ways, so they're afraid people, in their inexperience will go through the types of barriers we have back home? You may think I'm making that up, but this was literally Yuuki's first time driving on a high way...and she's 22! She was so scared since they just didn't cover it in driving school. Which to me then begs the question, just what are you paying thousands of dollars for? Tony and I were literally giving her highway driving 101 lessons like how to adjust your mirror so you don't have to turn around the whole way to see if you can switch lanes, how to get over in traffic, that its okay to honk your horn quickly to tell a truck "I'm here!" If he's about to move into your lane and crush you amongst other things. I told her I'm taking her out on PA highways when she comes next spring to visit so she can see how you really drive on a high way.Also, sometimes (frequently) the highways were ONE lane and the speed limit was in the 40s. Beyond weird. No wonder Japanese people take the train every where. It may be more expensive, but at least you don't have to put up with the Japanese highway system.
After many a rest stop, tolls and some getting lost around the base of the mountain, we finally
made it up to go-gome (the fifth station and the highest station you can reach by car at around 7,545 ft..this is essentially where everyone starts) and started our ascent at 9:30 pm after gearing up, using the last bathroom for awhile, and buying my walking stick with a Japanese flag and bear deterrent bell. Since this is a volcano though, and after a certain point the only signs of life are the people hiking, I'm not really sure where these bears were 
supposed to be. The stick is cool and costs about 10-12 dollars, though traditional hiking sticks might give you more support/better grip. As you go up the mountain, at every mountain hut or so there is someone who will burn a stamp for that station into your stick, giving you a time line/story of how far you've gone and what you've accomplished. The down side is that every stamp is 200 yen ><...but it is definitely something you will never find anywhere else. We took the Yoshida trail, which is the only one in Yamanashi Prefecture (the rest are in Shizuoka on the western face of the mountain). Its supposedly the 2nd easiest trail...which leaves me wondering why anyone would want to hike the Subarashi or Gotemba trails, which are more difficult, and the Gotemba trail starts a lot lower than any of the other trails at 4,594 ft! The nice thing about the Yoshida trail is that it is on the eastern side, so even if you don't make it to the summit in time for 
sunrise, you can have a great view from just about anywhere on the trail. I hear that the Fujinomiya trail is a little more popular that Yoshida, but because Fujinomiya is the only trail where the ascending and descending routes are the same (leading it to be a lot more crowded), and because if you don't make it to the summit in time, you won't see the sunrise, I would recommend Yoshida.The hike wasn't that bad when we started, and I figured, so long as I paced myself, I'd be good. The sky was full of stars, the most I've seen in 5 months, and it was be
autiful to see all the clouds rolling slowly and silently over the seemingly glittering towns below us that were turning in for the night, and there was even a red crescent moon hanging almost right above us. It was really beautiful. Once we hit the first mountain hut in the nana-gome range (the seventh station/plateau) is when things really started to get tough. The elevation was beginning to get to me, and suddenly, instead of a path, there was nothing but rocks, leading us to be rock climbing some very slippery volcanic rocks in the dark.There were times where I was climbing up on hands and knees or shimmying up on my stomach and I was reminded so much of why I hated the rock climbing unit in middle school. I was the slowest in the group, and everyone was a really good sport helping me out, especially when the elevation first started getting to me
or whenever I almost slipped and fell backwards down the rocks. I couldn't have made it as far as I did without them. No way!My knees actually help up surprisingly well and actually didn't hurt. It was sincerely just the lack of oxygen that took its toll on me. Adon was a true friend and gentlemen, thinking all my problems stemmed from my knee, and at points insisted on taking my back pack and letting me use his walking stick. He was the best.
However after about an hour and a half of the rock climbing and reaching the 8th station around 3 in the morning (remember that we started at 9:30 at night) I knew I had to call it quits since after two plus hours of elevation sickness, my
symptoms had grown from simply having a hard time catching my breath to nausea, numbness in my face and other parts of my body (like they fell asleep, not like I was cold), not remembering portions of the climb at all, blurred/foggy vision and my eyes rolling in the back of my head...and my tank of oxygen was only doing so much good. I climbed a few more stations so that I was at the station that was closest to the adjoining descending route so I could meet up with the group after they came down from the summit...so at one of the 8th level rest stops, at an elevation of 10,660 ft, just 1,640 ft from the summit, I called it quits. :( We took one last group photo before the rest of the gang went upward and onward to climb the last part of the trail (which despite being only 1,640 ft, still took them 2-3 hours), and I settled down on a bench to take a nap before the sunrise started.I'm disappointed that I couldn't make it, but at the same time, I understand how far I did go
was a major achievement and that going any farther probably would have been really, really dangerous for me. I'm okay with it though, because like I said, since we lucked out and just happened to take the Yoshida trail, we were on the eastern face of the mountain, and I was still able to watch the sunrise from a really great view at one of the 8th station mountain huts. So I can now officially cross that off my bucket list. I climbed Fuji (I never specified whether or not I made it to the top :P) and I got to see the first sunrise in the world for that day (August 5th,2010). It really was beautiful and made the whole hike up worth it :)While I was waiting for the group to call me to say they were heading down so we could meet up (believe it or not, I did occasionally have cell service, and, lucky enough, this place was one of them), I met some pretty interesting people. It never ceases to amaze how these sorts of things happen and the interesting people you meet along the way in life. Around the time of the sunrise, I met a man who had lived in D.C. 17 years ago, and he said that today was his ninth time hiking Fuji. They say that "A wise man climbs Fuji once; a fool climbs it twice." I'm certainly wise enough now to not be a fool...but I wonder what that make this man? A fool 4.5 times over? He was really, really nice though and said that I didn't have to worry, because the view from where I was and the summit wasn't all that different, so I shouldn't worry because there is no way to predict just how badly elevation sickness will effect you.
I also met a British man and his Portuguese friend, and it just so happens that the British man is currently working/studying at the Uni in Hannover! For those of you who don't know, Hannover is where I did two of my home stays in Germany during High school, so it pretty much is like my German hometown. I love that place. It was really funny thinking about it -- meeting a British man on a Japanese mountain, talking about a German town that we both have called or call home. It was combining all of my backgrounds at once and really cool twist of fate. He also gave me some of his mint cake which was delicious and he said what the man who climbed Everest used as his primary source of energy. It certainly left me feeling energized :)
Around 9 AM, the gang called me and we regrouped for the hike down...which in Yuuki and my estimation was a lot harder and a lot more painful than the hike up, especially on my knees. I'd be lying if I said there weren't a few moments of near tears
. The entire hike down was basically a slip and slide of volcanic ash, which led to me constantly, slipping or falling, shaking legs from not being on any form of solid ground, and my knees constantly shifting/falling forward in their sockets. It was a very, very painful 5-6 hours back down. We all collectively agreed that the hike down was harder than the hike up and we would have taken the trail up any day. We also really couldn't see a whole lot since it was a very cloudy day. Remember when in your elementary school science class they burst your little bubble of happy thinking where clouds were fluffy and soft and full or rainbows and happy sunshine, only to tell you that clouds were really just masses of cold wetness? They weren't kidding. We spent basically the whole hike down walking in and out of clouds, so that was an experience in of itself.Also, Fuji has the image of being this beautiful blue and white mountain off in the distance
shrouded in clouds...but that's nothing what it looks like up close. Since this summer was the hottest in the last 90 years or so, there was basically no snow on the mountain and surprisingly...Fuji was...well...red. Very, very red. Especially at the top. This is farther down where it was more brown...but up at the top it was a very striking shade of reddish/orange. It was not at all what I expected.Another thing that really surprised me was how many old people and children were climbing the mountain...and I'm talking five year olds here. This thing was seriously dangerous...and I'm sorry, but in my opinion, if your child has to be kept on a leash, be dragged crying up the mountain and/or their walking stick is twice the size of them, I don't think you should have them climbing volcanic ash at upwards of 10,000 feet where their little lungs may not be able to take the lack of oxygen or they could easily slip and fall. It sincerely did have me worried. It was also bizarre, because there really weren't all that many people climbing that were around our group's age. You'd think that being able bodied teenagers and twenty somethings, most of the hikers would be compromised of our age bracket...but really, we were completely in the minority. It was really something and I have to give serious props to those people who were climbing and were my grandparents age. They have some serious guts.
We finally reached Go-gome and, lacking the energy to be all excited about our big accomplishment or say something philosophical about not conquering mountains, but conquering ourselves, we all quietly stumbled into the car like drunken zombies or something like that. In the end though, it was all about the climb, though I could have done with out the going down part. (:P), and it was a fantastic experience that is something that will be really amazing to tell my kids and I'm really proud that I got to do, since, with my knees being the way they are and have been since childhood, this was not only a once in a lifetime experience, but also a life achievement as well :)
...but that does not mean I'd do it again. Once is enough, thank you very much. Two days later and my body is still sore in places I didn't knew I had, I can't make a fist without all my arm muscles clenching up like I'm gripping a stick and I was still nauseous a day and a half after the climb.
Since we had a big, big, big appetite and were dying for some real food from civilization, we
all almost sent ourselves into a food coma with our dinner/lunch from Big Boy...which is nothing like Big Boy in America. There wasn't a single legitimate cheeseburger on the menu. Sure, there were Hamburg steaks...but I really, really, really wanted a Cheeseburger after that. Oh well, I made due with a Hamburg steak and potato salad.After enough winding roads through clouds to make even our driver carsick, we finally made it to our little Ryoukan (Japanese hotel) in a sleepy town called Yuugawa in the Kanagawa prefecture. Instead of crashing immediately, like normal, sane people probably would have done, we hopped in the onsen to relax and clean off all the dirt, sweat and volcanic ash that we had accumulated over the last two days (my sneakers will never be the same.) Unfortunately, the girl's onsen was way to hot to even considering getting in (we're guessing somewhere around 60-80 degrees Celsius), so we only got to clean ourselves. No hot soak in the tub :(
Later that night, we found out that there was a children's festival a block from the hotel, so
we went to get some cheap Kakigori (shaved ice) and Ramune (Japanese festival soda in a curved glass bottle that is sealed shut by a little marble that you pop out in order to drink it) before hitting the hay....and staying that way for the next 12 straight hours.The next day we packed back into the car (much to Yuuki's chagrin) and said goodbye to Kanagawa and Yamanashi and
headed back on our way to Mito, after stopping for quite possibly the weirdest "breakfast" ever consisting of gyudon from Sukiya and Soft serve from McDonalds. The ride back was a lot more pleasant and docile (though this could have been from the fact that 3/5 of the car was sleeping) and was a lot shorter than our way there. Since we took a different highway from Kanagawa to get to Tokyo 
than we did from Tokyo to Yamanashi, we ended up taking this beautiful highway that wound around the mountains with beautiful picturesque views of the Pacific Ocean (that was actually blue, not brown like Ooarai) for a good 45 minutes before we headed inland to Chiba and ultimately Tokyo. And even getting through Tokyo took a lot less time than before, so we were home in time for me to get dressed in my Yukata and go to the Mito Komon festival fireworks with UNESCO!
Yes, that's right. Instead of just climbing into bed and sleeping like a normal, sane person, I looked up videos on Youtube and taught myself how to dress myself in my Yukata, and walked around Mito in geta (platform wooden sandals) for a couple of hours to watch fireworks. Maybe not my best moment after all that climbing, but it really was fun, and its such a traditional Japanese experience. :)We watched the fireworks from the hill at Kariakuen looking over Senbako (where the fireworks were going off). It was very different from American fireworks. In America, traditionally, once the fireworks start, they do not stop until the very end. With Japanese fireworks, it was off and on for an hour and a half (these things last really long!) They also don't really put them to music, and whatever segments of fireworks
they do put to music aren't choreographed, its just kind of a bunch of fireworks going off while music is playing. But the fireworks themselves...that's the real amazing part. Their fireworks are so much more advanced than ours. They're HUGE. Some of them take up the whole sky! The change colors, break off into other fireworks, and a good deal of them have shapes! I saw ones shaped like a Cat, Doraemon, an Octopus and (we couldn't decided which) either Cherries or Glasses. It was so cool. They also had this really cool effect where they had this ring of fireworks which were kind of like giant sparklers going off so it looked like a waterfall of light pouring into the lake. And then of course they have these huge segments like this where they just set off everything!Well...that about sums up my past couple of day. I have to get going though because I have some serious cleaning to do before I head to the festival today...I'm dancing in the parade by the way! :) More to come on that! See you soon!
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