Living in Japan: September 2007

(not serious) car trouble

After work today, we had an enkai for the English teachers at my school. After dinner, we decided to go out for some karaoke. There were 4 cars following each other to a place that one of the teachers recommended.

So we're all driving along when, in the middle of a busy road, my car suddenly stops.... The two cars behind me pull over to ask why I stopped, seeing as how we're not anywhere near a karaoke place......

My car ran out of gas!!

One of my friends drove over to the nearest gas station to pick up some gas for us. thank goodness I was not on my own!

In the meantime, we sat on the side of the road, waiting...and I thought I'd take a picture to remember the moment.

Was a fun night indeed!

Tokyo / Mount Fuji Trip (Sept 15-18)

I spent the long weekend up in Tokyo (a birthday treat to myself :) ) where May, Sunil and I climbed to the top of Mount Fuji!

After doing a little research online in preparation for the climb, I discovered that the date that we had chosen to do the climb fell outside of the official climbing season. And according to some sites, attempting to get to the top outside of the ‘official climbing season’ can be very dangerous for novice hikers. Seeing as how none of the three of us have any experience in hiking mountains whatsoever, this didn’t sit too well with me…but then, it wasn’t like we were trying to climb the mountain too far outside of the climbing season (ie December or January). I wasn’t sure what kind of equipment we would need, but decided I wouldn’t stress too much about gear.

The evening I arrived in Tokyo, we went straight to dinner followed by karaoke!

We made it home a little late, and set up the next morning for the 4 hour bus ride that would bring us to our starting point: Kawaguchiko 5th Station, in the Yamanashi Prefecture.

We started out at around 4:30pm. Along the way, we met three friendly Thai guys who we ended up climbing with till the 8th station.

The first couple of hours of the hike up were pretty easy. But once we reached the 7th station, it all changed. By then it had gotten dark, was much cooler and windier, and the climb became much steeper. From this point on, we were climbing rocks and boulders on a much steeper incline.

We arrived at the hut on the 8th station around 9:30pm, wet (at times, there was a slight drizzle) and exhausted. We stayed the night in the one and only hut that was still open on the 8th station.

The next morning at 2:30am, we got up feeling exhausted, still wet, and in my and Sunil's case with a massive headache. After spending a little time outside to get fresh air, the headache didn’t seem as bad.

We decided to carry on to the top. From the hut, it took another 2 hours or so to reach the summit.

We finally made it to the top of Mount Fuji (3 776 m or 12 388 feet), in time to see the sunrise!

It was a gorgeous sight, felt like we were on top of the world. The wind was so strong at the top, I was a little worried of being blown off the side when too close to the edges.

The walk down was much more difficult than the climb up. I found walking down the zigzag path covered in dried lava pieces of various sizes very taxing on the legs.

It took us a good 4 hours or so to get back to our starting point. The next day, before catching my afternoon flight back to Nagasaki, we went out to a Persian restaurant, and they had gormeh sahbzi!! We had a little extra time, so also squeezed in some purikura, always lots of fun :)

May, thank you for everything this weekend!!!http://www.flickr.com/photos/68681530@N00/sets/72157602089750823/