Mt. Fuji

Posted on August 12, 2007 by Kate

So…we hiked the thing. DJ and I planned to hike the Fujiyomiya route which is supposed to take 4-6 hours. We left the house Friday at 5pm and planned to start hiking when we got there (about a 4 hour trip from home). Then we’d be at the top for sunrise and hike down first thing in the morning. Well…things did not go as well as planned. We got to the bus station and the buses had stopped running. So…we told the cab driver where we wanted to go and he took us there. Except it wasn’t really there. He took us to the Gotemba route. This route is 1000 meters (3,380 ft.) lower than where we wanted to start. They say that “this is by far the lowest 5th Station, and the ascent to the summit is accordingly much longer than from the other 5th stations”. They also say that it takes about 7-10 hours to hike it. Well…they would be wrong. At least for me, they were.

So we started hiking at 10pm and reached the fifth station at 10:30 or 11pm. Around 1am is when I started to feel sick. Looking back on it, I’m sure it was altitude sickness. I’ve never been this high and was feeling pretty crappy. But, we powered through it and I just got slower and slower. Most people climb in the afternoon, find a hut and sleep for a couple of hours and then finish the ascent in the early morning hours. Had I gotten some sleep, I’m sure I would have had more strength as well. Sunrise was at 4am and we were still hiking up. At 11am we reached a station and had a cup of noodles and continued on. We subsisted on energy bars and that cup of soup for 22 hours. We reached the summit at 4:00pm and took some pictures. I had run out of water awhile ago and was looking for a place to buy some, but there wasn’t any to be found. I asked a guy where I could buy something and he said that there wasn’t anyone selling anything and he gave me a bottle of Pocari Sweat. It’s basically Gatorade and I have never been so thankful for the kindness of strangers as I was on that day. And so we started down the path that we originally wanted to climb up at 4:30pm. Due to the amount of people climbing up, we had long lines and jammed pathways, so it took us about 5 hours to come back down.

Once we got to the bottom of the hill at 9:30pm, we found that the last bus had left at 8:00pm. So our only option was a cab. $90 later we were at the train station and making our way back home. We were talking about the food that we would eat and how amazing it would be to be back in our own beds. And then we got to a station in which we were supposed to switch to the Tokaido line in order to get home, but there were no more trains. So we took a $70 cab ride to the connecting station only to find that they had stopped running as well. We looked at five different hotels to no avail and that took until 1am. The first train left at 4:34, so we just found a bench and rested until the first train. We finally got home at 7am on Sunday morning and went to right sleep. We slept until 1pm and then had some lunch, which I couldn’t keep down. Having had nothing but horrible energy bars (if I never see another bar like those it’ll be too soon) and a cup of noodles in three days of strenuous climbing, my stomach was pretty sensitive. We’re doing better today and glad to be done. My face, neck and the tops of my hands are burnt pretty badly and I’m sore as all get out, but I’ve never been more happy to be done with something as I am with that climb. It was the most grueling experience I’ve ever been through.

DJ was extremely helpful getting me up and down that mountain, though. If I had any doubts about him being there for me when I need it most, they’re gone now. It was very humbling and I thought more than once, “this is what being broken by a mountain feels like.” I cried, I didn’t sleep, I hardly ate, I ran out of water. Being on the mountain and being completely run down, but knowing that if I didn’t keep moving that I could actually die up there….was an interesting feeling. DJ said at the end though….”if you can do that, then you have no right to say that you’re not athletic. It was hard, but you did it and you can do anything after that.” I think he’s right.

With Feeling

Posted on August 5, 2007 by Kate

What exactly IS improvised feeling?

The window says, if you can’t see it…”Open your Umbrella with improvised Feeling.”

Sweet

Posted on August 5, 2007 by Kate

I don’t know! What ARE we having for Sweet?

Bourbon Cake

Posted on August 5, 2007 by Kate

I just think that this is funny. It says: Beautiful things are timeless. Women throughout history have never ceased to yearn for beauty.

Um…ok. Enjoy your cake, then, I guess!

Ginza

Posted on August 5, 2007 by Kate

DJ and I went strolling through Tokyo again yesterday. We had a pretty good time. We wandered all around the city again and spent about six hours walking in the hot and humid weather. We were gone about eight hours so I think I can safely say we walked for at least six of them. We finally saw the Imperial Palace and gardens. Kusunoki Masashige was there. And according to Wikipedia, he was a 14th century samurai who fought for Emperor Go-Daigo in his attempt to wrestle rulership of Japan away from the Kamakura shogunate.

As we were wandering around an older Japanese man around 65 or 70 years old stopped us to chat. He wanted to practice his English and when he found out we were American he was really excited to talk to us. After the “where are you from” question, he immediately whipped out a map of the U.S. and found exactly where we were from on the map. He wanted to know why we pronounced Arkansas without the second S and if people from Texas felt pride because Bush was from there. He asked about birth rates and if DJ and I had any kids. We told him no and he seemed extremely concerned about that. He’s worried about the low birthrate in 1st world countries and is very disappointed with the Japanese and their falling birthrate. My favorite part of the conversation happened when he turned to DJ and said, “Are you proud that your wife is so pleasing…no…beautiful? Are you a good husband and tell her often that she is beautiful in the morning and once in the afternoon and again in the evening?! You should do this! You be..should..be a good husband!” And then he turned to me and said, “Your skin is so lovely and you have such a beautiful appearance. You should know that your face is very appeasing…no…appealing to the Japanese man’s eye.” And he turned back to DJ and said, “I envy you for such a beautiful wife.” Hahaha. And so, of course, as we got back home I announced, “it’s evening and you haven’t told me yet how beautiful I am. You should be a good husband and say this!” I’ll probably never hear it again after this!

We got some sushi for lunch and I totally fell in love with one of the pieces of fish we were served. It’s called Hirame (halibut) and we didn’t eat it with soy sauce because he squeezed lemon over it and put salt on top. YUM. Dinner was Indian at our favorite place in Ginza. We’ve been three times now.

We also wandered through a lovely park and got a beer. That was good..DJ was very happy with his Kilkenney. Later we stumbled upon the Sony building and outside is an aquarium. We took a bunch of pictures and some film. It was really quite amazing to see all the fish as we were walking around outside. They had some music blaring and of course you can hear the entire electronic city buzzing as you’re walking around down there. All the buildings are brightly lit up and they have a huge television screen playing commercials and all kinds of stuff. DJ took this video as we were walking across the intersection. It’s not that great, but I thought Mom might find it interesting since she’ll be here soon. She’ll actually get to see the city all crazy and loud.