A stay in Japan just wouldn't be complete without a visit to the most commonly photographed, most visible mountain in the country: Mt. Fuji. I made the trek in the summer with my German friend Andy and his Japanese friend Kunji. We of course wanted to go as cheap as possible so we used the ju-hachi kippu and the slow trains, leaving Fukuoka one night and arriving at the base of the mountain the next evening just before dark. We wanted to begin our ascent in the late hours of night so that we could take our time and arrive just before sunrise, which is supposed to be absolutely beautiful up top. We did just that, and despite the fact it was the middle of the summer, we froze our butts off with 3 layers of clothing on. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the summit and waited an hour in the freezing cold for the sun to rise, we noticed that the clouds around us were preventing us from seeing anything. So it just became lighter and lighter outside, but all we could see were the other disappointed people 5 feet in front of us there freezing their butts off too. It was a rather pathetic site, but I really didn't care I was so cold and exhausted at that point.

That's not to say the trip wasn't a lot of fun. Despite freezing for several hours at the top of the mountain and being deprived of sleep for two days straight, we walked (and ran at times) down the mountain with smiles on our faces. This may partially be due to the fact that two very cool Australian girls we met on the climb up stayed with us and went all the way back to the train station with us. They lived in Osaka and worked at some amusement park, which they arranged through some sort of exchange. We also met several other foreigners on our way up the mountain. I personally thought Andy and Kunji were a bit slow, so I hiked on ahead for an hour or two and met all sorts of amusing people along the way. First I struck up a conversation with five Japanese guys about my age and we talked for a good 15 minutes about American women with big hooters. About that time two well-endowed ladies whom I would have the pleasure of meeting up at the summit walked by and the young men almost fell off the mountain. They just couldn't believe that breasts could get so large, and they seemed to be especially fond of Pamela Anderson. They were pretty funny guys, but I had to leave when they asked to see a picture of my sister. Next I met two girls from Norway who were taking a few months off from freezing their butts off in Scandanavia to travel around Asia. They were rather dull people, but I imagine the permanent lack of sun and warmth would dull just about anyone's sense of humor. They were very nice though, lending me toilet paper at one of the rest stops so I wouldn't have to gather leaves.

I eventually began to worry about my friends, so I plopped down on a bench at the next rest stop and curled up into a ball to keep warm, waiting to see if my friends were still alive. They eventually made it to the rest stop with the two Australian girls mentioned above in tow. The five of us climbed the rest of the way together, arriving at the top at about 4 AM. The little restaurant at the top opened at about 5 AM, so we all huddled up together in there and ate the most expensive, foul-tasting ramen I've ever had. The two well-endowed ladies the Japanese guys had been admiring earlier sat down next to us, and the one next to me asked me how to order coffee in Japanese. She spoke perfect English with a slight accent that I couldn't place, and I was almost positive that she was a native speaker. I talked to her and her friend a bit longer, eventually discovering that they were Dutch stewardesses who had a few days to spend in Japan before they had to fly back to the Netherlands. To this day I'm still impressed at how well the Dutch have mastered the English language, and these two ladies were certainly no exception to this.

An hour or two after sunrise we realized the clouds wouldn't be clearing for a while, so after my German friend wrote out and mailed about 30 postcards from the post office at the top, we headed back down the backside of the mountain. I highly recommend that anyone who does have the opportunity to climb Mt. Fuji to take the backside down, the reason for this being that there is a very soft black sand about halfway down the mountain that is incredibly fun to run through at high speeds. In fact, you could make it down the mountain in no time without any real danger of hurting yourself by just trucking down this part of the mountain at top speed. We tried this for short intervals, but the only problem was that unless you had really tight-fitting shoes, the black sand would get lodged in there and make your feet very uncomfortable. Pretty soon we got tired of the running thing, but discovered that jumping was a lot of fun. We took turns taking pictures of us jumping in midair with my camera.

When we finally got to the bottom, we bought some snacks at the little store there in front of the bus stop. We got tired of waiting for the bus and inquired to the nearest taxi driver about taxi fare to the nearest train station. It actually turned out to be the same price since their were five of us, so we squeezed into the taxi and headed for the station, most of us fast asleep within a few minutes. At the station we got on the same train headed back towards Osaka and Fukuoka, but soon had to split up with the Aussies and head our separate ways. We arrived in Osaka several hours before our overnight train departed, so we wandered around the city for awhile and had some fun. We got back to Fukuoka in the morning, at which point I dragged myself home and collapsed on my futon, sleeping most of the day and only getting up for food and potty breaks. It was one of the most exhausting trips I took in Japan, but also one of the most rewarding.

Just click on the link below to see the pictures from my Mt. Fuji trip: