Japan - Day 17 - To Mount Fuji

On Tuesday afternoon, my friend Yosuke and I decided to climb Mt Fuji. It was such a last minute thing! We just upped and went. Took the 7.50pm bus from Shinjuku to the 5th station of Mount Fuji (2400m). We bought some food at the store before starting on the path up at 10.30pm. Man it was so dark I was scared! So we conveniently attached ourselves to some ojisans and obasans who had done the climb before and moved as a group. I was really unused to the darkness at first. There was really zero light except for the weak rays from our torches. As I walked along though, it started to feel really cool. Here I was away from the city, surrounded by nothing but forest and rocks. I had never seen so many stars in the sky before. I knew that city lights make the stars appear dim but I never imagined that there were so many up there.

As we climbed up, we took some water breaks. We just sat down on the rocks we were climbing and looked up at the sky. It was such a glorious sight :) We got to the 6th station in a pretty short time and moved onto the 7th station. The segment between the 7th and 8th station was gonna be challenging though, cos it was gonna be a 100 minute climb. Steeper too. By the time I reached the 8th station I was really cold. I was only wearing thin 3/4 pants cos I had no idea it would be this cold. The wind was really sucking heat from the exposed part of my legs. I chose to sleep for a couple of hours in the rest hut while Yosuke went on climbing. It was so cold even in the rest hut, I slept in 2 sleeping bags. Me inside one, and my sleeping bag encased in another.

See day 18 for the continuation of the story! Unfortunately, crazy photo taking Valerie forgot to bring her memory card though she charged both camera batteries fully in anticipation of some good photo taking opportunities. Discovering that fact was the worst part! Hope my pictures will be emailed to me soon by Rebecca, a Californian I met on the way up and who kindly offered to take some pictures for me. Watch this space.