Japan part last

o7/31/2009

In our last 2 weeks in Japan we:
1. Conquered Fuji (kind of)
2. Went to our first Japanese baseball game (It was fun for a little while but really -- who can stand watching an entire game of baseball? Not I! )
3. Saw the BEST art exhibit EVER (by Japanese artist Seiji Fujishiro who works completely by cutting and pasting various types/textures of paper)
4. Went inside the largest wooden structure in the world (Todaiji Temple in Nara City)
5. Said lots of goodbyes ...

But Fuji probably makes the most interesting story.

It is said that only a fool never climbs Fuji ... or climbs it twice.
We decided to start climbing in the dead of night so that we could reach the peak in time to watch the sunrise. Japan is, after all, the Land of the Rising Sun. Fuji has 10 stations - the first being the base and the 10th being the top - and most people (ourselves included) start from the 5th station. There is in fact a bus that will take you straight to the 5th station, and so began our trek. We started out at about 9PM and had a really pleasant hike and made good time all the way up to the 8th station. At the 8th station, however, we realized several things: it was cold and getting colder, it was wet and getting wetter, everyone around us had waterproof pants and jackets, and we were wet and cold and had waterproof jackets but regular pants. Not to be daunted by such things we pressed on anyway, only to realize that we were indeed ill-prepared.

By the time we left the 8th station (about 1:30 AM) it was so cloudy and wet that Ian's glasses were completely fogged up. It was still pitch dark outside so I was directing him where to walk as we made our way up. In most places it was so steep that we had to hold on to a guard-rope... unfortunately this guard rope was wet, which in turn soaked through my gloves, which in turn froze my hands and was definitely uncomfortable. We both had on gore-tex shoes and heavy smart-wool socks, but our feet were frigid nonetheless. We realized that freezing and blind is no way to climb a 13,000 foot mountain (not safely anyway) and so at the 1/2 way point to the 9th station we had to head back down.

On the way down we were hit with strong winds, then rain, then torrential rain, and finally, hail. It was really not ideal!
Luckily we made it all the way down in one piece and our Nikon D300 camera was none-the-worse for having been rained and hailed upon (we discovered that our waterproof bags were not actually waterproof). As it turns out, none of the people who actually made it to the peak that day saw the sunrise either because it was too cloudy!

So in the end, we really didn't miss that much by not going to the peak, we had a fabulous time (rain and hail aside!) and we're already looking forward to Fuji Climb part 2: the Revenge!