Mt Fuji!

Chris and I have wanted to climb Mt Fuji ever since we found out we were headed for Japan. We had heard that the best way to experience Mt Fuji is to climb through the night and reach the top in time to witness the sun rising over Tokyo. Chris had 4 days of leave so we planned our trip so that we could get to Tokyo and climb through the night on Thursday, then head back to our hotel and rest a little bit on Friday so we could have Saturday to explore Tokyo before heading home. Our friend Joe Bob, who arrived in Misawa on the same flight as us, came with us for the trip.

Our plan was to take the train from Misawa to Yokota Air Base (on the outskirts of Tokyo). We left early Thursday morning so we could get into the hotel early enough to grab a long nap before starting the hike. When we went to check in, Yokota had lost our hotel reservations and the base had just experienced a flooding disaster in one of the tower apartments so they were trying to accommodate all of the displaced residents. So we got booted out and had to look elsewhere for a room. Luckily, Joe Bob's reservation didn't get lost, so we had a place to go and at least get ready for the hike. Unfortunately though, we didn't get that nap we had wanted.

It took us quite a while to get to Fuji.

First there was the 20 minute walk from Yokota to the train station...

Then there were two different trains we had to catch and finally there was an hour-long bus ride from the Kawaguchiko train station to the Kawaguchiko 5th station (the trailhead).

At about 9pm we made it to the trailhead. After making sure we had everything we needed and rearranging our packs, we set off on the trail at about 9:30pm.

Chris, myself, and Joe Bob right before beginning the hike.

This is the 7th station. There are several stations on the way up and even more small huts where you can sit and rest on benches outside, or pay to go inside in the warmth and rest, or even spend the night. All of the stations have drinks and snacks for sale.

We didn't take many pictures on the way up, but it was an incredible hike. As we climbed higher and higher we could see more and more of the city lights below. We were supposed to have thunderstorms all night but instead we had clear skies and only a few clouds in the very far distance that would occasionally flash with lightning. Another thing I loved about climbing in the dark is that I couldn't see very far ahead on the trail. All I could really see was the next switchback, or the next hut, or the next station. I didn't realize how intimidating the climb could have been until I was coming down the next morning and looked behind me at the sheer magnitude of the mountain.

We reached the last station before the top just before 1am. By now, it was freezing outside so we went in for a warm bowl of ramen. We only had about an hour left to go to get to the top, but none of the stations up there opened until 3:30am.

We took this picture three times before I managed to keep my eyes all the way open. I was so, so, so exhausted. We decided it was well worth the 1000yen ($10) per person per hour to be able to take a tiny nap before leaving to catch the sunrise.

I slept about 20 minutes, and when I woke up, this little station was packed and you could feel everyone getting anxious to hit the trail to the top before the larger tour groups started up.

We left the last station at 2:30am. We got out before most of the people there but still there was pretty much a single file line heading all the way up to the top. It frustrated Chris, but I enjoyed the slow, deliberate pace that the hikers in front of us had set.

We made it through the torii gate at the top at 3:30am; one hour before sunrise.

I apologize for the blur... this is about a 25 second exposure and we didn't use a tripod. I know, rookie mistake. You can see the headlamps of the hikers behind us streaking through the gate. I love this picture, in spite of the blur.

Waiting on the sunrise. We had been able to enjoy the view of these city lights all the way up the mountain, thanks to clear skies.

There were benches set up to view the sunrise, and it started getting crowded as more and more hikers streamed up the mountain. The wind was pretty brutal, and the dust was flying everywhere.

Our favorite view was through the torii gate, so we went back there to take our pictures.

We were able to watch as everybody's hard work paid off and they made it through the gate. It was an amazing experience. This group of girls lined up across the gate and all stepped over together. You could see it in their faces that this hike had been so hard for the three of them and they were thrilled to be making it to the top just as the sun was rising. I could see tears on a couple of their faces as they were hugging each other.

Breathtaking.

(Don't forget that if you click on a picture, you can view it larger.)

We went back around the corner from the torii gate to see if the station was open yet, but apparently this was the day that all of the owners decided to sleep in. Oh well. I had already had one hot bowl of ramen, I didn't need two.

We went up a little farther past the station to check out the crater and the actual summit, but it really wasn't much to see. It's a little hard to tell in this picture but I'm the bundled up hiker and behind me is the top station. They even have a post office there, I'm told. But nothing was open yet.

Fuji's snow filled crater.

One of my favorite pictures from that morning.

Me and my essential Fuji gear: down jacket, rain coat, day pack (and camel back of course), extra water bottle and gloves. Not pictured were the hiking shoes, hiking pants, rain pants and hat. I looked like a blue marshmallow, but I was warm.

Making our way back down the mountain. As you can see, there was a solid line of hikers. This was the narrowest and steepest part of the trail and there were a few stragglers trying to come up still so there was a little bit of a bottleneck. Later on, the trail split and there was a separate trail just for descending the mountain.

As I mentioned earlier, I didn't realize the magnitude of the hike until I saw it all in the daylight.

I think the view was equally amazing on the way down.

If you look closely, you may be able to make out all the switchbacks coming up.

They don't accept credit cards at the grocery stores in Misawa, but you can use your Visa on Fuji. Amazing.

We were almost all the way down the mountain before we hit the trees. Most all of the hike is completely exposed.

We got a souvenir wooden stick to get branded at all of the stations on the way up. It had a bell attached to the top and we were told by a Japanese man in very broken English that we would take it off later. We finally realized what he meant when we saw the pile of bells. I'm not sure what the significance is, but we had been trying to silence that bell for the whole hike and we were happy to get rid of it;).

We made it down in about 2 and a half hours.

I've heard so many people repeat the Japanese saying that "A wise man climbs Fuji once. A fool climbs Fuji twice." I must be a fool, because I would love to go back.

Sapporo - Continued

I'm going to squeeze the rest of our Sapporo trip into one post because I'm anxious to move on and blog about our following trip to Mt Fuji...

So, on day two we slept in and then made our way to the Sapporo Brewery. We spent most of the day there because there was so much to do...

Sapporo Brewery

First we went to the beer museum.

Museums can be challenging, since we can't read anything, but Chris was kind enough to be my tour guide:)

Our favorite part was the little displays about how beer was made. They looked like a children's cartoon!

It's a beautiful brewery. This is the tasting room.

Afterwards we went to one of the restaurants there at the brewery for the Ghengis Khan... Lamb and vegetable barbecue. It was delicious.

Outside the brewery there was a festival going on. There were drummers...

and dancers...

and lots of beer... We stayed for quite a while watching the various performances and eating some of the best soft serve ice cream ever.

Afterwards, we caught a bus back to town, spent some time in the Sapporo Factory (it's just a neat mall with a ton of cool shops, including a bunch of outdoor gear stores) and grabbed dinner.

We also found this great little observatory that was in the building next to our hotel.

They had a coffee shop/bar at the top and lots of comfy seats to sit and watch the sunset.

I had Chris take this picture (obviously).

The third day we were in Sapporo we got an all day bus/subway pass and really traveled all over.

First we went to the Olympic Jump Stadium from the 1972 Winter Olympics. The bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we had about a 10 minute walk to the stadium. There was this map near the bus stop... it would have been nice to have been able to read it!

In spite of the map, we didn't have any trouble finding the stadium.

We took a chair lift to the top.

There's a whole host of reasons why I'm not an olympic ski jumper, but I think this downhill view has to be pretty high on the list.

I'll have to stick to the ski jumping games that they had in the museum! I'm a pretty good virtual athlete!

They had a ton of olympic games to play - hockey, bobsledding, ice skating, speed skating, cross country skiing... we had quite a bit of fun.

Our next stop was the Historic Village of Hokkaido. They took a bunch of historic buildings from all over the island and placed them together in this historic town.

We just walked all over and toured the different buildings...

At the fishing village we got to try the traditional backpacks that they used to carry the fish. They were about as uncomfortable as you could get. I think I'll stick with my own backpack...

This photographer's studio was pretty cool. The second story room had tons of light from the glass roof, and there were black and white curtains that could be arranged to give just the right lighting for the portraits.

This is the martial arts gymnasium in one of the old schools.

Next, we went to the sake museum. It was pretty small and I only took the one picture inside, but we were able to taste a few different types of sake. I didn't think I liked sake, but after tasting a few from here I'm reevaluating that... they had some pretty good ones.

Sapporo's clock tower. Apparently, based on the announcements in the bus when we drove by, this is Sapporo's most famous site. The clock was made in Boston.

Ramen ally, downtown in the entertainment district. There are about 6 ramen restaurants crammed in this tiny ally. We chose one at random.

I love Japanese ramen. It's especially good in the wintertime. It's okay in the summer too, but it got pretty hot in this tiny restaurant with a hot bowl of ramen and no A/C.

The next day we got up early and caught the train back home. I love Sapporo. I can't wait to go back.

We didn't have any lunch packed up for the return trip home, so we had to buy a lunch from the food cart on the train. The beef lunch sounded better than the other lunches with candied herring, but it was still a little hard to handle, especially that long thing in the middle that looked like a tail... Lesson learned. Next time we'll pack sandwiches.

Sapporo - Day 1

Chris got Monday and Tuesday off this year for the fourth of July. We decided on Friday morning that we couldn't let our four day weekend go to waste so we located some maps and information about Sapporo and planned a last minute trip there for the weekend.

Sapporo is on the northernmost island of Japan - Hokkaido. You can get there either by train (they have tunneled under the ocean) or ferry. We've heard that taking the ferry is nice because if you get a group of people together you can split the cost of shipping a car over there. We decided that it would be faster, easier and cheaper (since it was just us two) to take the train.

These were our train tickets. Sometimes you get lucky and the man at the ticket counter will print your tickets in English... We weren't that lucky. But if you study them enough you can pretty much figure out what's going on... We have three tickets - One ticket says we're going all the way from Misawa to Sapporo, and then we have one ticket for each leg of the trip (Misawa to Hakodate and Hakodate to Sapporo). This top ticket is for the train from Hakodate to Sapporo. It states that we are leaving July 3 (7-3) at 13:29 (arriving at 16:56) on train 11. We are in car 2, row 3, seat C and it's a non-smoking train. I'm pretty clueless about the rest of the ticket, but that stuff doesn't matter.

The trains are really comfortable and surprisingly roomy, if you get a seat. On the first leg of the trip from Misawa to Hakodate the train was standing room only, and we spent about three hours in between cars, where the bathroom and trashcans are. There was a whole bunch of people crammed in there with us. We just laid our suitcase down and used it as a bench. It was okay... we survived. But it was so nice to have an actual seat for the rest of the way.

It was kind of a long train ride - it takes about 7 hours to get from Misawa to Sapporo because there is no bullet train up there yet.

This was our hotel, Hotel Gracery. It was nice and had a great location. It connected directly to the train station and there was a subway station on the same block. It made it really easy to get around the downtown area.

The rooms were SO small. They seemed much bigger in the pictures...

It was supposed to thunderstorm all weekend, but we didn't get a drop of rain on us. The first night we were in town we walked to the TV tower in Odori park so we could get a view of the city.

It was beautiful. This is looking down at Odori park. Someday we'll be back to hike in those mountains...

Because it was so nice outside, there were beer gardens all over the city. This one was at the base of the TV tower. We took one look at this and realized we didn't need to go any farther to find dinner...
For 3,500 yen/person we got all the meat and vegetables we could grill as well as unlimited beer. The weather was perfect, the food and beer were delicious, there was Beatles music playing overhead (seems to be the music of choice for Japan) and we spent the rest of the evening hanging out here.
I think it would have been so much easier to grill using some tongs and a spatula, but the chopsticks worked okay.

Odori park... We walked in the park for a while, then called it a night.