KEEPING FIT AND HAVING FUN: Top of Japan and Man Soup

Well I have been to a place in Japan that everyone should have heard of. I have been thowing out a lot of names that are not that well known, Saijo, Kure, Higaashihiroshimashi …. Mt. Fuji, I think is a name that is pretty well known. Mt. Fuji is the tallest mountain in Japan, and when you are this big they call you Mr…. In Japan Mt. Fuji is called Fuji-san, which is the same title as you give a person… Mr. Fuji.

Saturday morning was the beginning of the journey, Tessa and I were out of bed at 5:15am in order to make it to the train that took us to Hiroshima city where our bus was waiting for us. We got on the bus, with 37 other JETs (the trip was organized by the JET equivalent of student council). Once on the bus we began our journey across Japans extensive and elaborate expressway system. The expressways are pretty crazy, they are all toll highways, with limited places to get on and off. Highway is certainly an appropriate term, in a lot of cases, rather than going into a valley and up the other side, the expressways just go over them on bridges hundreds of meters high. The same philosophy seems to apply with hills, why go around them when we can go through them.

Ten hours of driving over and through bridges and tunnels brought us to the fifth camp of Fuji-san which is about halfway up the cone at about 2200m. From there we suited up and began our nighttime assent of the mountain at about 7pm. It is Japanese collective knowledge that watching the sun rise from the summit of Mt. Fuji is one of the most beautiful sights in Japan – thus the need for us to hike overnight.

We were not alone – Fuji-san is the most hiked mountain in the world – over 200,000 climbers in a year, given that the climbing season is only 2 months and that this was the last weekend of that season, you can do the math and I am sure figure out the large number of people that were also making this hike.

It was definitely not an easy hike, the trail was steep and fairly undeveloped, across, ugly, slippery, barren volcanic rock. Scattered along the trail, were several, huts that sold various drinks and food, and many of them also had mats that you could rent for about $80 for 3 hours (which the majority of the Japanese hikers did).

After about 8 hours of stop and go hiking our group reached the summit, 3774m. We arrived at about 2am – 3 hours before sun rise. So we did the only thing there was to do for 3 hours – shiver. It was a very damp 4 degrees celsius. Considering that most people did not pack clothing for sitting on an exposed peak for this amount of time - even the Canadians were cold. In hindsight complaining about the cold was a nice break from complaining about the gross sweaty heat (which I am back to doing today). The sunrise, was quite beautiful, there was a very low blanket of clouds which were well below the peak, that created some really cool colours as the sun was coming up from under and then finally poking out to a rousing, ohayo gozymasu from the crowd. After the sun was up there was no time to sit and bask in its magnificence, we had to be back on the bus at 9am (in case you are counting, the hours without sleep has now surpassed 24).

Back on the bus, a one hour drive brought us to a tradition that has survived in Japan,but died in most western cultures – the public bath. Bathing is very important in Japanese culture and taken very seriously. Bathing is also very important after sitting on a bus all day and climbing a mountain. So after reviewing the onsen (Japanese hot pools) protocol, the men and women split off, to their respective baths. First step, get naked. Second step, shower thoroughly, while sitting on a little plastic stool, making sure there is absolutely no dirtiness or soap left on you at the end. Third step, hop in the hot pool and let hot water soak away your sore muscles. Step four, shuffle awkwardly about the hot pool, when naked dude number 18 tries to find room in the already full pool. Step five, repeat step three.

So chalk up two more significant first – summiting the highest mountain in a country and taking a bathe with 17 other men.

The 11 hours travel back to Saijo, left me a little exhausted. We were gone from home almost 45 hours, during which I managed to get less then one hour of bad bus sleep. I was bagged today that is for sure. Good news waited for me at my desk at school though, my 3 favourite teams all won there games on three different continents. San Frecce Hiroshima crushed FC Gifu 7-1, the Riders, beat the Bombers and, and Collingwood won there match in the first round of the AFL playoffs.

Here are some pics, I don't really have any of excellent quality due to the lighting conditions (or lack there of) during most of the hike