I don’t have the time or energy to do a proper Mt. Fuji post, so I’ll just share a series of selfies that Denis and I took during our hike. We took a picture every time we stopped for a rest (which didn’t seem to be often enough).
This was at 3:30am after we had made the brutal climb to the summit. We were actually very happy, but we made tired faces:
And this was when we were back at the bus pickup place. Tired but happy.
Tomorrow I’ll share the climbing blow-by-blow. I won’t have anything else to post about anyway, because I think we’re going to sleep for 24 hours.
Congratulations!! I hope that you do sleep for 24 hours – that was a tremendous undertaking, you guys! I am in awe of how many people were on this journey. A packed crowd on the side of a mountain? Crazy.
I’m hiking Mt. Fuji right now. I’m not sure if I’ll have a phone signal, so I’ll talk a little about my walking and shopping.
People drive on the left side of the road here, which also means they walk on the left side of the sidewalk.
They are also very orderly about riding escalators. Stand on the left, walk on the right.
When we went to an area with lots of stores and restaurants and bars and some kind of weird gambling places with machines that had small metal balls tumbling around inside of them, there were a LOT of people. The intersection was fun to cross, because it was a mass of people all moving at once.
Did you see Godzilla in those pictures? Look again:
Ha! There was a giant souvenir store here. It was fun to look around, but there was a crush of people in there. I’m a big fan of crowds, but even for me, it got to be a little much after a while.
When I’ve bought things (at this souvenir store or at just a regular store), the people at the stores have been so gracious. I only know a couple of words of Japanese. Many store people have known some English, but the people who haven’t have been very patient with me pointing and smiling. The language barrier was the thing I was most nervous about, but I have been pleasantly surprised.
Yesterday we decided to see the imperial palace. It was a short subway ride away. It was really hot yesterday, and I didn’t wear a hat, so we tried to find a convenience store to get an umbrella. People use them for shade here.
The area near the palace seems to be very upscale. Our phone map brought us into a big office building, but the convenience store was closed. The air conditioning was nice though. And it was interesting to be in a big empty office building.
We did finally find a Lawson’s, which is a place like 7-11. When we got back to the imperial palace, the new umbrella was very welcome. There was a paved area that was beautiful, but hot.
The palace itself is behind a bunch of trees, so it’s hard to get a picture.
The closest you can get is a gate area. There was a guard on each side of it. They must’ve been hot.
There are tours you can do, but not on Sundays, so there wasn’t much else to see there. We headed back to Shinjuku.
Before going back to the hotel, we decided to go back to that department store and the wonderful selection of foods they had. One of the places was selling slices of wagyu beef in little bento boxes. We got some! It was so good!
We also got a selection of desserts. They were good too.
And I was most excited to see some peaches in the grocery area. They were huge! I can’t bite fruit very well, because I’m missing some bottom teeth right now, but I made do. They were so good!
We’re staying in Shinjuku, which is in central Tokyo. This city is HUGE! I don’t know how we’re going to cover even part of it on our stay.
Screenshot
But we started simply… in walking distance there is the Meiji shrine – a Shinto shrine that was built in the early 1900’s. It’s surrounded by beautiful forests and gardens.
Shinto gates always look like this:
I was grateful for the forest. It wasn’t super hot yesterday, but it was CRAZY humid.
The shrine was next to a beautiful courtyard.
You can’t go in the building itself, but you can look inside. But you can’t take pictures of the inside. Here’s as close of a picture as I got:
There was a garden area that cost some money to walk through – I think it was 1500 yen. That’s about 10 dollars. The garden area was my favorite part.
Beautiful paths:
A pond with water lilies:
And a well from the Edo period of Japan – that’s the early 1600’s. I touched the water! The signs said not to drink it, so I didn’t.
I also got to use my new Google translate app. It’s amazing! Even though I think it might have gotten part of this translation wrong:
Screenshot
After we were done with the garden, we decided to brave the subway system.
We got off at the Shinjuku stop, and saw signs for a department store, so we went shopping. We got some socks and gloves for our Mt. Fuji hike, but also got some souvenirs – chopsticks! There were a ton to choose from,
I chose some that were bumpy and dark and reminded me of magic wands:
I saw a food cooker that said Bruno on it. It made me smile.
On the bottom floors of the store was a LOT of food. We got a few things, but we’ll need to go back again some time to try more.
Posting from this time zone is tricky, because midnight in LA, which is when I regularly have my posts go live, is only halfway through my day here.
When this post goes live, I will have only been in Japan a short while. I will assume the flight went ok, and talk about yesterday a little.
Denis’ friend Iday (pronounced ee-DIE) met up with us to hang out a little. We went to lunch, then to a bank, since Denis wanted to open an account. I was crashing from jet lag, so on the second trip to the bank (after getting some added paperwork) I laid down for a bit.
When the banking was done, we headed out to the mall.
We were looking for a barong, which is a traditional Filipino dress shirt. It’s what men wear to weddings. They are sheer fabric, made from pineapple leaf fibers and silk.
Denis and I both got one. I had Denis choose one for me, since I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t get a picture of it before the sales person had wrapped it, so I can’t show it yet.
I was exhausted by evening. Jet lag is really hitting me hard. I hope to be more adjusted by tonight.
Wow – you did it!! I am truly impressed. Thanking God you did not pass out along the way either.
I mean…you didn’t…right?
Congratulations!! I hope that you do sleep for 24 hours – that was a tremendous undertaking, you guys! I am in awe of how many people were on this journey. A packed crowd on the side of a mountain? Crazy.
Very proud of you both!