Moving on through Japan

---

Now down in Osaka but between here and there a lot has happened. Lucky for the 2 weeks i have in japan its their rainy season and a typhoon off shore you can imagine i got pretty wet in Tokyo!!
Met some local girls who showed us a night on the town, went clubbing and caught the end of the Champs league, bed at 7am. They dont mind a party at all even though they're worse drinkers than 2 pints!! Was a great night but the hungover day in the rain after was not so much fun. Saw the imperial palace and ovbiously tried to break in because we just werent satisfied, got denied from seeing the sumo musuem because for some reason every important suited man in Japan had turned up as well.
Changed my couch for the night to stay with a couple of uni grads. They threw a dinner party for a friend so lots of food and more drink then had to bail early for an early start.
Off to Mt. Fuji for the night.. I lost Folkert, my Dutch travel buddy, in the station then somehow by the way of the warrior found him in a town 100kms away, so were still on the road together at the moment.
Spent the morning in an onsen which is a natural hot tub and after reading up on the rules of entry was looking forward to it, no towels, no swimmers, completely naked!! What i didnt see coming was the male/ female seperation on the way in so had the scaring view of old jap men stretch in front of me comletey starkers. With my eyes closed it was actually quite relaxing though!!
Bussing it down to mt. fuji was much better than the business of the city, big sweeping green mountain ranges and the sun even came to say hello! Hiked about 5kms out of the town to get closer to the mountain and found a perfectly situated park overlooking the lot.. nothing in the way other than a very scenic digger. Decided to camp there for the night and grabbed some dinner. Had everything we needed.. shelter, toilets, tables, mountain view and slides! Sat an eat shushi with some local spirit called sake as the sun set behind the volcano!!! Nice.
Turns out the sun was teasing us abit that day though as it dropped to about 10'C but luckly we had to get up at 3:30am for the sunrise anyway. And it was well worth it, the sky was clear, the sun was slowly coming up so view was unbelievable!! And for all those of Room 2.. Fuji got Salmoned!! haha.
At 5am it seemed like a great idea to go for a little 15km hike half way up mountain with 20kg on the back. No, it was a stupid idea!!! Hitched a lift back down to the nearest station and left for the south not knowing it was going to take us 9 trains and 9hrs to get there! Not so bad though because we managed to blag the whole trip for just $1 saving at least $150 they wanted to charge us to still become a samurai haha.
Was cream crackered by the time we rocked up in Osaka but my lastest couch surfing host got us from the station and had is wife wook us up a feast! All-you-can-eat-make-it-yourself-sushi i think it translates to with some sort of egg and octopus dumpling which is the local dish of Osaka and BEER. Done for the night and a great little trip from north to south, now lets see what this has to offer :D

---