Blogs from Shizuoka, Japan, Asia - page 7

We left early on Thursday morning for Kamakura by train. We arrived in Kamakura after about two hours and three transfers.....It was a beautiful day...sunny and warm, but not too hot. We walked from temple to temple, along with crowds of school kids, older Japanese tourists and a very few "gaijin" (foreigners). We have seen so few non-Japanese here (except for on the base of course), that it almost feels like Kenya, without the scaring of small children! We went all day Friday without seeing one foreigner, until we got near to Matt's apartment. The roads were lined with shops and restaurants, but the temple grounds were peaceful and immense, with many old trees. The exception was the Shinto Temple we visited, where the crowds were noisy and and there were stands inside the grounds selling ... read more

Mt Fuji The season was drawing in on us for our opportunity to climb Mt Fuji, by the time we heading back this way. Only the stupid would climb it, but we wanted to at least see it. So we booked ourselves on the train from Kyoto to Mt Fuji, for one night only, as we were struggling for time to do everything we wanted and we had not even been to Tokyo yet, we had less than a week to go before our flight to Sydney. We constantly checked the weather praying for a good day for our only day at the mountain. We stayed in a lovely hostel that was empty. We headed to the supermarket to get our lunch, the town was small and very tiny. Nobody was about and only a handful ... read more

I've delayed writing this post for over a year, because it took that long before I could think of this mountain without a sense of aversion and dread. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but after the experience I had I think it's safe to say this is something I will only do ONCE in my entire life. Where to start... My good friend from home was visiting and on a whim we had decided that we would hike Mt. Fuji together. We figured it would be fun, exciting, and at the very least something cool that we could do together during her stay. We went into this venture well prepared. We'd made a list of everything we would need - food, lots of water, hats, flashlights, gloves, oxygen, mitts, change of clothes, rain ponchos, emergency medical supplies, sun ... read more

Since Japan is so expensive ($350 one-way to Kyoto by train) our plan was to just stay in Tokyo until we found this couch surfer -Mochan- who was doing a Sakura (Cherry Blossom Festival) tour of Japan. All we had to do was split the gas money. So we went to Mochan’s house in a city close to Fuji mountain, just outside of Tokyo. He is a really generous man and we stayed with him for free and he cooked us dinner and fed us breakfast. He inherited his father’s house which was a traditional style home with paper walls, sliding doors, tatami mats to sit on and a low table to eat around. Tim, who is a photographer from England, was also staying with Mochan. He is a really funny guy and we became good ... read more

We are leaving Kawaguchiko station with the first bus going to Mt. Fuji 5th Station at 9:40AM. It's already quite late since the regular season is just over (ends on August 31st). For the same reason, the last bus leaves rather early too, so we cannot go up and return on the same day, which means we have to stay on the mountain. Weather and mood are good, so we start to climb up aby 11AM. The trail starts gently and there are many many mostly young Japanese people on the track. After about one hour we have a first rest, talking to some monks sitting in the morning sun and smoking cigarettes (funny, ain't it?). They have just returned from the summit, and tell me how to beath the best on the way up, proving ... read more