Guest Post: Steve's Adventure to Fuji-san

Today we are having a break from me telling you stories to have a guest blogger! Since we decided to try living in Japan for six months Steve thought it was the perfect opportunity to do something big and decided he wanted to climb Mt Fuji. The ever elusive and iconic mountain is very much a Japanese staple. I wouldn't have minded attempting it with him (though I do think I would have slowed things down somewhat), but with the girls that wasn't on the cards. Instead, Steve took a solo trip (we joked about it being the church Men's Retreat) to conquer the mountain and here he is to tell you all about it! 

Steve's Adventure to Fuji-san

I am now one of the lucky people who has summited Mount Fuji. What’s more, since I broke my hand at jiu-jitsu a couple weeks before – I did it one-handed.

(TL;DR - if you’re just interested in photos, check out the album here)

I left my house in Yotsugi at 7:30 to get to Shinjuku by 9:00, where I would catch a bus to arrive at the Mt Fuji’s 5th Station, Subaru line (route).

There was a point during the bus ride where I looked at Fujisan (san - 山 - means mountain) and honestly, when you’re in the foothills, it just looks like one big, never-ending hill to the clouds. The slope is continuous, and looks gentle.

I got off the bus at about 11:40. Online advice says to spend an hour and a half or so at the 5th station to acclimatize to the altitude, so I had ramen for lunch and looked around the sights at the 5th station - about 2200 meters up. It was quite a view. I didn’t expect a volcano to have as many trees in forestry and things around – who knew a volcano looks like a mountain?

At about 12:45 PM I figured I had acclimatised enough and was itching to head out. So I did. I had about four litres of water in my backpack and all kinds of changes of clothes for warm weather, wet weather, cold weather, windy weather.  And of course, a trekking poll (for my right hand only). And with that, I started walking.

The trail is well maintained, wide, and easy. After walking for around half an hour, I found myself at the first aid station at the 6th station. I heard supplies get more expensive the higher you climb. Water was about ¥200 down at the 5th station and ¥600 at the 6th station.

Half an hour further (1:45 PM), my first challenge: I looked down at my shoes and saw that my sole had started coming off. I’d been thinking so much about my hand and how I was going to keep it safe on this hike - but it turns out that the shoes are the real danger! Fortunately, I had thought of this in advance, and I packed some tape. I taped it up and went on my way.

I kept climbing. The trail got a little bit trickier with some rocky sections but still quite easy. At about 2:30 PM I passed my first Hut, at the 7th station, called Tomoekan and this was at at altitude of 2.7 kilometres. I had climbed about 440m vertically and walked about 2.7km.

By this point the vegetation was thinning out, but there were still some scraggly pine trees, and shrubs.

At about 3:00 PM things got worse – both of my shoes were losing their soles now, and I needed more and more tape to keep it attached; the rockier trails just kept ripping up the tape. I hadn’t worn these shoes for years, I guess that’s what happens. I looked at my roll of tape and hoped it would last the journey…

Another half hour passed, and the trail kept being rocky. I passed some bouldering sections now where I had to actually use my hands to help me keep my balance. Fortunately, I just needed it for balance and not to hold onto tightly - I could still do it one handed without endangering my left hand.

But here, my shoes were getting really bad. I was burning through tape quickly (the rocks shredded it) and I remember sitting on the side of the trail, out of people’s way, adding more tape, and thinking, “do I keep going up or do I turn around and go down?” I didn’t want to have a 5km rocky walk with no shoe soles.

I was probably 3 kilometres altitude at this stage and concluded that the rocky sections would be harder to climb down with one hand than it would be to go up to the summit and then come down the gentler descending trail. I finished taping and kept going. I asked the next hut for more tape, but unfortunately, they didn’t have any.

I kept walking (or scrambling) and came upon a sign that said 3,100 metres altitude.

This was significant; the hut I was going to stay in that night – Taishikan Hut - was also at 3100m elevation - and that’s where I found myself at 4:00 PM. I asked a staff member if there was anything they could do for my shoes and without a moment hesitation, they took my shoes, said that they will fix them, and that I don’t need to worry about it. This was great for me because it meant I knew I’d be able to summit. And it’s great for you - you don’t have to hear me talk about my shoes anymore. I didn’t realise how much impact my shoes falling apart had on my confidence in this part of the ascent…

Taishikan offered some absolutely breathtaking views - after dumping all my stuff inside, I headed back outside and took in the view. It started raining slightly – and that small sprinkle brought about a rainbow! I couldn’t believe my luck to have a rainbow at 3,100 metres above sea level. It felt like I was looking across at it, not up at it. 

I settled down to a dinner which was curry rice, a bit of fish, a little bit of veggies. It was time for bed at around 5:30 PM. I was going to need to get up at midnight to catch the sunrise.  The bed surprisingly private – I had heard these huts were just a big, shared bed, but this was good.

I had a terrible night sleep, as you might expect – probably only 2 hours total – and ended up crawling out at around 11:45PM. I had some of the breakfast rice that Taishikan provided, put on my warm stuff, my newly glued shoes (!!!), and set out again at 12:30 AM.

It was now dark, and I was wearing a headlamp. You’re going to have much fewer photos now for this part of the climb – and it was much different to 6 hours ago.

The trail started with some more rocky bouldering. After passing another hut or two, it turned into a sloping trail, that was much easier to navigate with my hand. By 1:00 AM I had reached 3,250 metres. That didn’t take long.

Another half hour later, at about 1:30 AM, I reached yet another hut, this time 3,400 metres up. My jacket didn’t last very long – it was way too hot, so back in the bag it went.

At about 2:15 AM I reached the 9th station, 3,600m. This one was interesting because they still had one of the early huts preserved - it basically looked like a hole in the ground. Thank you, modern huts!

Finally, at 2:50 AM, I went through the Torii gate and reached the summit – 3,770 metres up.

I had a rest here - there were benches up on the summit and it was good to just chill and rest and wait for the sun to come up. But I did get really, really cold while I was up there, and even with all my layers on and my gloves on and everything, I was still shivering. I had to wrap a towel around my bandaged hand to keep it warm.  Mr Classy, that’s me.

The shops on the summit of Mt Fuji opened at about 3:30AM.

And at 4:00 AM the sky continued getting more beautiful.  I loved seeing the clouds form and roll across the prefecture.

People were still making their way up the trail, even as the sky lightened. It was cool to see the headlamps make the way up the trail that I had just done.

The sun rose at 4:40 AM. It was heralded by a trumpet player in the shop behind me who didn’t hit a single note that he was trying to hit. Fortunately, they gave up quickly.

Besides the trumpet player, the sunrise was breathtaking. We could see the clouds form over the cities and forests nearby. And we were towering far over all that as we looked out see the sun rise in the distance.

Watching the sunrise isn’t the only thing to do on the summit though. There’s a one hour walk around the caldera... which I took two hours to do because it was just so cool, and I stopped so many times to take photos. It was fantastic, it’s hard to show the scale of it with their photos here.

I said earlier that I reached the summit… but that wasn’t entirely true. The summit is actually on the other side of the caldera here and is something like 10 metres above where I was when I watched the sunrise. But at 7:10 I reached the actual summit, 3,776m. Hurrah!

You can see this summit in photos above - that little mound at the back is the true summit. Unfortunately, they also built a weather station right there on that summit and it was built a long time ago. The weather station is quite large and is currently in the process of being demolished. What this meant was I couldn’t actually look out at the landscape from the true summit.

There was a big line to get a photo with the marker pole at the summit and so I just snuck a little sneaky one in here and went on my way.

On my journey around the caldera, I also saw a post office. That’s right, there’s a post office at the very top of Mount Fuji. I didn’t anything to post though, but that’s pretty cool. There is also this model-sized Mount Fuji which you can see in the photo below – a good bit of context for the whole thing – and the summit peak really stands out.  I don’t think it’s to scale – the top seems exaggerated – but you can see the shape.

Anyway, having navigated around the caldera, I began my journey back down the mountain at around 8:10 in the morning. Looking at the start of the trail, it was going to be a long walk, but a much easier one than the one up.

Much of the descent was like this - lots of switchbacks and screed/pebbles. I’m glad I didn’t have to walk with tape on my shoes for this part because it would have been extremely slippery. On the way down, I had to wait for an excavator to make its way up. There were a few crawlers going up and down at with various supplies and sometimes people.

I finished my descent pretty much spot-on Midday, treated myself to an ice cream, and some delicious thematic lunch.

Fujisan wasn’t done showing me some things though. Below you can see a photo from before I had lunch, and one from after, looking at pretty much the same spot. The weather turned completely around while I ate, and a thunderstorm hit. Given we were about the same level as the clouds, the thunder was deafening and sudden. None of the lightning was close enough to be dangerous, though. But - wow - the weather turned quickly. I’m glad this happened after I finished my walk.

I got on the bus at 2:00 PM and was back at Shinjuku Station by around 5:30 PM, after getting caught in Tokyo Traffic. This meant I was home by 6:30 for a much-appreciated rest.

Reflecting on it, it wasn’t a very technical or difficult trail. I personally never felt any effects from the altitude sickness, but I certainly saw people who did (including one girl who lost her lunch about 10m away from the true summit) – so I suppose my lungs were in working order for the high altitude.

There are plenty of opportunities to rest, plenty of stops, and people around to help. The vibe there was all positive. 

If you’re reasonably fit, able to carry clothing to suit all kinds of weather (including good shoes and tape for backup), and comfortable with bouldering around a little bit, you’ll be able to manage Fuji just fine. Honestly, you don’t even have to worry about carrying that much water because there’s so many places to buy water on the way – and the water didn’t get any more expensive as you went up the mountain. It was ¥600 at every single place.

The climb up Mount Fuji was stunning and I can highly recommend anyone do it if you get the chance. The feeling of being so high above the clouds, or hearing thunder coming from beneath you instead of above is unlike anything I’ve experienced (and I’ve been skydiving!) My highlight was walking around the Caldera though, actually being there and seeing the top of such a large and still working volcano. The sheer magnitude of the geology involved in such a thing is hard to conceive of, and not a chance I’m sure I’ll get again.

Thanks for reading! Back to your regular Japan and sewing program now!

Teacher Training Program: Motivational Articles

Back in June I talked about starting a teacher training program for Japanese teachers, which you can read about here if you need a refresher. It was a bit of a whirlwind, and time did all sorts of wibbly wobbly tricks while I was there. Sometimes it was so fast, and others it felt like it would never end. 

After the first week, we really got into studying Japanese. We had been split into three classes of different abilities and we all studied different topics. I don't think I realised that at first, just assuming we were all doing the same kind of thing at our various levels. Kind of silly in hindsight. 

The first real piece of work that my class did was to consider why we were teachers. What was it that made us want to teach in the first place. Why did we keep coming to work each day now? We spent a whole week on this one topic. Our first lesson was talking about it with each other, then listening and reading examples of other people's stories. Finally we had to write our own article in Japanese. It was a pretty organic process, since we learnt new words and terminology as we progressed through speaking, listening and reading about the topic, and then had to use it in our own articles. 

I was really surprised by how my own answer to these questions changed over the week. I think teachers are often asked this at the start of a motivational speech, or some PD when the new school year begins, but we are only given minutes to answer, and then whoever asked it has moved on. And even if you've got a good answer, because you've got to summarise it into 30 seconds (or less), it feels much less impactful. My initial reason for becoming a teacher was a fairly selfish one; wanting to do what I liked to do (music and Japanese) and tell others about it. So different from why I'm doing what I'm doing now! 

Anyway, I was also really proud of the writing that I did; the whole article in Japanese! So I wanted to put it here to remind me. Not only of why I'm motivated to do what I do, but also that I can write all of this in Japanese! It's easy to feel like my language is slipping away when I'm not using it as much back in Australia, but hopefully this gives me the nudge that if it was possible once, it's possible again. All I have to do is keep showing up and moving forward. 

The Bumps in the Road

Inconceivably I sit here to type this with only two weeks left in Tokyo. How we have found ourselves hurtling towards the end of our stay so fast is a mystery to me. We are still having lots of fun, "making the most of it", but also finding some things are tricker than we expected. I definitely don't want to sound like we aren't appreciating this amazing experience we are having, but I do want to share that it's not all sunshine and roses either. Some parts are hard, and that's just the way it is. No matter how brightly I put the shine on when I type about the latest festival we went too, or cool Japanese thing we saw, there are downsides too. 

When we realised our time in Tokyo was coming to an end, we looked at the calendar a lot; boy did it fill up fast. The girls had a Guide camp, Rachel had school camp and Steve had a Mt Fuji climb all scheduled in the same two week period. There was so much happening! Since the girls were going to be at Guide camp together, Steve and I looked at having a night away as well. We choose Enoshima Island, which is on the other side of Tokyo, out by the beach at Kamakura. I'd been wanting to go, but since it was so far away, it hadn't made our list. I will say that adding it to the already packed fortnight didn't really make anything easier. 

Then we got the news that the guide camp might not go ahead, if it was too hot. There was all sorts of back and forth about what constitutes "too hot" and what the changes would look like. They told me that too hot would mean that they wouldn't stay the night, but that we'd have to pick up the girls, take them home and bring them back the next day. We also decided that hiring a car would make things simpler, because we'd be able to drop the girls to the park in 20 mins, rather than the hour long train/bus ride. We thought it was worth the risk of having to come back and get them if it was indeed "too hot". So we booked. 

Car hire turned out to be expensive, maybe because it always is, or maybe because there was a Japanese public holiday on the Monday, so lots of people were capitalising on the three day weekend. Anyway, we booked the car, triple checking the weather forecast, which was looking in our favour - a sunny day of 33 degrees was actually quite mild compared to what we'd been having. Then the day before they were due to go, the guides messaged to say that it was indeed going to be too risky (heat stroke!) and that they were changing plans. But not to the "let's not sleepover" plan. The new plan was to start at 3:30pm, rather than 10am. 

Even with a car, getting out to Enoshima after doing that drop off was going to be a pretty big waste of time, especially with pick up the next day being 12. Sigh. Dealing with the changing plans was fatiguing to say the least. We'd already gone through three weeks of "go vs don't go" scenarios and planning. Then to have to change it all again when we had thought we were nearly clear was frustrating to say the least. 

On top of this was Steve's hand. Steve has been an avid BJJ attendee in Japan, but one night at the start of July, he put his hand down during drilling and managed to actually break a bone in his hand. At first he thought he'd just jared something, but five days after and finding it was still painful and bruising meant a trip to the doctor with Google Translate on hand. Luckily it was his left hand, and a fairly clean break; no surgery required. But it's going to take six weeks to heal and hiking up a mountain isn't advisable. 

After months of training, research and preparation, suddenly it didn't seem like climbing Japan's most iconic mountain would be possible. More "on again, off again" feels as we thought through the logistics of it all. Was it really over or still possible? 

Meanwhile Steve and I were finding it really hard to parent the girls, because Rachel was coming home spouting new Japanese left right and centre which we wanted to encourage, but Sophie was feeling more and more defeated at her Japanese learning. How to praise one without the other feeling neglected? 

With only weeks to go at their Japanese school, our two girls were experiencing some very different emotions. Rachel was starting to realise the friends she'd made were going to be hard to keep in contact with, and that she'd miss the girls from her class who called by after school so often to play in the park together. She worked hard to write notes for each of them, and her teacher, and then was emotional at the shops wanting to buy them all presents as well and not having enough money. 

Sophie was the opposite. The days could not go fast enough for her. School had been tougher than she'd thought and she'd found it hard to connect with her teacher and peers, so she was ready for it to be over. I did encourage her to try to write even basic thank you notes with her address for people who had been kind to her, but she refused. Then, on the last day, everyone was saying goodbye and wanting to have her sign things to remember her by and she realised that it would have been good to have something after all.

My goodness the bumpy road of navigating all of this was and is tricky to say the least. We are trying to stay positive and "make the most of it" as best we can, but our frustration this last couple of weeks has been pretty high. As we head towards the end of our Tokyo time, I'm feeling sad that we will be saying goodbye to now our familiar neighbourhood and also ready for some new scenery. 

I'll let you know how it all plays out soon, until then, enjoy this photo of the iconic Tokyo Sky Tree which has been such a constant in our Tokyo time that it is almost inconceivable that it won't always be in our view somewhere. 

Visitors in Japan

Highlights of Japan also include visits with friends and family from Australia. These have been fun and provided much delight for everyone. The girls particularly have enjoyed showing off their Japanese in these situations, which has been a bit of a confidence boost when they have been feeling overwhelmed in Japanese school. They often feeling like they aren't getting anywhere, then just in time, a friendly face comes along to be appropriately in awe as the girls use their Japanese to talk, order things at shops or read the kanji on the train maps. 

Our first international catch up was with my friend from uni, who I've talked about already. We also managed to catch up with another of my uni friends who has moved around so often since uni that this might have been the first time I'd seen him in 16 years! That was a lot of fun having dinner with him and his kids at a random Saizeriya restaurant in Saitama which was a halfway point for both of us on the train line. 

Then my uncle from Sydney flew in for a week. I'd actually just started my language course in Saitama, so the timing was a little less than perfect, but we managed to catch up three times while he was here and have a great time. There is lots to do in Tokyo, so he didn't languish without us. 

I first saw him in Ginza after we had come down for a cultural experience in Asakusa. It was a cold and rainy day, so we just did shopping and then found a delicious noodle place for dinner. Warm soba was just what the weather called for. 

Ginza isn't an area we have frequented too often, so catching the train home from there in the evening was even fun. Can't believe this was the view from the station platform. 

Then on the Friday night, I dashed home to grab the girls and head back out to meet UJ for dinner together in Asakusa. I knew I wanted him to try some monja, since it's so unique. Lots of fun! 

The girls got given small toys from the box at the restaurant.

We also wandered around Asakusa, which was much less crowded in the evening as the shops closed up, but none the less vibe-y and fun. Even the closed shops were fun. And there was no ridiculous crowd here and no waiting to get a picture with the iconic kaminari-mon (Thunder Gate). 

Of course we also took photos with our favourite Tokyo landmark; Skytree. 

Then, Saturday morning, we all took a trip to Skytree together, this time actually going all the way to the observation deck to see the city from the sky. It was especially cool when we could locate our little corner of Tokyo (defined by the surrounding rivers) and know we lived down there. 

I loved the use of the Japanese motif asanoha, which was on the uniforms, on the mascot and on the ceiling. It was interesting to see it in different places with new parts of the pattern highlighted. It almost made it a new design each time. 

Skytree - so tall!

We visited the pop-up Ghibli store to see Totoro and the girls made spontaneous badge purchases. 

Lastly, we had a delicious sushi lunch at one of the restaurants "downstairs" which was on level 6 of the shopping complex that is at the foundation of the tower.  

Then off on a train to the airport went my uncle, and home we went for the evening. If anyone else is wanting to come visit, we won't say no!