6-14-08

FUJI DAY!!!!!!!
Today finally got here! I couldn’t wait! I booked a tour to Mt. Fuji knowing that b/c it wasn’t climbing season, we would have a hard time getting to the mountain by overselves. I was truly hoping to climb Fuji, but it was nearly immpossible with the short time we had there, and the mountain huts along the way being closed. So the tour picked us up from the hotel and brought us to Mt. Fuji. The ride there was great. About 10 of us went, and we all had the same interests and humor! I was so excited about seeing a different aspect of the courntyside. We went into the mountains and the scenery was breath –taking! I saw 3 monkeys walking on the side of a mountain. EXCITING!!!! The summit of Fuji was hidden by clouds. It was such a bummer! But it was still beautiful! After doing a kabuki dance, and having much fun reinacting some traditional dance moves with the group, we managed to see the summit for 5 minutes before leaving the area. We were so lucky! Mama fuji-san answered our calling!!! After the Fuji, we traveled to a nearby city called Hakone, which is also the name of an ancient volcano. Hakone was a huge volcano like Fuji, that erupted a LONG time ago. There is legend that the gods in Japan always argued about which volcano was taller. The gods built a pipe coming out of each of the mountains. They dropped water in each of the pipes. The mountain that had the water reach the ground first was the shorter one. Hakone was the shorter one, so they say! We took a boat ride on Mount Ashi, which is one of the 5 lakes at the bottom of Fuji and Harakone. It was a great ride! Then we took a gondola ride high up tp see more scenery. That was a neat journey. Richard, Brian, Josh, and I ran up a huge hill on the mountain and visited a shrine. AWESOME! It was a great tour, despite the fact we didn’t get many views of the summit! We took the bullet train back to Tokyo. It want hundreds- of- miles per hour. It was so smooth, I don’t know whether we were going 30 miles an hour, or 300 mph……
Later that night, Richard, Aaron, and I went to Shiboya and Harajuku. These 2 areas are the “Times Squares” of Japan, except I must say, they top NYC for the # of people in the street at the same time. There is a 5 pointed intersection where walls of people just cross all at the same time. It was unreal how polite the people are, and everyone justs gets out of everyone’s way. We ate dinner at this little noodle house where you put your money in a machine, picked what you what, received a ticket, and at the counter – traded your ticket for your meal. It was so cool! And YUMMY!