Sunsets! :)

The sunsets of Kamisu are one of the things I looked forward to EVERY weekend here....even in winter when the sun was setting at 4:30pm and I was freezing my booty off.    The park across from my house has a small little hill which couldn't be more perfect for watching a sunset.  Which is why I was always surprised there weren't more people up there enjoying the view.  More room for me I guess. :) But that being said, there were always the same people I would usually see every week.  And by people, I mean that I would actually first recognize the dog AND THEN the owner.  One of them being Friendy.  Friendy is a GINORMOUS Saint Bernard that could probably eat me in a second.  And that's not a joke.  His name is Friendy because he is friendly...of course.  :)  It didn't take me long to realize that many of the Japanese use English names for their pets.  Besides Friendy,  I also remember meeting a dog named July and a cat named Tuna.

Love these things

Friendy doing his duty!

From the small little hill, on a clear day, I could see Mt.Fuji.  I've only been able to see it a few times but it was pretty cool considering it's about 200km away.

The sun and the clouds this past year have lit up the sky in ways I never could have imagined...I'm amazed at how completely different the sky was EVERY single night.  I think I probably took over 100 pictures of all the different sunsets...it was impossible not too because they were all ridiculously beautiful. 

The sunsets have been nothing short of Brilliant.... and I'm pretty sure all of them were just one of God's many beautiful paintings.  :)

Mt.Fuji Climb

An old Japanese proverb says: “He who does not climb Mt.Fuji is a fool, but he who climbs Mt.Fuji twice is an even bigger fool.”  I would definitely have to agree with this little proverb because there is no way in hek that my body will ever go up that volcano again.  Definitely worth it, but once was enough for me.  :)

Beginning of the trek was super foggy....

And then there was light  :)

Taking a little break at a hut along the way..

 
Had I known Mt. Fuji was still an active volcano, maybe I would have thought twice about climbing the thing.  For some reason (probably due to my lack of research) I thought it was a dormant volcano.  But either way, since you are reading this blog, I think you can gather that there were no eruptions while I was climbing....thank God. :)

Climbing Mt. Fuji was both easier and more difficult than I thought it would be.  It wasn't super strenuous, but it also wasn't super easy if you know what I'm saying.  Great description hey?  :)

Looking down on part of the trail

I was kind of obsessed with the clouds

I spent the night in a mountain hut almost on the top of Mt. Fuji at 3450 meters.  I think this was the highest altitude that I've ever slept at and I could definitely tell by the way my head was feeling.  The couple of people that I saw who got altitude sickness and the oxygen machine that was being used by a bunch of people in my hut didn't freak me out at all (that was sarcasm.) 

  

Happy to be at my mountain hut for the night :)

Staying at this mountain hut was officially the most people I have ever shared an accommodation with.  Let me first start by saying that this hut wasn't big by any means.  Seriously. Not big. At. All.  And how many people do you think they squeezed into that place?! 150! I now know what it's like to feel like a sardine.  I'm usually not a claustrophobic person, but when I found out that I was sharing a blanket with 7 other people and would be spooning the Japanese stranger next to me, I think my heart stopped for a split second.  

My sardine bed

 

Not crowded at all

I slept about a wink the entire night...and by the entire night I mean I didn't sleep.  Everyone tried to go to bed around 9pm but I seriously doubt anyone got any sleep.  I mean how could you when there were a billion people snoring, you were sharing a blanket with 6 other strangers, and you had the amount of space about the width of a ruler?  The answer is you can't.  :)
People started "waking up" around 1am to start hiking in order to make it up to the summit before sunrise.   Thank God for my headlamp otherwise pretty sure I probably would have had a bunch of falls.  Finally made it to the top around 4:30am and watching the sunrise from above the clouds was pretty nice.  :)

Going down the volcano was NOT EASY...but the views were pretty darn spectacular.  When I finally got home, I felt like I get hit by a tornado.  The following 5-6 days I spent recovering from this nice little climb....so needless to say, Mt.Fuji kicked my butt.  :)

Bonus Question:  How do you know that you and everybody else on the bus back to Tokyo are exhausted?   

Answer:  When u don't even realize that the girl next to you is sleeping on ur shoulder...until you finally wake up.  :)