mount fujienstein

I climbed mount fuji! Me and Amber climbed fuji-san (Japanese people affectionately attach -san to the end of mountain names, just like pooh-san and santa-san) this past weekend. Amber wrote about it on her blog and put pictures on facebook, but I figure I should prove my involvement as well.

Friday night we went to Tokyo, dined and stayed with Amber's friends. Saturday morning we caught the bus to Fuji, and proceeded to take a nap in the woods to make up for the lack of sleep from the night before. This is the circus like atmosphere at the 5th station. Its where we caught the bus to, and where we and most people start the ascent of fuji-san. It's a little bit cheating though, since it's already half way up the mountain.
This is our nap spot!
Doesn't Amber look happy to be climbing this mountain for the second time?
The sun was setting not long after we began the climb. The idea is to climb at night to watch the sunrise from the peak.
We stopped at Amber's friends Maria's hut about a third of the way up on our journey. We spent quality time with Maria, and even made a new friend, Yuya. He's my age, but unlike me he is already well into his motorcycle racing career, and already has a wife and kid.
After a few hours we resumed the trek.

As we made the last part of our journey, I really started to feel creeped out about how many people were on this mountain. It was packed, like Japanese rush hour train style. But at 3600 meter elevation. It was literally packed for the last 2 hours or so of our climb. In fact, I think we could've done that last leg in 40 minutes with a good effort. But it took 2 hours ish I believe. I felt the same way when I drive around anywhere between 7am and 10pm at night in this country. Too many people, too slow, too much stopping.

But the view was amazing. I think sharing the experience with a bajillion other people, including an Aussie named Graham we picked up along the way, made it more memorable in some ways. I'm not sure if its a good way or a bad way, but some way.

I didn't record the way down so much because it was pretty grueling and because we weren't reaching for a goal anymore (except to finally sleep. We climbed a mountain instead of sleeping the night before). And to top it off we got off the main trail somehow, and took some sort of alternate trail that was not only harder than the original one, but took us in the totally wrong direction of the bus back we already paid for.
This is how I handled the news. Typical Gitlin.
Anyway it all turned out fine as we caught a bus/train combo home for about the same price, and even managed to get a refund on the original bus ticket. In just a few moments we went from being pretty upset with ourselves and Japan, to being pretty happy with how things turned out.

In the meantime I'm putting in time 9-5 like the rest of us schlobs and lookin for what's next. And wondering where that might be. If you have any ideas, let me know!

I'll post another blog soon that's less action adventure oriented and more personal. Good to add variety instead of restricting this piece to one genre, don't you agree? Feel free to add comments as well, or send email (aarongitlin@gmail.com), or better yet, letters (
Gunma-ken
Takasaki-shi
Munadaka-machi 803-5
K-Haitsu 201
370-3521
JAPAN
)

I hope I see everyone sooner than my last absence. Hope all is well.

Love
Aaron

PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD (again. I didn't forget on the real day either!) and a good rosh hashana to everyone as well.