Japan Adventures

This blog is from Hiroshima, sitting here in a hotel, not far from the train station. For several years Doug has been wanting to return to Japan where he served his mission 38 years ago. We planned our trip for several months, wanting to take backpacks and travel around Japan on the trains that run virtually everywhere in the country.

Finally the day came for us to go...so on Wednesday after work, we drove to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where we flew to San Francisco, and then off to Tokyo! We flew from Saskatoon because we will attend the Canadian Dental Conference there the two days after we return from Japan.

On our arrival in Tokyo on Friday afternoon, I was surprised to see so many people everywhere... on the trains, in the streets, on bikes and buses, and the most amazing thing is, they are all so kind and respectful to each other! I am beginning to think that this little country has a lot to teach us!

In Tokyo, we stayed in a hotel room that was very space efficient, everything in perfect order, even a small flashlight by the bed, and we enjoyed a nice view of the city!

On Saturday we went to the Tokyo Temple. It was beautiful, the spirit of the Temple is the same wherever you go, in whatever language. I loved watching the workers, knowing that we do the same thing in the Edmonton Temple!

That evening we met up with our good friend from Tokyo, Kenji Okada, who has stayed with us several times in Edmonton. He treated us to an evening of real Japanese sushi! Doug and I were enjoying it, especially when they brought each of us a fish head, with eyes and teeth intact! It was great and so fun to see Kenji again!!

On Sunday, we took the train to church, Doug remembered it being just a block from the train station, things had changed a bit since he was here, so we wandered for awhile until a cabbie with a GPS saved us! The sweet members greeted us so warmly, especially Doug, when they realized he had served there 38 years ago as a missionary.

Sunday evening we took the train Southeast to Fujinomiya and stayed in a bit bigger hotel room, with enough room to organize our backpacks and gear for our upcoming hike up Mt Fuji.

Well...on Monday the adventure began. We took a bus up to Station five which is 2,500 metres up on Mt Fuji. We started the hike up the mountain around 11:00 am, but after 15 minutes realized we had missed a sign and had gone up the wrong trail...so, now in the rain, we found the right trail and started to CLIMB!

It took a lot of energy, but as hard as it was, we knew we were having a once in a lifetime experience, and we had looked forward to it for a long time!

So...cold and wet we moved up, passing station after station. Finally the weather cleared, and we had actually climbed above the storm clouds. It was beautiful to look down on the cloud cover below and the relatively clear sky above.

 

It was late afternoon when we reached Station 9.5, only one half hour from the clearly visible rim. We had reserved a place to sleep over night here and then climb to the summit tomorrow. Soon, a large group arrived, taking up every available inch of floor space.

We had a warm dinner of curry rice and met a couple of boys that could speak English, they became our dear friends for the rest of the trip! The boy on the left hiked off the soles of his boots and fixed them 'MacGyver' style using his boot laces to tie on his soles and then the next day, hiked to the summit and down!

That evening we visited with other hikers, but we were the only 'Gaijins' (caucasians) in the group! We went to bed early, a term used loosely as we shared a small room with 24 other hikers, with no room to turn over. Dad said, "Fortunately no one had bad gas and there was only one snorer!" It was a night to remember with very little sleep!

We were up Tues morning at 3:00 am, ate a light breakfast, put on our gear and started up the mountain. It took us about half an hour before we reached the summit, and what a feeling! Just to know that we were finally on top!!

It was still very dark and cold, but a lot of excitement as people continued to reach the summit with cheers of celebration! A combined feeling of accomplishment for all of us to be on the summit at 3,776 metres!

 

We stayed on the summit about an hour as we watched the sky below turn to orange, yellow and red. It was amazing to be so high and watch the morning unveil itself so slowly and beautifully. It was wonderful just being there and having the opportunity to see the sun rise over Japan!

We left the summit and began our descent thinking it would be a quick two to three hours, but not for us! We found it very difficult going down, very hard on our 'old' knees. The lava rocks and boulders with the slippery shale caused us to watch almost each step down and being such a steep slope, we moved slowly.

But, this was OK for us, we had no rain and so we enjoyed the view and our fellow hikers during our descent. At one station on the way down, we shared our bean cakes and cookies with these fellow hikers, they loved it!

Well, hiking Fuji gave us one advantage, when we checked into our hotel in Hiroshima on Tuesday evening, we were given a 'handicapped' room!! We must have looked like a couple of old foggies, all crippled up, walking slow and stiff... so funny, but the room is great!

So, we start a new day in Hiroshima, but we'll blog more about that later...