Rollercoasters, Climbing Mt. Fuji, & Roppongi

So this is going to be a long post but I'm going to try to make it quick because Will & I have gotten very little sleep in the past two days and it's catching up to us!

Anyways, yesterday we started the day by taking a bus ride about 2 hours away to the Fuji area where we went to an amusement park called Fuji-Q. It's pretty small and has only like 4 major rides but they were awesome! Seriously, the ride called "The Fourth Dimension" may be one of my favorite rollercoasters EVER. It has (maybe had, not sure) the record for the most inversions, 14 in total! It was awesome. Our favorite random thing about this place is they had a "chicken way" for people who decided they were too scared to ride the ride and wanted to exit the line. Luckily, this place wasn't too big because we needed to save some of our energy to climb Mt. Fuji.

So we left the amusement park and took another bus to the 5th station of Mt. Fuji. Mt. Fuji is divided up into 10 stations and the highest you can get to by car or bus is the 5th so most climbers start at the 5th. The trail we took to the top is called the Yoshida trail. We made sure we brought lots of water and snacks and we both got a hiking stick. Most people bring hiking sticks or poles to help with the climb but the cool part about the stick is that you can get a stamp burned or etched onto your stick at the summit. At this time it was pretty warm so we started our hike in shorts and a t-shirt and took off on the trail at around 6:20pm.

Throughout the trail, it was really beautiful being above the clouds. The weather was cool but we were sweating from all the hiking and doing awesome on time. We were passing people up like crazy and were hiking at a record pace. We were feeling good!

Now there's really two ways to approach Mt. Fuji: 1) You start at about 10pm and hike through the night and get to the summit by 4:50pm to catch the sunrise OR 2) You start the hike early like 12pm-3pm in the day and stop and spend the night at one of the mountain huts on the 7th or 8th station and then wake up at about 1am to climb the rest of the way. Well we kinda had bad timing because of going to Fuji-Q. We didn't start our climb until after 6pm and while we were doing awesome on time, we didn't know when to stop. If we went straight to the top, we'd be up there freezing wake too early and we weren't sure if there was anything up at the top like a shelter to keep warm but at the same time, we weren't too tired from hiking that we wanted to keep going. Well our stomachs did the deciding for us because we decided to stop at a mountain hut on the 8th station at around 9:30pm because we were hungry for dinner. Now these mountain huts aren't fancy by any means. They are literally small huts with rooms with two huge, long bunk beds. On each bunk bed they have rows and rows of sleeping bags and pillows and that's where you sleep! It's not cheap either but what do you expect for accommodations on top of a mountain?? I seriously don't know how they get supplies up there! As for food, they have hugely overpriced drinks, snacks, and ramen noodles. You also have to pay to go to the bathroom since it must be a pain in the ass to take anything up the mountain and to keep things clean while taking care of conserving the mountain. Anyways, we ate $10 Cup Noodles and went to bed. The problem was that there would only be about 3-4 hours of sleeping time until we'd have to wake up to make the rest of the trek. We knew that it was probably a bad idea to get a tease of a good night's rest but oh well. I couldn't sleep a wink anyways and at 1am, we got up to make the rest of the journey! Also, please note the awesome head lamp on my head! I gave Will a hard time about buying these but they were the best thing ever! I don't think we could have down the hike without them and everyone wears them. The trail isn't lit at all and although we brought flashlights, the path is pretty steep and at times so rocky, you're practically crawling up the rocks on your hands and knees so having the light on our head was awesome!

Now once we woke up and starting to make the final ascension, Will & I weren't doing so hot. We were so sleepy from me not getting any sleep and Will getting about 2 hours. It was also FREEZING and we had all of our clothes on. I even had my scarf and snow hat on. I think we were also both really hungry too because we were both starting to feel nauseous and had to take frequent breaks. Everyone was trying to get to the top for the sunrise as well so at this point the trail was PACKED. When we initially went up, we were kind of in an in between time where no one was on the trail but now we were like ants going up. It was kind of scary because it's really steep near the top and if anyone misstepped or tripped on a rock, it would have been an avalanche of hikers.

But finally, we made it to the top!!! 3, 776 meters above sea level!! WAHOO!!

As for the sunrise, it was beautiful! It was really awesome and we made it right on time! However after taking a few pictures we were FREEZING and ready to find some food and shelter. There's a tiny little makeshift town up there with just a few food stands, a bathroom, and even a post office! We bought a postcard to send ourselves from the top and then we forgot to send it!! WOMP WOMP! As for our sickness, I think my nausea was from hunger because once I got to the top and ate a snack, I felt fine. Will, however, had an awful migraine and thinks he might of gotten altitude sickness. A lot of people get altitude sickness and even buy these silly $15 oxygen tanks (looks like spray cans) but we didn't do that. Instead, Will sucked it up till we got to the top and rested at one of the shelters where they sell food.

Then it was time to climb down. The climb down SUCKED! It is super steep and REALLY rocky lava. Sometimes it's tiny rocks like gravel and your feet sink in and other times it's big rocks like the size of a plum but either way it's hard to walk without tripping and sliding. It gets really painful on your knees and at the end I thought my toes were going to fall off from being pushed down into the toebox of my sneaker. The climb down took forever too because you had to go so slow because it was so rocky. At the very end, it started to rain and we saw hikers who were on their way up as we were exiting. We were grateful that we had good weather because I think I would've called a quits and stayed in the mountain hut if it was freezing AND raining!

All in all, after 6 hours of hiking up and 3 1/2 hours of hiking down, Will & I decided we were really glad we climbed Mt. Fuji but we would never want to do it again!

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Once we got to the bottom, we jumped on a 2 hour bus ride home and then we started today!
The first thing we wanted to do was shower since we were sweaty, rained on, and had lava dust all over our shoes and clothes. We then just wanted to relax today since we were exhausted so we decided to go to the movies and hang out in a neighborhood called Roppongi. Roppongi is apparently where most of the Western tourists go because that's the only place we've really seen any of them. The movies here are usually expensive but I lucked out because today was "ladies' night" and so my ticket was super cheap! We saw Salt and I like the Japanese theatres because they sell caramel corn popcorn, have huge screens, always do reserved seating, and the seats are lower and my feet touch the ground. : ) Then we had a yummy dinner, walked around Roppongi and went home! Tomorrow is our last chance to go to the Fish Market if we can wake up early enough (50/50 that we'll make it with our recent sleep deprivation!). Then it'll be time to head home!