Pound Family Adventures: July 2014

When I found out that we had received orders to Korea I told Russ one of my bucket list items was to hike Mt. Fuji in Japan. We put it on the back burner and as our time here continued to pass I realized it was most likely not going to be possible for Russ and I to get away for a few days in order to travel to Japan. Well, you can imagine my excitement when on my birthday this past June Russ gave me a printed itinerary for a completely planned trip to Tokyo. He had arranged for a friend to watch our girls and had all the details worked out. It was a wonderful surprise.

We left Seoul on a Monday morning, arrived in Tokyo around noon, checked into our hotel and rested for about 2 hours then got on a bus for a 2 hour bus ride to the mountain.

At the airport on Monday morning.

We began our hike around 8 pm and the plan was to hike most of the night up to the top of the mountain and arrive a little before 4 am for the sunrise. Crazy plan, I know.

This was at the starting point of our hike during the sunset. The sky was pink and there were clouds above and below us. It was beautiful.

If you turned and looked in the opposite direction the sky was completely blue.

All ready to start our trek up the mountain

Since we did a large majority of our hiking at night I didn't take very many pictures. It was pitch black on the mountain. We had to use headlamps to see where we were going. While hiking up the mountain was not easy it was also not the most difficult part of the hike. The lack of oxygen at that elevation was by far the hardest part for me. We had to stop every hundred steps or so to catch our breath. It was also cold and EXTREMELY windy on the mountain. It was so windy that at times the wind would move me. I would have to crouch very low to the ground and hold on during the big gusts of wind so that it wouldn't push me over.

This was the only picture I took during the night.

Around 1 am, after we had been hiking for almost 5. We realized that we were going to get to the peak about 2 hours before the sun rose. It was very cold and the higher we hiked the thicker the clouds were. At this point we could not see any farther than 1 step in front of us, even with our headlamps on. They have small huts along the way that you can stop and and pay (most of your life savings) to rest for a few hours. At first, it was our plan to push through and not stop (we are very cheap) but as we began to realize how long we would have to wait at the freezing cold, windy top of a mountain we decided to fork over the ridiculous amount of money (While we always knew our cheapness had a limit we never really knew what it was. We figured it out at 1 am on the side of a mountain, freezing cold and exhausted. This is the limit to our cheapness and we will pay a ton of money for some warmth and rest.) At this point of the night the cloud cover was so thick we were not even sure if it would be possible to see the sun rise the next morning. We laid down for about 2 and half hours and woke up right around 3:30 am and looked outside.
We were so excited when this is what we saw...

The horizon was clear and we could just see the beginnings of light. We quickly put our boots back on and continued our trek to the top of the mountain.

As we hiked I took pictures of the sun rising over the horizon. The words beautiful and breathtaking do not do it justice.

Almost at the top. The altitude of Mt Fuji is 3776 m (12,388 ft).

My picture is a little bit blurry because it was so windy up there that I could not hold the ipad still long enough for it to focus on the sign.

There is a shrine right before the top.

We finally made it to the very top of the mountain and it was gorgeous...and FREEZING COLD and INCREDIBLY WINDY! All of these pictures were taken around 5 am.

This was one of my favorite pictures from the top.

The white in these pictures are the low clouds.

Making it to the top was personally one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had. I was exhausted, cold and hungry at this point, but I never have felt more pride in an accomplishment.

The top had a few small huts but they were all closed. When we realized that they were all closed we were so thankful that we had paid the outrageous fee to sleep a few hours a little ways down the mountain. We would have gotten to the top and not had any place to get out of the cold and wind.

Mt. Fuji is actually a huge, dormant volcano. The inside of the cone was filled with snow.

Can you see the switchbacks going down the side of the mountain?

We tried to take a few selfies at the top of the mountain, but it was so windy that every time we held out the ipad it would almost blow out of our hands. This was the best one that we got.

People had stuck 5 Yens in the wood of this arch.

And now to begin the descent down the mountain. The path for the top third of the mountain was all this volcanic rock. After we figured out the best way to walk in it it actually went fairly fast. It took us about 6 hours to reach the top of the mountain and about 3 hours to come back down.

The sun was reflecting off the lake and the clouds were low.

There was a lot of snow at the top.

We followed a different trail down the mountain than we had going up. These were the signs we had to follow.

It was so clear. We could see for miles.

The sky was so blue.

And finally, approximately 13 hours after we left we returned back to our starting point. By this time the clouds had blown in again and it was very cloudy and cold.

That night as I was emptying out my backpack the plastic bottles came out looking like this. I didn't smash it like that, but that goes to show how different the pressure was from the top of the mountain to the bottom.

Russ had scheduled the next two days as sightseeing days in Tokyo. Unfortunately for us, there was a typhoon that was going through and both days it was very overcast and rainy. Or course, that didn't stop us. We still were able to see a lot of Tokyo, we just did it with these geeky rain ponchos on.

We took a bus tour through the city. Even though it was rainy they still had us sit in the open part of the bus and we just wore the rain ponchos.

The Tokyo Tower~

A kissing picture to embarrass our children.

The Tokyo SkyTree~

The "Times Square" of Tokyo~

Harajuku~

Our bus tour took us to many of the popular tourist attractions, including this temple.

Since we see a lot of temples in Korea I didn't take many pictures.

If you look at this picture closely you can see that beyond the red arches it is filled with people as far as the picture goes. It was very full this day.

We found numerous differences between Tokyo and Seoul, but one of biggest ones was that Tokyo had hardly any public trash cans. I had carried my empty water bottle around for over an hour before we found this trash can. We were so excited to find it we took a picture of me throwing my trash in it.

Another big difference between the cities was the subway system. In Seoul the subway is very foreigner friendly, but not so much in Tokyo. It is very confusing and difficult to figure out. One cool thing was these "Women Only" cars. They are only in use during rush hour times to protect the female commuters.

Some of the Japanese signs were funny.

In this sign the puff of cigarette smoke is telling you not talk walk and smoke.

On this sign the man is freaking out because a woman has fallen onto the subway tracks.

On this one it is telling you if you are looking at your cell phone instead of paying attention to where you are walking you will run into a child that is carrying a fish bowl and it will spill everywhere.

We went to see a crazy robot show. It was a very Japanese experience.