i have never cared for lsits before until i started travelling. although a tangible list has never materialised, in my mind i have things i wanted to do, not before i die, but, before a certain condition. in china it had been to scale the great wall so i quit my job in guangzhou and went to beijing. in japan, the pinnacle was to climb mt.fuji. but, as time was running out for me here in japan with no opportunity nor companion to climb the mountain with, i was ready to cross that item off my list when michael, a filipino friend living in japan, said he and a couple of other friends were planning to climb it as well. i ended up forcing him to accept me as part of the group and he ended up conceding.
the climb was on the 20th of this month supposedly at 12 noon but because i failed to check the timetable of the bus which departs from kawaguchiko to the 5th station, i ended up making the guys wait for me for almost 4 hours. i guess i took the women's prerogative to be tardy quite too far this time, eh? of course i was terribly sorry and embarrassed but being the proud person that i am, i disguised it with a smile, and they readily accepted. such sweet men (and am one lucky woman)!
for the detailed account of the climb, click to gong's link on the sidebar.
i have to say that mt fuji in itself was not an interesting mountain to climb AT ALL. it was barren and filled with nothing but rocks! if it had been a woman, mt fuji would have been a bimbo (sorry for the term). it looks so magnificent from a far until you get to know it better and realized that it is empty. however, i was lucky enough to have climb it with the most interesting and the funniest men i have ever been with. the guys; gong, michael, kuya bernard, ruel and roy made the what-could-had-been-a-boring-and-dreadful thing a very fun experience. with michael's sense of adventure, we camped instead of staynig at a lodge. admittedly, i was quite hesitant at first but what the heck, i didn't have much choice as the lodges were fully booked and didn't accept walk in guests!i didn't regret my choice though. the site michael found had a magnificent view of the heavens. i have never seen such a beautiful night sky before than what i had seen that night! the moon was so red as it climbs its way up into the dark yet starry sky!
i was terribly hungry by the time the guys pitched the tent as i didnt eat anything the night before and only had my usual fare of coffee for breakfast. i was so starved and was ready to resigned myself to a dinner of canned food when michael and ruel whipped out a complete dinner which i couldn't have well prepared even in my own kitchen. i was so impressed! we had pork ribs soup, yakisoba and fried rice! yum!
we had a brief rest constantly interrupted by snoring and laughter! although restless as we were, we resumed climbing towards the peak at around midnight. it was 6 of us and hundreds of other climbers as well. it was like a fun run minus the fun and the running! at around 3 am, the horizon began to turn into a magnificent hue of indigo! i was more elated than tired. at around 430, although we were still far from the summit, we decided to stop for a bit, take our cameras and start posing! i have never seen such beautiful sunrise. it was so mesmerizing it made me want to cry, all the more because my camera ran out of battery! why? oh why?
after a brief rest, we climbed on! finally, at around 7 am, michael and i reached the summit, after ruel, bernard and roy did! there was no asking, all of us decided not to walk around the crater. if we had, it would have taken us at least an hour to do and drain us of our last ounce of energy. we could have died! hahaha! so we took a nap again, snapped some photos and started the descent.
oh before that, i called my mom on my cellphone as it was on the same day that my dad was to undergo a corneal transplant. when she learned where i was and and that i was with 5 men, she threw a fit on the phone! i wonder how she would have reacted had i told her that we all slept in the same tent! i bet she would have had flew to japan, scaled the mountain to the summit, dragged me down and flew me back to the philippines, all in a second! my mom is scary!
the descent was worse than terrible! this is the trouble with mountain climbing, because once one is at the top, one has to climb down again. and particularly for this mountain, going down was exceptionally dreadful! there was nothing but dust which turned my leather boots into interesting shades of brown and which clogged my nose with gravel! when the mist came to meet us from below, my hair dripped a despicable brownish liquid! yuck!!
anyway, skipping the dreadful part, gong, michael and i arrived back at the 5th station at around 1. we went to kawaguchiko to wash up a bit and to have lunch. then, we parted ways. i got home tired, muscles soaring in places i never thought existed in my body, my two toenails have now gone to live with the dead, and my body was begging for 20 hours uninterrupted sleep. i didn't concede, i straigh away went to my belly dancing lesson, rented shanghai knights and by the time it was 11 pm, i left jackie chan and owen wilson kung fu kicking on the screen. i drifted off to sleep; mt fuji was conquered, hokkaido, watch out for me in august!
the climb was on the 20th of this month supposedly at 12 noon but because i failed to check the timetable of the bus which departs from kawaguchiko to the 5th station, i ended up making the guys wait for me for almost 4 hours. i guess i took the women's prerogative to be tardy quite too far this time, eh? of course i was terribly sorry and embarrassed but being the proud person that i am, i disguised it with a smile, and they readily accepted. such sweet men (and am one lucky woman)!
for the detailed account of the climb, click to gong's link on the sidebar.
i have to say that mt fuji in itself was not an interesting mountain to climb AT ALL. it was barren and filled with nothing but rocks! if it had been a woman, mt fuji would have been a bimbo (sorry for the term). it looks so magnificent from a far until you get to know it better and realized that it is empty. however, i was lucky enough to have climb it with the most interesting and the funniest men i have ever been with. the guys; gong, michael, kuya bernard, ruel and roy made the what-could-had-been-a-boring-and-dreadful thing a very fun experience. with michael's sense of adventure, we camped instead of staynig at a lodge. admittedly, i was quite hesitant at first but what the heck, i didn't have much choice as the lodges were fully booked and didn't accept walk in guests!i didn't regret my choice though. the site michael found had a magnificent view of the heavens. i have never seen such a beautiful night sky before than what i had seen that night! the moon was so red as it climbs its way up into the dark yet starry sky!
i was terribly hungry by the time the guys pitched the tent as i didnt eat anything the night before and only had my usual fare of coffee for breakfast. i was so starved and was ready to resigned myself to a dinner of canned food when michael and ruel whipped out a complete dinner which i couldn't have well prepared even in my own kitchen. i was so impressed! we had pork ribs soup, yakisoba and fried rice! yum!
we had a brief rest constantly interrupted by snoring and laughter! although restless as we were, we resumed climbing towards the peak at around midnight. it was 6 of us and hundreds of other climbers as well. it was like a fun run minus the fun and the running! at around 3 am, the horizon began to turn into a magnificent hue of indigo! i was more elated than tired. at around 430, although we were still far from the summit, we decided to stop for a bit, take our cameras and start posing! i have never seen such beautiful sunrise. it was so mesmerizing it made me want to cry, all the more because my camera ran out of battery! why? oh why?
after a brief rest, we climbed on! finally, at around 7 am, michael and i reached the summit, after ruel, bernard and roy did! there was no asking, all of us decided not to walk around the crater. if we had, it would have taken us at least an hour to do and drain us of our last ounce of energy. we could have died! hahaha! so we took a nap again, snapped some photos and started the descent.
oh before that, i called my mom on my cellphone as it was on the same day that my dad was to undergo a corneal transplant. when she learned where i was and and that i was with 5 men, she threw a fit on the phone! i wonder how she would have reacted had i told her that we all slept in the same tent! i bet she would have had flew to japan, scaled the mountain to the summit, dragged me down and flew me back to the philippines, all in a second! my mom is scary!
the descent was worse than terrible! this is the trouble with mountain climbing, because once one is at the top, one has to climb down again. and particularly for this mountain, going down was exceptionally dreadful! there was nothing but dust which turned my leather boots into interesting shades of brown and which clogged my nose with gravel! when the mist came to meet us from below, my hair dripped a despicable brownish liquid! yuck!!
anyway, skipping the dreadful part, gong, michael and i arrived back at the 5th station at around 1. we went to kawaguchiko to wash up a bit and to have lunch. then, we parted ways. i got home tired, muscles soaring in places i never thought existed in my body, my two toenails have now gone to live with the dead, and my body was begging for 20 hours uninterrupted sleep. i didn't concede, i straigh away went to my belly dancing lesson, rented shanghai knights and by the time it was 11 pm, i left jackie chan and owen wilson kung fu kicking on the screen. i drifted off to sleep; mt fuji was conquered, hokkaido, watch out for me in august!
