The central part of this whole trip to Japan was the climb of Mt. Fuji.  Mt. Fuji is Japan’s highest and most sacred mountain, those who have studied Japan’s culture and history know that the mountain has played a vital role in many of the cultural happenings in Japan.  My goal was to climb it, 12,389ft.  Initially, I had wanted to do this without a guide or help, I figured, I could do it.  However, the girls who I had asked to come (Megumi, Mami, and Mari) insisted on a guide to make sure nothing bad happened.  So, with that in mind, I asked them to set something up.

Following my return to Tokyo, I stayed in the Prince Sakura Hotel in Shinagawa.  This location was chosen because Shinagawa and Shinjuku (where the trip began from) are both stops on the Yamanote line.  I awoke early in the morning in Shinagawa, got into some of my hiking gear, and heading for Shinjuku.  I was a bit tardy getting there b/c of rush hour in Japan but we made it and caught the bus.

The bus ride was crazy since we got caught in a HUGE traffic jam and ended up arriving at Station 5 about an hour late.

Once we arrived at the station though, we were given about an hour and a half to repack our things and finish getting ready.  The fifth station (Kawaguchiko) is the merge point for several other trails which start lower.  It probably the best equipped of all the stations and the highest one accessible by road, hence why it is the most common starting point.

Around 2:00pm our hike began and immediately, despite the cloud cover, you would see just beautiful landscape shots visible from the current elevation (7,546ft) as the clouds opened up.

The ground here is very gray and you can tell affected by the elements.  I say this because as you get further up and above the clouds you no longer see the effects of rain on the stones so they are a different color.

We made it to the 6th station after about an hour of climbing so, 3:15pm Japan time. I didn’t realize it yet, but this would be one of the greatest sights for me when I made my way down.  In fact, if you look in the picture above you see people heading the opposite direction, if we only knew

As you can see from the pictures, as we hit the 6th station (~8,000ft) we were starting to encounter the clouds, pretty neat stuff.  The air wasn’t too bad at this point.

We took a slight break here as everyone was pretty tired going from a bus ride to climbing so quickly, and not being used to it.

Throughout the course of the hike you can see areas where the administrators have attempted to make the trail easier by blocking off rocks or gravel to make the trail more passable, often times they are made into stairs.  Personally, I would prefer a ramp cause some of these “stairs” are not that even in height and made carrying my gear harder and killed my knees on the way down.

Here is a view up from the sixth station, very daunting, and you cant even see the peak in these shots yet.

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As we got higher the terrain became much more dangerous and difficult.  The trail would effectively turn into craggy rocks where footing became everything.  This is where if you don’t have good shoes for climbing you are going to be in a world of hurt.

I mean, it was literally one slip and you would probably end up badly hurt.  And as we got closer to the top, these rocks were loose and we were climbing in the dark, I am amazed that no one around us got hurt.  Key here was to take your time, bend over and use your hand, and really rely on your climbing sticks.

The 8th station along the trail is not centrally located at one particular elevation, but rather spread out across many elevations.  This is likely done to reduce crowding.  These stations normally features small mountain huts with food, supplies (oxygen), and beds for wearing travelers.  We hit ours (second highest) at about 8:00pm.

They provided us with a small meal before we laid down for about 5hrs of (much needed) sleep.  Wasn’t much in the way of space, but given the journey to that point, we were thankful for anything we could get.

It was at this point, as expected, the air thinness started to really set in.  I had a headache and stomachache, both signs of Altitude Sickness, which is why I was happy I reached here.  I wasn’t really that tired, very sore though.  For this reason, I used the time here not so much for sleep but to force my body to adapt to the air.  I knew that rely on an oxygen can as I went up was going to make the climb more difficult.  I took some Advil and the headache subsided, ate and the stomachache subsided, and got a few hours of sleep, but mostly worked on my breathing.

At 12:30am we embarked for the final ascent.  It being pitch black everyone took out their lights. The reason I mention this is I didn’t take any night shots.  At this point, my camera had a hard time with all of the light that was near me versus the light far away I wanted to take.  I am sure a more experienced camera person could have accomplished the shots, but I simply couldn’t get it to work.  In addition, having an expensive camera hanging from your neck while climbing up a mountain didn’t seem like a smart idea.  We reached the top at about 3:30am and began waiting for the sun to show itself.  Even at this hour, with our altitude (12,389ft) we could begin to see the horizon.  So we waited.

Slowly it began, very slowly with some hints of light on the horizon with beautiful colors all around.

Did I mention it was cold, cold as balls and the wind was howling.  I would estimate it about 25F degrees at the top.  Not bad after a normal Michigan winter, but I don’t think its been under 90F since I have been in Japan.

Slowly it began to show itself.  So higher clouds in the distance blocked its initially appearance, but the scattering of the light, wow was amazing to see.

Everyone was on their feet now, we knew it would be very soon.  And it did, finally, happen.  The single thing I wanted to see more then everything on this trip I saw, it sheer prominence and glory, the sun casting brilliance on a new day.

The spectacle was UNREAL!!! The scope and scale and the enormity of everything leave you gasping and totally forgetting how hold you are.  We had done, we had climbed Mt. Fuji and seen the sun rise over Japan.  Unforgettable.

And yes, the guys cellphone really did work up there.  Both Mari and Mami called their mothers when the sun came up.  Only in Japan.

Now came the truly hard part: the descent.

See we didn’t go up the way we came, probably a good thing since going down some of that terrain in our present physical condition would’ve been suicide.  Still the way the descent was organized, a seemingly endless series of switch backs and steep descent trails, I was amazed I made it through without twisting my ankle or something more serious.

So the sun came up at about 430am and we departed probably around 515am.  We arrived back at the bottom, exhausted beyond belief, at 1050am.

This got annoying actually since our bus didn’t leave until 1215pm.  Most of us were sore, I could barely stand cause of my feet, and there really wasn’t any comfy places to relax.  But, fear not, our next stop was an Onsen, or a Japanese hot spring.  This hit the spot perfectly and helped relax us enough for the trip back to Shinjuku.

The bus ride back was uneventful.  Once we arrived at Shinjuku, we parted ways with Meg, Tony, and Jason E.  The later two were heading back to Air Force and Naval bases in Japan.

Mami and Mari were a HUGE part of this trip from organization to making sure I didn’t get lost to just being there for conversation.  They helped me out so immensely I wanted to treat them with something nice.  Ahead of time I had arranged the Marriott in Ginza to prepare two rooms, one for me until Monday (my departure) and one for the girls till Sunday.  This way they could both rest in comfort and not have to face long train rides back home immediately.

As an added bonus, I asked them where they would like to have dinner (bangohan).  They chose the Hard Rock Café in Roppongi.

Following dinner, we all were starting to get very sleepy.  Cant be helped, given the Fuji climbed taxed everyone well beyond their limits.  I almost fell asleep, while standing, on the subway back, drawing some giggles from a few of the Japanese girls on the train with us.

In the end, we made it back, and said our goodnights.  This trip has been epic in EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD.  I don’t know when I will come back again, I hope soon, but I had the trip of a lifetime and much of that is thanks to Mami and Mari, thanks girls.

Every time I come to Japan I have to visit Kyoto.  A city that was the capital of Japan for over 1,000 years is so rich with culture and history is a must see for any person traveling through Japan.  The numerous temples and shrines combined with a more modern shopping experience make the experience truly memorable.  Even with all the times I have come to Japan I STILL have not fully visited Kyoto.

Today’s goal was to visit the Imperial Palace and then to see the Geisha in the Gion district.  We started our trip at Kyoto station.  One of the things I love about traveling through Kyoto is the fashion.  Kyoto, being very traditional, is full of young women dressed in kimono’s or yukata’s (depending on the weather).  I absolutely love these outfits, the colors and style are just amazing.  Thankfully, most of the girls are nice enough to pose with foreigners

So our first stop on the tour was the Kyoto Imperial Palace.  It is used, today, as a second home for the Emperor when he visits Kyoto.  However, a long time ago it was the center of Japanese government, before the rise of the Feudal Lords.

Me and Mari were able to take a full tour of the southern portion of the palace grounds, though it was quite a challenge because it was over 100 degrees in Kyoto.  But we got to see some very beautiful architecture from the Heian period of Japanese history.  I have a thing for the gates that play a very vital role in ceremony.  Depending on your status, you will enter through a certain gate, in fact there are even different rooms depending on your status.  Often these are the Tiger, Crane, and Sakura rooms (Sakura being for the lower class, and Tiger being for the higher class).

Another interesting fact is, Japan being an island nation, views of the sea are quite common and are often seen through Japanese art and design.  Kyoto being without a view of the ocean uses gardens to symbolize Japan.  Consider the picture below:

Notice how the tree’s in the back are arranged, this is not random.  This done to symbolize the mountains of Japan.  As the tree’s become shorter they are complimented by rocks which symbolize the cities of Japan.  Finally the space between these rocks and where I am standing is the ocean.  This is known as a Japanese Landscape garden and is done to display a landscape through design, really neat!!

Another interesting thing is how the palace grounds are arranged.  For example, the Palace itself is open air and faces East.

The reason for this is Kyoto is surrounded on most sides by mountains and thus it is usually very hot and humid (like today).  The wind is Kyoto usually tends to blow from the East, thus by having the Palace and the Emperor’s residence face east, they will usually catch the breeze.

Unfortunately, we ran into a problem during the tour; I had forgotten to charge the battery for my good camera.  I remembered there being a large shopping district near Shijo-dori from when I studied abroad.  But it took us a lot of walking around.  The plan was the buy a new battery and head to Gion.  Thankfully, a shop owner was nice enough to charge the battery for one hour for 200yen, beats paying 6,000yen for a new battery.

During this 1hr me and Mari went and had lunch.  I had tonkatsu (pork), which is easily my favorite Japanese food.  I really do try to embrace the Japanese culture, but for some reason, Mami and Mari think I do like Japanese and are surprised when I want to stay local or speak only Japanese.

We still had some time to kill after lunch so we found a book store and I continued my search for Full Metal Panic manga in English.  The store we found did have some translated Manga, but not what I was looking for.  We returned to the camera place and got the battery.

By now it was getting very late and were both VERY tired.  We head to Yakasaka shrine with the intent on turning south to Gion.  But, in the end, we were too tired to see Gion.  Very unfortunate, but I have to start worrying about having energy for Fuji.  But I did get some good shots of Yakasaka shrine .

The bottom picture really shows how the Japanese blend new with old.  Here you have one of the busiest and most modern shopping areas in Kyoto through the entrance of a ~500yr old shrine.  It simply is amazing the history of Kyoto.

So we headed back to Osaka using the Keihan railroad.  This is not the main rail line that is run by JR, but is much faster and closer given where we were getting on.  It also took us directly to Umeda which is the non-JR train/subway stop for Osaka station, the central hub.

Me and Mari said our goodbyes until tomorrow when we both head to Tokyo before the Fuji climb.  I took the Midosuji like back to Nakatsu and grabbed dinner.  Kobe beef.  This is something that I really love about Japan.  Rather then me telling to waiter/waitress how I would like my meat cooked (and getting it wrong in most cases), in Japan they have you cook it yourself.

By cooking it yourself, you cant really complain about it not being done correctly.  And its actually a lot of fun.  I love the sauce though, it really is super tasty.

It has been a lot of fun visiting the Kansai area, I have lots of pictures and memories from old and new places for me.  I have really enjoyed my time in the area.  So now that I have completed the Hiroshima and Osaka legs of the trip, only one leg remains: Tokyo, with the Fuji climb starting on Friday.  Wish me luck.

So, the story goes that when I visited Epcot with Cameren in 2008 I met Megumi Kurata who was working as a Disney Cast Member in the Japan Pavilion at Epcot. I kept in touch with Meg as best I could leading up to my trip in 2010. Unfortunately, when my trip happened in April of that year Meg was out of the country for business. However, she was nice enough to introduce me to Mami-chan Ikegami, who I also met, though didn’t remember at the time, at Epcot. While traveling through Osaka last year I asked Mami-chan if she had any friends that I could hang out with, she introduced me to Mari-chan. We had a good time last year and kept in touch. Today I got to hang out with her in Osaka, kind of a date.

We decided to go to Spa World, which has two floors dedicated to Japanese Onsens with different themes. I went there last year with part of my host family. This year, me and Mari-chan went to the top to their Pool Zone. This was nothing short of impressive. Imagine, a pool elevated up about 10 floors with clear windows on all sides with nothing but city. It is really a sight to behold, so is Mari-chan by the way

This place really is amazing, but its nothing compared to the newly redone Osaka station. In Japan trains are central to the culture, Japan literally could not exist without them since it is a proven fact that highways are not scalable with large amounts of traffic (ask New York, Chicago, and LA about that) thus Japan MUST rely on trains. But the major train terminals are nothing short of insane from an engineering perspective.

The Japanese have made it an art to integrate these train stations so completely into the city that often, unless you see the tracks, you don’t even know they are there (as in the case with the Tokyo main station). The station is literally built within malls and other entertainment facilities. There is nothing even close to this that I have seen in America. Perhaps the only thing that is slightly close might be Penn station or Grand Central in New York, but even these pale in comparison.

And the underground!! It is NUTS!! So many stores of all kinds. There literally is an entire second city underneath the first city. Its even crazier when you realize the Japanese spend a lot of time underground in such an earthquake prone area. This is why I go to and love Japan, the engineering is just off the charts and you can see why this is one of, if not the most, technologically advanced nations on the planet.

Anyway, so me and Mari-chan went to the pool and had a GREAT time, even though we had to wait in line a lot, it was still a lot of fun and Mari-chan’s English is getting much better and I am very happy to help her. She also helps me with my Japanese.

So after, we went to meet Mari-chan’s Mom. I always enjoy meeting Japanese parents b/c quite often their English is limited, as opposed to the younger kids who are usually actively learning it. This means, you have to use Japanese and its very good practice. They also tend to appreciate your efforts and will always forgive you if you make a mistake. Mari-chan’s mom was awesome and even was kind enough to help me pick out a gift for my Mom.

You will notice in the picture that Mari-chan is wearing a special necklace, her Mom is as well. Apparently it helps relieve back pain. I have a lot of back pain since I am always carrying so many things. I decided I wanted one, so we headed to “Phiten” to get one. Somehow, I even got a free massage because I looked tired. This was a funny scene since, for a while, I wasn’t quite sure what was happening, lots of very fast Japanese being spoken at this time.

As you can see in the last picture, she found the sore spot on my left shoulder. I almost always tend to have stress buildup her and it gets REALLY sore. At this moment I am covered in patches that are helping to relax my muscles thanks to a cream she used. I am told I cant take the stuff off for three days, lol. But she said, if I do this, I wont have any pain when I climb Fuji, and boy wouldn’t that be nice.

Tomorrow me and Mari-chan will head to Kyoto to do some sightseeing. I am facing a problem right now, I am not sure where I can reasonably get my laundry done. The hotels wants about $80 for it and its not worth that much to me, Ill wear dirty clothes before I pay that much. Hopefully a solution will present itself.

The plan was always for the first leg of my trip to take place in Hiroshima, with the next leg taking place in what is known as the Kansai region, more precisely the area in and around Japan’s third largest city: Osaka.

After waking up this morning, early thanks to me and my crazy circadian rhythms, me and Mami departed via Shinkansen to Osaka.  It was a nice quiet 1hr and 30m ride to Osaka, a city with many memories for me, from both last year and when I was ryugakusei (international student).  Joining us in Osaka is Mari-chan, another friend that made last year.  Her English isnt as good as Mami’s but she is still a lot of fun, and, like Mami, super cute.

The first thing we wanted to do was eat.  Now both of these girls are very Americanized and love meat, especially steaks and burgers (no you wouldn’t know this by looking at them), so we decided to go to Outback Steakhouse.

I do try to eat local foods when I am in a foreign country and thus far I have done pretty well, though I have come close to puking a couple times, however, there is a time when you just want some real meat; so I got and ate a full rack of ribs here, much to the delight of Mari and Mami because I eat “like a monster”.

After eating our fill, it was time for some good clean fun, and in Japan there is nothing better then some karaoke to enjoy yourself with friends, and they dig American songs.  I don’t know why, but I love Japanese karaoke, more then I suspect I will ever like American karoke; don’t know why.  I got to sing some Journey, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and Aerosmith. Its just good clean fun

Lets be honest, Japan is a consumer based nation.  The amount of shopping here is insane, if they have space for a shop they put a shop there.  They convert alleys into whole shopping markets, they build insane underground labyrinths that are malls, they build malls 12 stories high.  It is INSANE the amount of shopping they have and how they blend things together.  Most of the shops are located around the major stations for the rail service, and Osaka station is no exception.

Old Osaka station

New Osaka station:

The latter is one of the tallest buildings I have ever seen and combines the rail station with an impressive outdoor shopping mall

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Even though I see this sort of thing everywhere, it still makes my mouth drop.  Japan’s consumerism is second to none on the planet.  Yodobashi Camera might be a prime example of this.  Yodobashi is the department store of department stores.  This place has just about everything and is one of my favorite electronic stores in the world.  Also, cell phones (ketai denwa) play a huge role in Japanese society, so huge that keeping it charged is a matter, almost, of life and death.  I found this to be ingenious inside Yodobashi Camera

Pay some yen, lock your phone in and have it speed charged.  My guess is this was in response to the dramatic rise in the use of smartphones.  Interestingly, despite being an advanced cellular nation, Japan never did embrace the smartphone until recently; Android and iPhone are now enormous here and it is such an emerging smartphone market with highly sophisticated users, many companies (Microsoft) are test driving their new products here to measure adoption.

Finally, I made an attempt to head to the outer area of Kyoto to visit Mami’s parents, but I have to be in Hikone early tomorrow to help with my host mothers English class so I broke it off.  But before I did, I got this shot

I am always amazed at how Japan blends old with new and how the train system is so tightly integrated with the surrounding community.  So after turning around I head back to Osaka via Kyoto station before taking the Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka.  The subway got me to the next hotel: Ramada

Tomorrow I will be in Hikone with my host family.  Finally get to give them their gifts and get that shot from the top of Hikone-jo that I want so bad.  Should be a fun time

When I began planning this trip I noted there would be two core activities I wanted to experience: The Mt. Fuji Climb and the Hiroshima Peace Ceremony.  For the grossly uninformed, Hiroshima was the first city ever attack by nuclear weapons (though technically an atom bomb is different from a nuclear bomb, but the point is the same) at 815am on August 6, 1945.  Every year, in an effort to remind the world about the dangers of nuclear weapons and armed conflict in general, a ceremony is held to honor those lost and cherish the hope that one day the world will truly be at peace.

So first, Mami arrived!!! at 1110pm on August 5.  It was so good to see her again and I am so happy she decided to join me.

We woke up the next morning at 630am so that we could make it to the ceremony.  We were able to make it to the ceremony just in time for the peace bell.  At 815am, across Japan, there is a moment of silence as the bell is struck to remember those fateful seconds before the bomb made impact.  At the ceremony we were addressed by the Mayor of Hiroshima, the Prime Minister of Japan and, surprisingly, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.  Some shots from the ceremony.

It was quite an interesting mood.  I did get asked a couple times about why the US does not attend the ceremony (the only missing delegations were from China and the US) and about our current wars.  In both cases, I politely refused to answer the question; not the time nor the place for such a discussion, after all.

After the ceremony we took a tour of the Hiroshima Peace Museum.  The images in here are both amazing and disturbing.  The scale of the destruction caused by the bomb is incomprehensible, even more so when you consider the bomb only released 1/4 of its power.

But the portion of the museum dedicated to those who had the misfortune of surviving the blast and experience a true “hell on earth” is both saddening and deeply disturbing, such as the images of those with melted skin as depicted in the model below:

Once we left the museum I decided to purchase a Japanese Cell Phone.  Quite honestly, I have not been at all impressed with my Windows Phone here in Japan; whether that is to be directed at the device, Verizon, or the general complexities of cellular communications, I do not know.  But since I had Mami with me, I could rest easy going to Softbank knowing that she could take care of the questioning.

Amazingly, we went to three Softbank stores and all three showed us the same phones with the same pricing plans (there also within 5m walking), yet the phones differed heavily in price (between 9,000 yen (~$90) to 2,500 yen (~$25).  It really is amazing to me how different the industry here is compared to America.  I finally settled on a nice flip phone.  This is good because when I do return to Japan, I will have a phone and needn’t rely on my American Cell Phone where coverage has been sporadic (non-existent in Hiroshima since I don’t have a SIM card).

So now we decided to head to Miyajima, a huge tourist spot for foreigners and Japanese alike.  The only problem with it is, if you arent careful you could end up with a LONG train ride.  There are two ports that will serve ferries to take you to the island (jima).  Miyajima-guchi is the one that is really far away (and where we ended up), you should always try to go to Hiroshima Port (which was closed when we tried to return).

Miyajima reminds me a lot of Nara, especially cause of the deer, which are apparently so hungry they will snatch paper right out of your hand.  In fact, I bought some karaage and one decided he would follow me until I gave him it.  Thankfully, I was able to outsmart him by using some low hanging chains:

After visiting the island we headed back to Hiroshima city for the final part of the Peace Ceremony, the lighting of the Lanterns.  I am told this is a truly inspiring sight and was eager to see it.  It was truly breathtaking, below are some of the shots that I took from Aioi-dori bridge near the Peace Pak.

Special thanks to Mami-chan for helping me around all day and to Shiori-chan for coming later after work.  It was just awesome, a great time and I was happy to finally experience this ceremony in person.  Hontoni arigatou gozaimashita

I guess to close on the thoughts, I made it a point to avoid any conversation about nuclear power or weapons while I was at the ceremony.  I can certainly explain the politics of the bomb and I do believe that it saved more people then it killed which was why it was dropped.  Interestingly, while I was in Hiroshima I witnessed a march down on the busiest streets.  At first I thought it was for the Abandonment of Nuclear Weapons, but it turned out to be the opposite.

There is a movement in Japan to repeal the Peace Constitution and begin arming themselves.  As China has grown into a power and the situation on the Korean peninsula continues to be precarious, sometimes they wonder if the US could still protect them.  Observing this march and the number of police surrounding them, I came to compare it to a KKK rally in the South.

Overall, the Hiroshima leg of the trip was a ton of fun and totally worth coming down here.  While I had worried about it being awkward, it wasn’t at all, I think Mami had a lot to do with that.  With her there acting as a translator, I was put at ease and was able to fully enjoy things.  Day 4, we head to Osaka for the next leg of the trip.