Lost in Translation: November 2007

When I set out to climb Mount Fuji 6 months ago, I had the vague idea that it was extremely difficult and that it had to be undertaken with great delicacy. Now, having done it, I can tell you how true that is!

First things first about Mount Fuji. It is the tallest mountain in Japan, at 3,776 meters (12,388 feet), and it is an active, young volcano. There were 4 distinct phases in its creation, with the most recent, "New Fuji," sitting on top of the previous mountains. New Fuji was formed about 10,000 years ago. The mountain last erupted in 1708, spewing tons of ash into the air but no lava flow, and has been quiet since then. Scientists classify it as active, with a low risk of eruption. You can get a good sense for the sheer mass of the mountain by looking at this photo, which was taken from Kamakura, about 50 miles away. This is a serious mountain.

For me, climbing Mount Fuji was something I knew I was going to do here, but I wanted to wait until I could get a little perspective before doing it. Now, after an entire year (I can't believe it), I felt ready to tackle Mt. Fuji. In my JET Program essay that I wrote back in 2005, I actually mentioned this: "Growing up in Virginia, I was captivated by stories of how my grandfather had climbed Mount Fuji and wondered if I would ever get the same opportunity." My grandfather, John Brassfield, was in Japan in the 1960s, and while he was here he climbed Mount Fuji. I don't remember exactly hearing about it, but it was just common knowledge for me as a child that Grandpa had climbed it. I even remember a knobby, knarled walking stick that hung from the ceiling of Grandma and Grandpa's porch. I think now that that might have been from Mount Fuji.

The whole time I was preparing for the climb, and while I was climbing it, I couldn't stop thinking about how Grandpa had been in this same place, doing this same thing, 40 years before. He died when I was only 8 years old, so I didn't really get to talk to him about a lot of the things he has done in his life. I think it's particularly interesting that of the 3 countries I have visited so far in Asia, he has fought a different war in each of them. He enlisted in the Marines at the age of 17, I believe, and fought on Iwo Jima in World War II. He also fought in the Korean War in the 1950s and volunteered for duty in Vietnam, going there twice. I have returned to all these places as a peaceful, if clueless, tourist. What a difference 60, 50, or 30 years makes. It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for him, because I couldn't really talk to him about these things, but I'm very curious to know. At any rate, it makes me happy to know I'm going to some of the same places that he went so long ago.

Our group for Mount Fuji started small, then got bigger and bigger until shrinking to the just-slightly unmanageable size of 12. It was a bit unwieldy, but everyone was extremely gung-ho about the climb, so I had high hopes that we would be successful. We had settled on the date of July 21st and 22nd more than a month earlier, hoping to avoid an unpleasant ascent in the rain during Japan's notoriously wet and long rainy season in late June and early July. As the date neared, I checked the weather for the surrounding area every day and watched in increasing worry as it went from decent to oohhh to oh man. By the eve of the climb, the members of the group I had spoken to all seemed to exude a quiet foreboding about the wisdom of ascending the mountain the next day. As expedition leader, I knew it would probably be my call whether to scrap the climb or to push through, but I had no idea what to do. Earlier, I had heard from a very negative, if astute, friend who had climbed it in the rain that "if it's raining, just don't even go. It sucks." I had this quote racing through my mind as I frantically called fellow climbers searching for some sort of decision-making that I wasn't capable of. The first I called said "We're OK either way. Whatever you want to do is okay with us." No luck there. Next, I called Sir Ed, an Englishman and fellow JET. He had absolutely no hesitation: "No, man. We chose this date a long time ago, and we've known all along that it's probably going to be shit, and we're not doing this for fun. If the weather sucks, all the more the sense of achievement." Me: "So, you think we should go?" Ed: "Fuck yes." It was settled: we were going to climb Mt. Fuji at night, in the rain.

For weeks, I had bombarded people's inboxes with lists, info, and general knowledge about Mount Fuji. Earlier in the week, I had sent a very detailed message with an exact list of recommended supplies, including specific foods to bring for good energy, plastic bags to put your things in inside your bags, full rain gear, and full winter gear for the top, where temperatures were expected to be around freezing. I was very nervous about whether or not people would come prepared, because I had heard horror stories of big groups of people ending up on the mountain with little preparation, and the unpleasantness that leads to. Already, one person had called me on Friday to tell me that he just wasn't ready to climb Mount Fuji this weekend and that he would have to drop out. I was afraid he wasn't going to be the last. I did actually follow my own advice this time, and I was fully packed and prepared by Thursday night, a full 2 days early and completely out of character. The only thing remaining was my rainsuit, which I picked up frantically at a sports store for the low low price of only $50. I told the guy it was for Fuji and he wished me luck.

The day of, we agreed to meet at a central train station at 3 pm and then take off in our rental van for the several-hour drive to Mt. Fuji. A couple of us headed over to Japan Rent-a-Car (doubles as a 24-hour karaoke parlor...really!) to pick up our 8-passenger van. We got there and told them our name, and there appeared to be no problem until the moment when we all plopped down our international driver's licenses and they stared at them in confusion. Then, faces stern, they said something along the lines of "This will not work. You need a Japanese license to rent a car here." Our response, naturally, was, are you f-ing joking me? Our jaws hit the floor in disbelief and shock. We had made this reservation a week earlier and we had 10 people waiting to drive to Mount Fuji in 20 minutes. This did little to sway this man's opinion. Despite our truly heartfelt begging, we got absolutely nowhere. Not an inch. We all looked at each other with that expression that says "We are screwed." It was a very bad omen and the trip looked to be in jeopardy.

Luckily, the Japan Rent-a-Car people told us of a Toyota Rent-a-Car around the corner. True gents, they would not call and ask for us, so we drove over there in person, trying to keep our expectations in check and running through the lists of possible alternative transportation for 12 people to Mount Fuji RIGHT NOW. The alternatives were not pleasant, cheap, or practicable. As we sat in the car waiting for the other menfolk to make an inquiry, we talked of the appealing possibility of going home and watching a movie and forgetting about Mount Fuji. Then, the two Englishmen came out with barely contained hope in their eyes: Toyota would rent us 2 cars right now. After a bit of paperwork and a short introduction to the computerized GPS wizardry that is a Toyota rent-a-car, we were off in triumph to rendezvous with the group, only 30 minutes behind schedule.

Of course, the downside to this was that now Ed and I, as the only 2 licensed drivers in the van group, would be driving all the way, both ways, instead of switching off as we'd planned to do with the van. It was also quite a bit more expensive, but we didn't care too much. We were back in the game!

We donned our "Tono Fuji Expedition 2007" t-shirts that I had made that week, posed for a group photo, collected money, and rolled out onto the expressway. We were off. It was about 4:15 pm.

The drive took a good while, since Mount Fuji is located about halfway to Tokyo, and even once you leave the expressway it is a long way to the 5th station, halfway up the mountain. We were planning to start climbing at 10pm, so we were frantically trying to make it there by that time. The weather was cloudy, but as we approached nearer and nearer to the area where we knew Mount Fuji was, we started to scan the skies for sign of the monstrous mountain. We were sure we saw it, a terrifying black hulk towering above us. Then in a different part of the sky: was that it? Our hearts were beating at the mere thought of getting a sight of the mountain, and at the terror that even thinking about it inspired. Even now, just thinking about that rainy, frantic night, searching the dark skies looking for a sign of Mount Fuji, gives me chills.

We arrived in the general vicinity of the mountain, then stopped at a convenience store for last-minute provisions before driving up the winding road to the Fujinomiya 5th Station, from where we could drive no further. At this point, we all had a sort of nervous excitement about us, being so close and actually within our planned climbing schedule. It had even stopped raining. I was cautiously optimistic that it might turn out okay.

As we passed through standard Japanese surburbia (though with a distinct tilt to it, being on the side of a huge volcano), we eventually turned onto the smaller road which leads to the station. We were dismayed and a little terrified to see that we were the only car on the dark road. We counted many cars coming down, but never saw another going up. Our terror increased when we saw how long it was (we drove for quite a while), how steep, and how much our ears were popping. It really reinforced the extremeness of the environment into which we were plunging ourselves, and, quite frankly, we were scared shitless. We exchanged nervous comments and cautious speculation as the cars caravanned into the wet night.

Finally, as we neared the Fujinomiya 5th Station, at 2400 meters (about 7,800 feet), we saw a welcome sign: cars! And lots of them! We weren't the only ones crazy enough to climb this mountain this night. I can't tell you the relief we felt.

The three cars parked in separate locations, and somehow we found each other in the dark. We all suited up, and, looking every bit mountaineers, giddily danced along to the souvenir shop, where we happily plunked down $10 for climbing sticks for the ascent. They had a seal embossed into them, and at each station you could pay a small fee to have that station's seal burned into them.

Hong and I looking very professional with our rain gear and headlamps:

We made plans to climb using the buddy system, and agreed that it would be too difficult to try to rendezvous at each station (there are 10 small stations on the way up the trail, and we were starting at the 5th. There was a light rain falling as we made our final checks, posed for a picture, switched on our headlamps, and headed briskly up the trail. It was shortly after 10pm.

Immediately, I was a bit worried by the briskness of the pace and was already beginning to feel a bit winded. Surely this pace wasn't sustainable. I quickly drifted to the back of the group as we made our way through the pitch-blackness of the mountain. The group had already fragmented into much-smaller groups of 2 or 3. The lamp lit up a small bit of ground in front of me, and, since it was lightly raining, I generally looked only at the lit-up patch of ground directly in front of me. "Hard to believe we're climbing Mt. Fuji," I said to one of the fellow climbers. It just felt like poking around in the dark, and it was hard to imagine that if I followed this wet little patch of lit-up dirt long enough, I would be standing on top of Mt. Fuji.

Our goal was to reach the summit by around 4:45 am, the time of sunrise. Estimates for walking time from the Fujinomiya station ran from 4-7 hours. Leaving at 10pm, that meant that a brisk walk would get you to the summit far too early, and a truly slow walk would make you miss it. One of the dangers with walking straight through the night like this was the risk of altitude sickness. There are many huts along the mountain that you can sleep in to acclimatize, but we had no reservations and weren't planning to stop at them to sleep. I had talked to many friends who had experienced altitude sickness while doing this, and it sounded unpleasant. I was absolutely intent on avoiding this, and I even bought canisters of oxygen before coming so that we would have no shortnesses of breath up on the mountain. I also planned to walk very slow and to take lots of breaks, so that my body would have plenty of time to acclimatize to the altitude.

The climbing itself wasn't too bad, although it had a few tough parts, given the rain and the darkness and the awkwardness of climbing over boulders. The time ticked away slowly as we made our way up through the night. I kept checking my watch to see how long it was taking, and began to feel like my watch was my companion on the ascent. There were lots of big rocks to step over, and Hong and I found ourselves using our climbing sticks quite a bit to brace ourselves on the difficult parts. I had to be especially ginger because I had badly injured my foot 2 weeks before (necessitating a trip to the hospital), and even a day or two before the climb I wasn't sure if I would even be able to climb. I had had trouble even walking normally on level surfaces in flip-flops, but I noticed that pain would only occur if I walked in a normal, flat way. I could bound up the stairs of the school relatively pain-free, for example, since the pressure was on the front of my foot. By avoiding putting pressure on the middle, I thought I might just be able to do the hike.

Before the climb, I wrapped my foot in athletic tape and then securely fastened my hiking boots, so my foot was spared too much movement. I really wasn't sure if I would be able to finish or not, though. If the foot ever landed in the wrong way, an intense pain would shoot through my foot. This happened a couple times , and it scared the shit out of me each time, because I thought my foot would become so messed up that I wouldn't be able to walk anymore. The only good thing is that after a while, I became so uncomfortable and so many things started to hurt that the pain in my foot didn't stand out anymore.

We reached the 6th Station rather quickly actually , and just passed on through without stopping. After about an hour and a half, we reached the 7th Station, where we reunited with the speedier members of our party, whose pace had eventually leveled out to something more sustainable. Everyone was a little wet and tired, but we were doing OK. Hong and I stopped to take a picture and eat some apples that we had brought.

Approaching the 7th Station was a great and welcome experience. Above us, the lights of the station were like a beacon in a sea of darkness, as people congregated, chatted, and huddled against the wind. After we left, the trail seemed darker than ever as we continued up the mountain. At times, it was very difficult to tell where the trail even went, since it wasn't really well-hewn, but really just a route through the boulder-field. As we looked below us, we could see the lines of climbers' lights snaking up the mountain behind us in delicate, bright arks. It was surreally beautiful.

At one point, we experienced a moment of such pure beauty that it was all we could talk about when it was all over. While slowly making our way up the mountain, my only vision was Hong's heavily rain-proofed posterior walking slowly in front of me. Gradually, it dawned on me that it was no longer raining, which surprised my sleep and oxygen-deprived brain. We stopped to rest and to take in the surroundings.

At that moment, we were treated to one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Below us spread an endless sea of white clouds, glistening in the moonlight. Above us, the sky full of stars, with the dark silhoutte of Mount Fuji against them. I felt like I must have been in heaven. It was indescribably beautiful. It felt like we were the only people in the world that night, climbing so far above everything. The harmony of clouds, mountain, stars, and us was absolutely breathtaking. It was one of those moments when you realize how lucky you are to have the opportunity to do something like this. These are the experiences that you can keep for your entire life.

Our elation was not to last, though, as the rain did start again and the weather took a turn for the windy and cold. It became increasingly miserable as Hong and I stayed close together and slowly made our way up through the dark night. We passed the 8th station, again reuniting with our friends. By this time, it was so cold and windy and wet that we had little to say to each other.

We pressed on, eventually reaching the 9th station by about 1:40 am. The elevation here was 3,460 meters (about 11,350 feet). By this point, we were in the misery stage. We were soaked to the bone, it was becoming very cold, the rain was relentless, and it was windy. We were getting pounded, and I was in a terrible state. Somehow, in the middle of all this, Hong managed to make us get a photo of ourselves by the sign. That's a real testament to how dedicated and crazy she is with getting photos. I'm impressed, then and in retrospect.

From this station, it was only about 1,000 more feet to the summit. A sign said that it was a 65-minute walk. After conferring with Ed in our oxygen and sleep-deprived logic, he decided he was gonna make a run for it, and I thought it was a good idea, though I tried to find a way into the cabin to grab a little sleep. I looked all around, but it was sealed off for the night.

As the others pressed on, Hong and I did the math and realized that, even if we took it slowly, we would get to the summit far too early for sunrise. We decided to hang around the 9th station for a while and let a little time pass. We were desperate to get out of the elements, though, as we needed to change our clothes and warm our bodies a little.

Here are some of the other members of our group getting ready to pass through the torii in the piercing rain and wind to continue the ascent. It was rough.

We managed to get into one of the heated bathrooms, which had a horribly confusing coin entry system. We just waited until somebody came out and then went in. Inside, it was completely full of people of both sexes drying off and warming up, huddled and chatting around the urinals and sinks. We found two toilet stalls and slowly peeled off our soaked clothes while trying not to let too many of them touch the nasty ground or toilet. Though my rainsuit had cost $50, it still had not completely protected me from the rain. I was wet down to the skin. Hong had fared even worse. I switched my wet clothes for new, dry ones that I had stuffed into a plastic bag inside my backpack, and wrung out my soaked socks. I did not have a replacement set of socks, so this was the driest they were going to get. Even my ski gloves were completely soaked through. I put on my set of long johns (thanks Nana and Poppie!), then my thick snowboarding jacket, then the rainsuit again. I switched my soaked UCLA cap for a thick beanie. After wringing out the gloves and also eating some more of the food we brought, we loitered a bit more in the cramped bathroom, trying to soak up some warmth and avoiding going outside.

Eventually, we pressed on into the night. We reckoned that we still had a good bit of time before sunrise, so we walked about as fast as Japanese grandmothers push their shopping carts. That is to say, faster than molasses but slower than everything else. We stopped frequently for breaks. I can remember being struck at the time by how slow we were walking. I was intent both on not getting altitude sickness and on getting to the summit at the right time for sunrise, and walking very slowly seemed to be the right way to go.

Slowly, slowly we went, passing the last station before the top. Now we saw big sheets of snow. Actually, the rain had relented a bit and the wind had died down, so the weather was not nearly as punishing in this last stretch as it had been between the 7th and the 9th stations. If that level of intensity had continued, I don't know if we could have made it. Eventually, we passed the front four members of our group on their way down. They had reached the summit and stayed there for about 30 or 40 minutes. They had not changed their wet clothes and couldn't take the extreme cold at the top, so they were forced to come down. They seemed very let-down that they hadn't seen the sunrise, but otherwise they looked in decent spirits. They wished us luck as we pressed on.

The Summit

Finally, after a last bit of rock-hopping, we crossed under the torii that told us we had reached the summit of Mount Fuji. It was about 4:30 am. It was still a bit dark, and we were in a cloud. The sight was not too impressive, I must admit. Our first order of business was to find a toilet, and we made our way around the top to a small heated building with what seemed to me luxurious wooden walls and a friendly man inside. There were 2 foreigner girls drying out their clothes in front of the heater, looking pretty well beaten. I was feeling pretty good, though, and I'm happy to say that my first act on top of Mount Fuji was to take a dump. It was actually pretty inspiring.

We left the warmth of the building to walk out to the edge of the crater rim to take a look inside (Mount Fuji is a volcano, after all). I could see lots of jagged rocks and some snow at the bottom of the crater. It was an eerie sight standing there looking into the misty crater. I felt very remote from Earth. It felt like another planet up there.

Some of the snow in the crater:

This is what much of the top looked like:

Us in front of the shrine at the top:

We walked around a little bit, snapped a photo in front of the temple, and basically accepted that we weren't going to see the sunrise that day. Oh well, we thought. It's too cloudy today.

We started to get ready to head down the mountain when off to the left we saw the faint glow of the sun. It was very faint and barely poked through the haze, but it was there nonetheless. I could hear people gasping in excitement as it flickered there. Hong and I quickly scrambled up a small hill to get a better view. As we watched, it grew stronger, seeming to almost burst through the mist and causing everyone to gasp in unison, then grew much fainter, obscured by the thick fog. Then again, it became suddenly brighter, and, again, was obscured by the clouds.

On the third time, it grew brighter, and kept getting brighter, until all of a sudden, truly like magic, the cloud enveloping us suddenly blew away, revealing brilliant blue sky overhead, and the sun smashed through the mist with a fiery intensity, signaling that sunrise, indeed, would come to us there on the mountain. It was so beautiful and so exciting. In an instant, it made all the suffering we had endured to get there worth it. We sat, dazed, on a rocky outcropping with dozens of other people watching the sun rise over Mount Fuji. What an incredible experience.

I know we could never capture this experience on film, but I want to give you some feeling of the brightening and darkening of the sun that happened, and then the incredible parting of the clouds. Here you can see the progression of the sun.

Triumphant mountaineers in the early morning light:

Our fellow nut-cases:

Our first view of the massive distance around us:

Another view of the sun rising over the mountain. We climbed up on the opposite side from where the sun was rising, so we had to see it kind of over the mountain.

I think the best part about watching the sunrise was watching it with all the other people up there. It had been a fairly hellish night, hiking for nearly 7 hours in the rain, after having driven 5 hours just to get to the mountain. We were exhausted, but so full of energy, too. Everyone who sat there that morning watching the sunrise had most certainly earned it, and I felt a great camaraderie with the other people who were crazy enough to do the same thing we were doing. I don't know how many Japanese people have climbed this mountain, but never have I ever felt closer to Japan than when I stood on that mountaintop with them.

You can send a letter from the top of Mount Fuji:

This is a place at the top where you can get out of the cold a bit. Hong and I sat there and ate some of our snacks to recuperate before heading down.

Time to head down. It was initially foggy on the way down, but it soon cleared up and the light became searingly intense. You can see the transition in the following photographs from the fog into vivid light.

The narrow trail approaching the summit. This section was a bit crowded.

Some of the snowdrifts that we passed during the night:

The landscape at the top looked a LOT like Mars:

Down into the mist:

Looking up toward the summit:

Like being in the heavens.

Hong makes her way down the mountain.

The shack of the 9th Station. Rocks help anchor the roof against the high winds that pummel the upper reaches of the mountain.

Looking down the cone of Mount Fuji, you can see a smaller cone on the left-hand side, near the bottom. That was formed as a secondary vent during the most recent eruption, in 1708.

The feeling of being that high was mind-boggling and wonderful.

We've got a long way to go. We predicted the descent to take about 3-4 hours.

When you are this close to the top, the familiar cone shape of the mountain isn't really recognizable. It is so big that there are several other trails on other sides that we couldn't even see, and even to walk around only the rim of the crater takes one hour.

Looking off the massive side of Mount Fuji. Its size really boggles the imagination.

The descent was hard going. My toes started to hurt very badly from constnat incline and pressure, and my knees were none too happy, either. The sun was fresh and clear and incredibly bright. We wore our heavy winter clothes until we were more than halfway down, where we changed back into our previous clothes. We stopped to admire the vista and munch on some onigiri (rice ball). Look at the fatigue in our eyes. Never have I ever appreciated a piece of food as much as I did the rice balls I ate on this mountain. I can remember huddling in the middle of the ascent, being pelted by wind and rain and just savoring the feeling of taking in the energy in the rice ball. What an incredible feeling.

Our clothes were still wet. If You can see how much moisture we had to deal with the night before. This picture shows what happened to Hong's sunglasses inside their case inside her backpack.

In the distance, you can see a city. We were about 8,000 feet above it, though.

By the time we reached the 7th station, we were really in a bad state. It was becoming increasingly painful to walk, and the hours that had sort of floated away in the midst of the incredible challenge the night before now ticked by slowly, our destination always seeming to be a little further past the next ridge than we hoped. One highlight of the descent was seeing several troupes (platoons?) of Japanese soldiers climbing the mountain, in their full uniforms. By this point, it was actually even kind of hot, and man, they were suffering. I felt so bad for them, but all the people they passed cheered out "Ganbatte!" ("Go for it!" or "Good luck!"). We cheered them on, too, because they looked like they needed it.

Here they are, snaking their way up the mountain.

A young soldier paused for a moment and smiled up at Hong, who was poised like a tiger ready to take his photo with the incredible background of him and his fellow troops and the mountain, but when she pressed it, the camera said "Memory Full." She was absolutely crushed. Here is a photo of a similar scene, but the magic moment had passed.

Almost down the mountain now. I was giddy with the beauty of this place, and thought about my grandfather a lot at this stage.

Back down

Hong and I managed to make it down from the summit by 9:30 a.m. It had taken about 4 hours, and in many ways it was more difficult than the ascent had been. Here is Hong in front of the 5th station sign. We were so tired, but I felt so good. It was like being on drugs, the feeling was so wonderful. Pure, total exhaustion. I knew then that I was hooked.

We reunited with our friends who had beaten us to the summit. They had been waiting in the parking lot for a few hours already. I sat down in the car, pried off my wet clothes and hiking boots, and just savored the pure sense of achievement and satisfaction. I walked around and looked off the side of the mountain into the abyss of fog. It was hard to believe that even the car-park was still impossibly high in the air.

Part of our party had already regrouped and headed back to Gifu, but the remaining cars were still down 2 people, a boyfriend/girlfriend pair who we had passed on our way down. They were nearing the summit as we passed them, so we reasoned it couldn't be more than an hour or so until they came down the mountain and we could head off back home.

So we sat around in the cars and waited. And waited. And exchanged worried, then angry, then worried comments about their whereabouts. Hours passed, and finally, over three hours later, they appeared in the parking lot at about 12:30 pm, looking joyous and happy as could be. We could barely contain our frustration when we asked them just what had taken so long. We had been sitting around, growing more and more tired. They said they had slept at one of the huts for an hour, and apparently had taken their sweet time on the descent. Someone even saw them hanging around in the parking lot, relaxing and taking pictures before coming to join us.

The Return

Everyone was pretty upset, but we were so tired and focused that we just kept it in and made plans to leave. Now, with the time nearing 1 p.m., we had exactly 5 hours to return the cars to the rental car place, where they were due at 6. It had taken 5 hours to get to Mount Fuji, so we had literally not a minute to spare. Needless to say, we did NOT return the cars on time.

On the incredibly tight, curvy road heading down the mountain our friend Suzanne got motion sickness, only the first of many highlights on our return trip. We made it back onto the expressway and headed west, home to Gifu. We couldn't see Mount Fuji as we left, because it was obscured by fog. I said goodbye to the mighty giant and hoped I might get the chance to climb her again.

We stopped at a rest stop, where we dined in stoned silence, nobody particularly joyful or perky. It had been 24 hours since we left Gifu for Mount Fuji, and about 30 hours since I'd slept. I had been on a steady diet of caffeine since the last night, and I picked up a gigantic Frappuccino from Starbucks to keep me going, as well as a bottle of green tea, I believe. That is a lot of caffeine, folks.

We meet the law

We headed off again on our journey, but only a few minutes after leaving the rest area, Ed's car suddenly signaled and pulled off onto the side of the roadway. I was a bit worried because it was so sudden, and I was anxious as Ed got out of the car to come talk to us. Little did we know that our road trip home was about to receive another major delay, from the same source, amazingly. The girl whose rather tortoise-like descent had already caused us to wait many hours in the parking lot had left some rather important medication at the rest stop we had just left. We secretly marveled at how much we didn't like this person at this exact moment, though I'm sure she's lovely at other times.

With our sleep-addled logic, we decided that getting off the expressway and returning to loop back around to the rest stop would be too much hassle. In our defense, exiting the expressway involves paying, and the fees are huge, which is a pain in the ass when splitting among four people, AND the rest stop was on the other side, which meant we would have to exit and pay AGAIN in the opposite direction. Her boyfriend gallantly opted to just run back along the grassy side of the roadway to the rest stop, which we all agreed was very heroic and loving. We weren't sure how far it was, since we had only driven for a couple of minutes. It turned out it was very far indeed.

We sat back to endure yet another wait, and after enduring a bit of waiting, we couldn't help but notice the flashing lights pulling up behind us. A huge truck from the highway department was approaching, setting out flares to warn other drivers of our presence. "Oh gosh," was the general thought amongst all of us. "We are screwed," we figured, not for the first time this trip.

The men exited their truck and Ed, stepping up to the plate in a big way, walked back and greeted them with a heartfelt "Konnichiwa" and did his best, I can only assume, to explain in exhausted, broken Japanese just why the hell we were pulled over on this busy highway. I guess some motorists had phoned in our position, thinking we might need help, which is darned considerate, come to think of it. The basic position of the road workers was that you cannot stop on the expressways, and that our friend definitely should not have started walking to the rest area. We were in no position to disagree with his flawless logic. They placed a call to the police to retrieve our errant companion, and indeed, within a few minutes, a black-and-white Toyota police car with sirens flashing pulled up behind the truck.

Our friend emerged, smiling actually, and came back to join us. We asked him if he had been worried when he saw the police car come up behind him and he said "No." He is a calmer soul than I. The police started to go about their business, writing down the license plate numbers of the rental cars and copying down the driver's license information of the drivers (i.e., me). I figured that now Toyota Rent-a-Car would definitely never rent to foreigners again. How embarassing. The actually quite friendly police officers gave us a lecture on the dangers of stopping on the expressways, with even a little English mixed in, and then, mercifully, sent us on our way. We were so relieved and we all marveled at the courteousness and friendliness we had just experienced. We sat back and remarked on just how hilariously nuts this trip was becoming by this point. It was already at least 3 or 4 pm, and we had barely left the Mount Fuji area.

Hours of driving followed, during which I became, if it's possible, even more fatigued. At one point, the convoy became separated when I pulled out of a rest area prematurely, thinking Ed was right behind me. It turned out he wasn't, but strangely and unfortunately, all but one of our cell phones had died and it did not have any of the requisite numbers programmed, so we had no way to contact the other car for some time. We drove very slowly, wasting precious time, waiting for the other vehicle to catch us. Finally, by calling friends of friends of friends, we tracked down the phone number of the only cell phone that worked in the other car, and discovered they had in fact passed us and were now significantly farther along than we were!

We rendezvou'd again and Ed, looking rather annoyed at this point, suggested that I might try to not lose him anymore, in the interest of maybe getting home someday. I sleepily and embarassedly agreed. But once we started driving again, I began to feel almost as if I were stoned, in the sense that it was very hard even to remember to follow Ed's car in front of me. I found that just tuning into the conversation in the car for a minute, or seeing a pretty tree on the side of the road, was enough to make me forget it was ever my job to follow that silver Toyota in front of me. I guess that's what 32 hours of not sleeping will do to you. Yes, I lost them again, in a sea of silver Toyotas.

At our last rendezvous, we had looked at the map to confirm our return route into Gifu, but it soon became evident that the 2001-edition road atlas I had borrowed (stolen) from the office of my high school did not actually include the road we had used the day before, since it was a newly-built (and very convenient, it turned out) bypass. Of course, at the time I had a feeling that there HAD been a road in that vicinity, since I was pretty darn sure we'd taken it before, but, our minds were sluggish and we couldn't actually SEE any route on this map, so we just decided to go the standard route, which would take us through Nagoya, a very big city. That we decided to bypass a perfectly short, accessible, traffic-free route that we'd used only 1 day earlier, just because we couldn't see it on this particular map, is testament to the depths of our mental feebleness and sheer exhaustion at this point.

So when we called the other car up and informed them that we had, in fact, lost them again, they were pretty well incredulous that I could manage that two times in two hours, though they didn't say it in so many words. We agreed to take the Nagoya route and meet at the rent-a-car place, and I apologized for my mistake, yet again.

Approaching Nagoya solo, this feeble-minded driver spotted a tiny sign: the lost bypass! At the last minute, I made it over into the lane and exited the expressway onto a wide-open road straight to where we wanted to go. I only hoped the others had been lucky enough to see it, too.

A quick phone call confirmed that, this being the trip that wouldn't end, they hadn't. They were headed straight into Nagoya and we would beat them home by quite a bit. The speaker from the other car sounded almost betrayed when I told her we'd taken the bypass.

A very modern-looking bridge on our return journey:

Alone, we rolled into Toyota Rent-a-Car nearly an hour late, unloaded our embossed sticks and climbing gear and paid the late charge while the attendants eyed us very suspiciously. We hadn't exactly mentioned where we were going, but the embossed wooden sticks let them know exactly where their car had been.

It had been 6 hours since leaving Mount Fuji, 27 since we'd left Gifu, and 34 since I'd slept. It was total, utter, body-and-soul exhausted. And I was still hours from home.

We walked wearily to the train station, I said my goodbyes to Hong, my solid climbing partner, and then Suzanne, Shona, and I boarded our train for Nakatsugawa. We must have looked like a bunch of drunks, because that's how we felt. I am quite sure I was on the verge of losing my mind, and my only real memory of the train ride is of being very giggly and really, really wanting to lay down in a bed and sleep.

I exited the train at the small country station by my house, reunited with my car and drove myself home, where I soon went to sleep. I had been awake for 38 hours.

And that, my friends, is how you climb Mount Fuji.

Lost in Translation

Friday, November 30, 2007

Across Biwa-ko

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Night color

Saturday, November 17, 2007

The view from Magome

A night with Woody and Soon-Yi

Monday, November 12, 2007

Climbing the tallest mountain in Japan

The time in Japan is now...13 or 16 hours ahead

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