Eff Mt Fuji in its Effin Crater Hole

I am slightly surprised I am able to type this since I did, in fact, say out loud "we are going to fu**ing die on this mountain." Over-dramatic? You bet. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Mt. Fuji is the 2nd highest single mountain in the entire world. It is 3,776m tall or 12,388ft. Sounds formidable, right? Of course it does...but still, thousands of people make the trek from Station 5 to the Summit every year so I'm thinking it must be possible. J is an avid climber and of course has been dying to climb it, so we heard that a group of about 40 people from his squadron were going and we signed up. I was only slightly nervous because I haven't climbed much, nothing even close to as big as Fuji, but I knew with him by my side I would be just fine. Isn't it fun to think back on all the stupid shit you've thought in your life??? Anyway, I digress.

So J began putting together our backpack, filled it lovingly with snacks, water, rain gear, etc. I helped him do the final checklist on Thurs afternoon and we headed to a potluck Key Spouse social that I had been invited to as a new Key Spouse. Now, this was a great time and I met some really nice ladies, but in hindsight we should not have gone because it only afforded us getting about 4 hours of sleep before the bus left for Fuji. This would be our 1st of many tips on successfully climbing Mt. Fuji: get at least 8 hours of sleep. We will never know (ok, I will never know) if this would have made a difference but I imagine it could not have hurt one bit. So, 0200 on Friday we meet the bus and our sleepy crew is off. J was really excited that not only did one of his troops (Dugan) come on the trip but Namba-san came too! Namba-san is an avid runner and adventurist that works in the shop. A few weeks ago he ran a race from the first station of Fuji to the fifth is less than an hour and a half. On top of his active life he has the coolest personality and a never-ending supply of cheer and awesome stories (L says he sounds like the Japanese version of J based on that description). It took about 2 hours to arrive at Station 5 and we are greeted by 50-ish degree temps (L is in heaven) and that kind of creepy cool light that occurs right before dawn. Yes, that's right, the sun rises around 0430 every day here so we knew we were in for a treat because we'd get to see it. We were asked to be back at the bus by 5:30 that night...which seemed completely doable standing there at 4am.

We started our climb at 04:40 and everything went smoothly...we stopped to take pictures of the amazing scenery and sunrise and all was happy. About 3 hours in, I even said out loud "this isn't so bad, I'm having fun!" This was my personal death sentence, as it got crazy hard after that. In my mind it was two different hikes...so if you want a fun, challenging, yet not stupid hard climb, climb Mt. Fuji for about 3 hours and turn around. Dugan started with us and for most of that first three hours it was just the three of us. We stopped to rest at a corner and we looked down the trail and saw Namba-san and a small group of others from our group coming up. I (J) was elated to be ahead of Namba for any part of the trail and to see him. For a moment I thought maybe we could climb together. Shortly after we took pictures we hiked for a while longer and when we stopped to rest the rest pressed on. I was glad Dugan got to join a faster group because as the story continues you will see why ours was not the wagon to be hitched to.

Side note: this was a very busy mountain (see pics below). We saw every age. I am not even kidding when I say we saw a probably 5 year old boy being "helped" along by his father. This made it an especially interesting experience to be passed by a middle-schooler and a probably 70-something year old man in the same group. Btw, the group of middle-schoolers were pretty much laughing and playing the entire time...yelling at each other and tossing rocks, like you know, we climb Fuji all the time (which they probably do). I told myself that if they can do it, hey we have a chance!

The "happy time" was over. The trail became extremely rocky...as in, I am stretching up with all that I have, actually mountain climbing for large periods of time. My legs shake a lil but I still think "its cool" and keep going. We have come to call this stretch the "hell stretch" because it was the turning point of our climb. This was about 0800 and we were in hell for about 2 hours. This was between station 7 and 8, mind you. 2 hours of intense climbing and NO stations in between. There were a few rest huts that you could use the restroom at (for 200 yen) and get a stamp on your Mt. Fuji hiking stick but no stations that you could check off on your way to the Summit. Because, after all, that's the point of all this, right? To reach the top. So you can imagine how daunting the task is starting to become when we are becoming genuinely exhausted already and have about 676 vertical meters to go...which equals about 2km of trail. At this point, we looked up and saw what we thought could have been the top so we had a small surge of hope and pressed on. This was nowhere near the top. Sorry to spoil it for you. We asked some fellow travellers and they said that it was the original 8th station and cheerily told us we didn't have far to go. "1.6 kilometers! That's only a mile!" says the cheery Japanese man that told me he has climbed this over ten times. On the way down he told me when we ran into him again that he was climbing it again tomorrow. Key-chi-guy = Crazy, this guy is definitely keychiguy. At this point in our journey a small group of fellow travelers were banded together meeting each other at each rest stop and passing each other with smiles and cheers. An older gentleman gave us candy and had us all cheering A-A-OH! before we would trek on. A-A-Oh I was told is the Japanese version of yelling FIGHT ON! We met other service members from a number of bases. And on this mountain the Japanese were the most friendly of the friendliest people on earth. When we would stop and rest, they would smile and tell us "rest, take your time" and smile. This was hard for us at this point as we knew our group was nearing the top and we saw the last of our group pass us. We met a couple from Spain and J saw a few Germans. The funniest experience for me (J) was hiking up I had my hat on and saw boots coming down toward me. I instinctively said sumimasen (excuse me) in Japanese. I looked up and he said " I am French!" and I said "Sorry dude I don't know how to say excuse me in french" but then realized I was just tired and have been thinking in Japanese too long as Liz remembered its pardon e moi. I said "Oh yeah" but couldn't have cared less about French guy at this point of the climb.

We made it past the 2 rest huts between 3400m and station 8.5 at 3500m. This gives you an idea of the trail, if you can have at least 2 rest huts on your 100m vertical ascent...you know it is effing crazy and pretty much the longest 100m of your life. We kept going. I don't know how but we did. My feet ached, I had blisters, my legs hurt, and to top it all off, my (L's) stomach had started acting up. I was having Gastrointestinal Distress to put it mildly. So, in short, this day just couldn't get any better! I honestly felt like Frodo climbing Mt. Doom in those last few meters. J did great even though he was hurting too...he loves climbing but hadn't climbed a mountain in about 10 years. Plus he was carrying ALL the weight...probably about 40 pounds in the pack with the almost 10 pounds of water we took. We had drank it ALL at this point, probably most of it by L which did not help the stomach situation. This was an incredible bonding experience for us. J told me several times "you're doing so good!" and each and every time it would give me a surge and help me along. I needed it. I tried to return the favor and encourage J as much as I could but I feel like it was one-sided. I was really struggling, I kept randomly crying and I'm not ashamed to say it. It was, by far, the hardest thing I have ever done and I honestly don't know how I made it as far as I did. I can only assume his encouragement was part, if not all, of why I did. At around 3550m we met up with a fellow servicemember that we had talked to previously and he said "yeah its only another hour to the top" and when he passed by I just lost it. I knew I could not continue on, not with feeling the way that I did and knowing that our group was already so far ahead of us. I was finished. I had been thinking it for a while and I knew when this guy gave us such disparaging news that I couldn't go on. I was incredibly disappointed, but mostly for J because he would not continue on without me. I begged him to keep going, showed him the spot in which I promised to sit however long it took him to climb up and come back for me but he refused. He said we could try again at some point and maybe make it to the top another time. I was a tiny bit encouraged to see the "oh shit" trail that someone else had carved that cut over to the descent trail. J looked at his GPS and noted we made it 3557m on a 3776m climb. It was 2pm at this point and we had been climbing for 9 hrs and 20 mins. Roughly how long it's taken you to read this blog post! ;)

It wasn't over yet by a long shot. At the point that we took the "chicken" exit to the descent trail we still had to climb down. Yeah, folks...you climb up and then DOWN! Freakin climbing, who knew. We were already exhausted of course and the constant sliding along the skree was a challenge...to which I succumbed at least 3 times, one of which I got some "wicked" road rash on my hand as I threw it back to catch myself. J thought it was so cool that I got road rash from a volcano but it didn't feel too cool. J said all he got was mental scars. About halfway down, J was pretty much done and even said he was glad we turned back. I don't think he realized how tired he was until then.  No greeting fellow climbers, just plodding away. Most of the time J did not even sit down because it was so much work to get back up with the pack on. So you can imagine how much his already aching feet were hurting after that. Anyway we plunged down 53 switch-backs, which for you non-climbers are basically zig-zags down the mountainside. This took us nearly 4 hours. This descent started off really fun, we were a little euphoric at the idea of being DONE and it felt good to switch muscle groups to descend. With 2km left in the descent, I became so despaired and was so completely wiped that I started to freak. I asked J "What if we can't make it down?" and his kind reply was "we can, honey. We'll have to make it." Later on he told me this was the only point in the day that he wanted to laugh at me...he knew I was just beyond done when I'm asking such a silly question. Like we could just stop and die on the mountain. Which is where I think I said the quote from up above. Somewhere in here. It's kind of a blur of keeping my head down and thinking "just keep walking"...keeping in mind both of us, at some points, were going about 15 steps and stopping. Other points we really felt the pull to keep going, not to mention the fact that we were getting more oxygen with every meter we descended...so we pushed through several spots that would have been great to rest, just eager to get it over with.

It was a 6km descent and we finally made it back to the bus at 6pm. So, even with turning around early we were still the last 2 people on the bus. I told J that they needed to up the random drug testing in the squadron because I'm pretty sure all those people were on speed. Except for Namba-san, who is just badass. After the long bus ride home, we hobbled to our van and headed over to Burger King, where I enjoyed the best Tendercrisp sandwich I have probably ever had and reveled in the ZERO guilt after burning probably 2000 calories on the mountain. Actually myfitnesspal says that I burned 4726 calories...so I think I'm good! Whether we made it to the top or not it really was a wonderful bonding experience...one that I would never, ever, ever, ever like to repeat. Ever. Enjoy the best parts of the day posted below as the fatigue led to us not caring if we ever took pictures again. Now, if you'll excuse us we are going to go do NOTHING for about 6 months.

End of summer and Space A saga

This is Jonas. So I got the kids back to Cali. I wanted to put up some interesting stats that while traveling I didn't want to think about as I was tired enough as is. I flew 9580 miles in 2 and a half days spending a total of 24 hours of that on an aircraft in the air. We left Yokota, finally, after more than a week of waiting  at 330PM local time Friday afternoon. We arrived at Travis at 430PM Local time Friday afternoon after 12 hours on a plane and a really quick stop in Alaska. The kids did great on the plane. It was a C-5 with about 73 seat on it. We didn't get to sit together on the first flight but the kids were all playing DS and I was reading so it was cool. The flight from AK we did though and we all got some sleep. Morgan was so tired I got to hold her like she was little again and put her to sleep on the plane. The kids were tired but got a kick out of getting a day of their summer back just for flying half way around the world. I got checked in and finally got some sleep. The next day I was craving a burrito from my favorite local dive and headed to Hecho en Mexico. It used to be called Teheban Taqueria but after 9/11 everybody on base started calling it Taliban Taqueria and I guess the owners didn't get the humor of it all. But the Jumbo burrito didn't change at all. It was perfect. I had big plans to go to the gym but was paranoid about missing my flight later in the day so I just hung out in the terminal. I read alot and walked around a bit. I finished Jenny Lawson's book, "Let's pretend this never happened." It was hilarious and will make your childhood seem blissfully normal. It did for me and my childhood has its own oddity. I also talked to a man that survived the Korean war and had some amazing stories and let me know what he felt about the State Dept. Never a dull day in the Terminal. The way Space-A flights work is they release a number of seat on a flight and then they go down the list ranking us all on the Category of Priority and the date and time of sign up. There were a ton of Priority II people ahead of me but since it was just me flying back I was hoping for an odd number of seats and not too many single fliers. But it worked out and I got the very last seat on the first flight out. I just got back this morning safe and sound.
The flight back was in a C-17 and felt much more "Space available" than the C-5. The seats are jump seats that fold down from the wall and line the aircraft side around the cargo. The plane had cool ports labeled HALO OXYGEN and stuff. Also the crew chief gave the most refreshingly straight forward safety demo ever. I will try to convey. "Put your seat belts on. I'll let you know when you can get up. If we lose cabin pressure these cups will fall down. Put the Dixie cup over your mouth and try to breath normal. If the flow of oxygen stops grab another one there will be about a hundred of them dangling around.The lump in the small of your back is your life jacket. If we have to ditch put it on and then pull the tabs. Grab the red tab in one hand and pull the cylinder in the other. Try not to hit yourself in the head with the cylinder." The best part was they don't say "water landing" they say "ditch" and its painted on various things inside the plane. Ex: Doors that say "For Ground or Ditch use only." Too funny. The cool thing is once we hit cruising altitude you can just lay wherever so I laid under the end of a crate that was longer than the pallet it was chained to. The floor was cool but I'm hot blooded so it was nice. Going to the bathroom was like tip-toeing through a slumber party with moms and dads and kids scattered all over the floor. Its good to be home. I miss the kids terribly but we had "the best summer ever" according to the kids so its worth the jet lag. Ashley took an eight hour nap today. Still waiting to see how they handle the jet lag themselves. They suffered no ill effects on the way here but the way back seems harder. But school doesn't start till Friday and they are young so I'm not worried.

I have not blogged as much as I like but read Liz's entries and she does such a good job I usually don't have much to add. I will say I had an interesting cultural experience. We were playing Apples to Apples with some Japanese students and I was teamed up with a teenage boy. The word we were trying match was "Ordinary" and he looked through all the cards we had in our hand and picked "Video Games." I thought this was interesting enough but then our judge for that round picked Video Games (our card) and Olive Oil. That was the toss up for a 45 year old Japanese woman. Which is more ordinary? They have been making olive oil for, I don't know, about a bazillion years on this planet and video games made it into the showdown with olive oil. I don't know if its because they are Japanese or because I'm old and video games are still newfangled to me but I thought it was an interesting little window into the Japanese mind. I love it here and look forward to sharing all we can. Thanks for reading our Blog. I hope its fun. Talk to you soon and if you have requests of things we can report on let us know. The Friendship festival is this weekend. The Base is open to the community and we play host to our Japanese neighbors. I'm excited, it sounds like it going to be a blasty blast. TTFN, Jonas

P.S. Apparently spell check doesn't think "Blasty" is a word. I think this is bogus.

Where DOES the time go?

Whoa, my bad! It's been nearly a month since we updated! Summer is slowly winding down for us...J and kids are waiting for a return flight to the states to come up. Supposed to be leaving tomorrow, but it got pushed back so possibly 2-3 more days of family time before we have to say goodbye. It has been an awesome summer and we never want them to leave, but somehow it is more pronounced when they are leaving someplace so wickedly cool.

The coolest thing we've done recently was headed to a street festival not far from the base. We were lucky enough to have a small group of locals to follow to the festival location, so that added to the adventure. It was a "Ghost Festival" of sorts and we even went through a haunted house that was put on by local middle and high school students. We saw a ton of people in the traditional summer kimonos, Yukata, as you can see below. Lots of fun! Afterward we drove a short distance and watched the tail-end of some fireworks that had been going on for almost an hour and a half. They were very impressive and even more so if you considered the sheer amount of money involved in the celebration...I don't have any idea what fireworks cost in the states, but one of my companions works closely with someone who produced the fireworks and the biggest ones cost 2 MILLION Yen each! To save you the Google time, that is $25,567 per "large" explosion...for roughly 90 minutes. As you can see the fireworks business in Japan is extremely lucrative.

This trip was a great experience for us and the kids as well. I got the chance to play "paper-rock-scissors" with a Japanese boy at the chocolate-dipped banana stand...the object was to buy one, get up to 3 for free and needless to say, I whipped "paper" on him in the final round and won us 3 lovely and delicious pineapple halves to enjoy with our bananas. He went with rock, btw, for those of you who were curious. Speaking of curious, I just did a little more Google-in'...did you know that in 1999 a paper-rock-scissors algorithm was created?! The program beat the opponent by learning his "fallback" preference (it doesn't say which he preferred). I am smiling just thinking of how many times the programmers had to think of the words "paper, rock, scissors." I think of random things like this. You're welcome, btw. I knew you were wondering what happened when you Googled "paper rock scissors."

Ahem.
Anyway, not only was the festival a great time visually but it was a great bonding time with our new Japanese friends. They are incredibly generous, down to refusing to let us pay for our own dinner (and that of our 3 kids) simply because they had invited us to go to the festival. Not only that, we also met up with a couple of my English students and we received several gifts including some of the best fresh corn I have had in years. We are so very incredibly blessed to be here. If I forget it for one crazy moment, I am reminded by a lapful of cool gifts from kind-hearted people.

As I said, summer is winding down and we are trying to find the fun free stuff to do in our area. Thanks to the power of the internets, we found a great website written by people stationed here that included detailed directions and GPS coordinates. We made our way to an obstacle course park nestled into the hillside just a few minutes from our house. It was very hot, but hey...that's summer, right? Pics are below. We were blown away by how clean and graffiti-free the whole park was...just another example of the do-unto-others mentality here. All for now, hope you are all finding fun ways to stay cool.