Hi pplz,

Well, its been a while since I've had a chance to write. And I've seen many things in this time. Many I would like to forget.

Currently I'm in London for a few Jam-Packed Days of sight seeing. Since August I have visited so many places- Mt Fuji, Kyoto and Hiroshima in Japan, a quick half a day stop in Hong Kong then a nice flight across the world to London where I joined Contiki for 20 days speeding round Europe visiting France, Monaco, Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and The Netherlands.

But for now I will just write about Japan because I will be on here for ever otherwise.
From Tokyo I left for Mount Fuji. With a few complications and change of plan because I arrived at the bus station to find all buses direct to Mount Fuji booked out for the rest of the day. But I managed to find an alternative way involving two buses after much stressing.

I arrived to Mount Fuji's 5th Station at 9pm at night in pitch blackness with a bus load of others ready for the long night of climbing. To begin with the climb is reasonably flat but its really foggy and misty so you can barely see anything even with a headlamp. After the 6th Station its starts to get really steep and this is the point from when there are no more flat patches just rocks and steps to scramble up. From then on its about pushing yourself forward for 5 mins then having a break and each time you reach a mountain hut you have a longer rest but only to the point where you start to cool down otherwise you start to freeze. By the time you hit the 8th station you've got people arising from the Mountain Huts ready to start climbing so you're stuck behind these big groups of tourists with the leaders pacing them so slow. On reaching the 9th station its like a traffic jam and all you can see are these trails of lights up the mountain. And your slowing crawling up the mountain. And I'm going delusional in the dark and seeing things that aren't really there from lack of sleep and altitude because I started at the 5th station at an elevation of about 2300m and by the time you reach the peak its up to 3700m

Finally at about 4.30am I reached the top of the mountain to get a perfect view of the Sunrise. Pity its took another hour to rise because there I was on the edge of the hill freezing my butt off and trying to keep myself awake. But I kept slipping into sleep for a few seconds then I would startle awake. Finally at 5.30am the sun peaked over the top of the clouds making it all worth it.

Little did I realise the descent to come. After circling the peak I started on the descent, and it is so much worse than the ascent. Its 3 hours of walking on a 45 degree angle on a path that zig zags down the mountain made up of this gravely sandy path so every step you take, you have the potential to slip. And its so hard on your knees. Plus you finally see what the mountain looks like and its pretty much bare until you get back down to about 2500m. But either way 14hrs later on reaching the bottom I was glad to have done it but I don't think I really need to do it again because that is just crazy.

More travel tales in the next few days.

Love yas
:-)