From the beach to Mt Fuji! We had a great day today. It started off a little crazy, we had to take 2 trains and 2 buses on our trek to see Mt Fuji. During the climbing season, there are buses straight there, but the mountain is only open from July through August. When I hiked Mt Fuji as a teenager it took us all day, and we ended up getting lost in the dark on our way back. It was a memorable experience to say the least.

Anyway, it seemed a little crazy to go all the way there, but today was really the only clear day with a chance to see
the peak, and everyone really wanted to
go, so off we went. We know someone that teaches school in the city at the base of Mt Fuji, so she gave us some tips and we figured out how to get there.

The drive up was really beautiful with lots of trees. Narci says it looks like
the Hunger Games woods. We even saw a deer on the way up and back. You can take a bus all the way to the 5th station, or almost halfway up the mountain.

It was pretty cold. The trails were closed, but we saw some guys in climbing gear coming down, so we thought we would
just go down the trail a ways. We ended up going up to the 6th station, and I don't think the kids would ever have made it up the entire mountain. They barely made it up there!!

It was a pretty steep hike, and the clouds came rolling in, so we were walking through them, you couldn't
see more than 10 feet ahead of you.
Malikai fell 8 times and had to use his inhaler once, but other than that, we just had to keep pushing them to keep moving. At one point there was a tunnel that was snowed closed, so we
thought we had to turn around. Then some Germans came through on their way back down and we realized the 6th station was just above there, so we
just trekked through the snow and made it.

There was a really neat rock garden at the 6th station that everyone started building rock towers. I am not sure of the significance of that, but we built our own towers and made a few wishes.

All in all it took us about an hour and
a half to hike there and back, but we stopped to take pictures, see which kid could throw a lava rock the farthest, play in the snow, etc.

The crazy thing is that you would see the mountain top and all around you and then a cloud would come in and you would see nothing. That kept changing all throughout the day.

Adam is going back to hike in July, and I am sure he is glad he is going with a group of adults!!!

It was a really good day, and I'm sure one we will all remember. We are on the bus back to Tokyo to hit up Times
Square and do a little shopping on our way back to the hotel.