Jenko's Japan: July 2013

Friday evening saw us meet Dani and Sergio at Tokushima airport ready to fly to Tokyo for a trip of a lifetime. We got to Tokyo with no problems and met up with Dani's friend Kohshi and his wife who took us to a very nice bar in Hamamatsucho. Here we had a great evening relaxing and enjoying some refreshing drinks whilst we got to know this interesting pair. They had kindly agreed to let us stay with them for the night to save us paying for an extra night in Tokyo. This was really helpful but at the same time, once I got up in the morning, I had to think whether it might have been better to book into a hotel as we didn't get to sleep until around 2am and were all awake by 7am. Not the best night's sleep right before an all-nighter.

Us at Kohshi and Miho's apartment! (Photo courtesy of Sergio)

Saturday morning saw us all up and excited to go as we were going to Studio Ghibli museum (see September Tokyo blog) which I was really happy to be going to again. In fact, everyone in our group apart from Sergio had been so it was exciting for me to be able to go for a second time but also experience it as a new person through Sergio's eyes. It was great getting back there, seeing all the animation tricks again and of course visiting my hero on the roof - the robot from Laputa. I didn't spend as much in the gift shop this time but bought myself a little robot statue/picture holder which was pretty sweet. We finished off the visit by seeing the short movie that can only be seen in the museum which was very cute and involved a little boy and a rabbit fighting over a walking stick. It all ended well as it turned out it belonged to an old grandma rabbit who was incredibly happy that the children had found her stick so invited them round for tea and biscuits - obviously. This movie was actually a lot easier to follow than the one we saw last time we were at Ghibli as there was far less dialogue in it so I didn't have to speak Japanese to understand. It was a great trip to the museum and I doubt I'll go back again but I'm really happy I got to go and experience it for a second time and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is even remotely interested in Ghibli or animation.

This guy is my hero! Seriously..

So after this we decided to make our way to Shinjuku station, as this is where we would be getting our bus down to Fuji. When we got there we made sure we had our tickets, Dani and Sergio separated some clothes into a locker that they would retrieve when they came back the next day, and we went to stock up on supplies for the climb. We then spent the remaining time having lunch at an Irish pub (yum) before heading back to the bus terminal ready to get the bus. At this point Todd and I separated our bags into what we would be taking up the mountain and what was just for the rest of the trip so that when we got to the base, we could quickly stash our luggage and be ready to climb within minutes. Here I started to get nervous.
So finally, we boarded the bus ready for (hopefully a nap before) our grand climb. After just over an hour I remember being nudged by Todd as he pointed out of the window. I look over and to my excitement/horror, there loomed Mount Fuji in all its glory. I couldn't help thinking that it didn't look too bad - much smaller than I had anticipated and certainly less impressive without its snow capped peak. The bus began it ascent up the access path, as we would not be climbing from the bottom of the mountain but instead from the 5th station. This is actually the most popular (and sanest) way to climb. There are 5 different trails leading up Fuji but we decide to climb the most popular as many reviews mentioned that this was a great path for beginners to use, and we were certainly beginners! I remember watching buses full of day climbers going in the opposite direction and couldn't help but wish that I was on the bus with them, not on my bus heading up the mountain. It became apparent straight away that we weren't as prepared as we thought we were when we got off the bus at 5th station as we were accosted by a rather cold wind, wet ground and low temperatures. Maybe we were being optimistic when we thought we would start the climb off in heat - we were all wearing clothes to suggest this, but I think maybe it just hadn't clicked that we would begin climbing at night and that being up the mountain was always going to be a lot cooler than being stuck in the middle of humid, sweaty Tokyo!
Once off the bus we only had a few things to take care of before we began. Todd and I needed to stash our luggage in lockers, we all needed to start adding layers and the last thing was to buy our souvenir walking sticks to head up the mountain with us.
We had heard from friends who had already climbed the mountain about these sticks and were very keen to get our own (apart from Sergio, he wasn't that bothered). Basically it's a wooden stick that you can use to support yourself up the mountain. The novelty of the stick came in the stamps that you could have burned onto it at each station you reach, showing your progression and achievement. Once we did all these things we were ready to climb.
After a confusing few minutes of trying to find the climbing path (there were no obvious signposts leading the way) we began our hike at exactly 7:30pm. Here we go.

Getting off the bus to a rather chilly greeting!

Fresh-faced and ready to go! (Photo courtesy of Sergio)

The first little bit of the climb was pretty easy. Just a casual trek up and down small hills ending with some large steps. Everyone was in a good mood and feeling positive. I was especially pleased to see some fireworks down in the town and told everyone that I thought it was a good omen! We waltzed past the 6th station without me really noticing (no stamps for this one) so I was very surprised when we were half way to the next station where Sergio told me we were aiming for the 7th. I couldn't believe it! The section up to the 6th station seemed so easy and the way to the 7th wasn't feeling too bad either. The only problem I had started to notice was that my hip had begun to hurt a little. This was pretty normal for me as when Todd and I have been on walks up the hill behind his house, I've always had these pains, usually they were easily dealt with and ignored, and once we started the downhill part it seemed to stop hurting. I was very hopeful that after a while my hip would just get used to the activity and stop hurting. Yeah right!
A bit further along the path there was a section to sit and some toilets to use. I decided to break the seal and have my first encounter with the toilets on the mountain. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. Although a little incensed at having to pay 200 yen to go about my business, I was both shocked and pleased to walk in and find both a western style toilet (I had assumed they would all be squat type toilets) and plenty of toilet paper. Nice!
After this toilet break though I had a bit of a panic moment. Everyone was ready to go so I slung on my bag, that I had left with Todd, and went to clip up the waist buckle. To my horror it wouldn't clip!! I kept struggling with it and alerted Todd to my plight so he also tried to clip it but we couldn't do it. I'm not going to lie to you, at this point I did start tearing up slightly. Why wouldn't it do up now when it was fine just before? How was I going to cope to have all this weight on my back (among other clothes, I had 2 2litre bottles of water in my bag!) being supported by my shoulders only when one had already began to hurt! I was feeling utterly helpless and desperate which is probably why I managed to get it clipped together on the last attempt as all these thoughts were running through my mind and I knew it would be miserable without it working, so happily I made it work! Phew! Panic over, ready to go again.
So after this we kept going and made it up to the 7th station all right and here we got our first stamp on our stick! Hooray!

Getting the stamp burned onto the stick!

Feeling pretty confident at the 7th station - check those shorts out! (Photo courtesy of Todd)

I was secretly pleased with how the walk had gone so far. Before starting this trip I was painfully aware that I was a lot more unfit than the other three in the group. Despite knowing this, I was lazy enough not to do anything about it (its way to hot to exercise in Japan!) so I was worried that I would be holding everyone back. However I was happy to see that although I was pretty much always at the back of the group, I was able to keep up with everyone's pace as we all knew how important it was to acclimatise to the altitude so we took numerous breaks on the way up.
At the 7th station we had decided to have a slightly longer break to include dinner. This consisted of a rice ball, cookies and some crackers. It was the perfect amount for me and I thoroughly enjoyed the break. So with everyone feeling refreshed, we shouldered our bags and started on the next leg of the journey, feeling pretty positive at the time we were making.
However, from here on is when things started to go wrong.
I don't know whether you are aware, but just recently Mount Fuji and the surrounding area has been made into a UNESCO World Heritage site. Every time I told a teacher or any Japanese person that I would be climbing Fuji, their immediate reaction was, 'It's a heritage site now - many people have been climbing.' I didn't really think too much of it at the time, after all, surely just the fact that the mountain had been recognised by UNESCO doesn't mean that it has become more interesting, people were climbing Fuji long before this so how much difference could it make? A lot, apparently. What with it also being the Saturday on a long weekend it seemed we had decided to climb at a very busy period indeed! Although there were many small groups like ours climbing the mountain, we hadn't factored in the numerous amounts of tour led groups going up the mountains. Groups of over 20 people meaning that, unless we wanted to make our own, more dangerous and difficult path past the groups, we had to follow at an agonisingly slow pace behind them. This is what happened to us after we departed from the 7th station as the path very quickly became a steep part with us having to climb up rocks like mountain goats. We would have been able to do this in half the time than we did but after nearly every step there was a pause of at least 5 seconds before you could take another. It was absolutely infuriating! This section became one of my least favourite sections, and I believe everyone apart from Todd really struggled at this point. My problem was that I had forgotten my tshirt. Ok, this doesn't sound like too big a deal, but when you're climbing a mountain, every little layer counts. I had been doing fine temperature-wise before the 7th station (shorts, tank top, thermal top, rain jacket), but figured seeing as we would be heading a little higher (obviously) in this next section, I would add my tshirt for an extra layer to keep me going until 8th station. I was pretty gutted therefore when I discovered that I had left my tshirt down in my other bag at the 5th station. The next layer I had to put on after that was my hoody but I didn't want to bring that out yet as I had nothing of real substance to put on after that and we still had a ways to go. No worries, I thought, I hadn't been too uncomfortable further down the mountain and my lack of fitness has always helped keep me warm! Unfortunately, being stuck behind the tour group meant we weren't going a fast as I needed to go to stay warm, adding to this the gusts of bitterly cold winds that started to hit the further we went up and it's pretty safe to say that I was thoroughly miserable by the time I got to the next station. I went into what I call 'survival mode' which is what happens when I get incredibly cold and it takes all my energy just to keep moving forward. I can't talk to anyone and woe betide anyone who tries to get a nice word out of me! (I'm sorry Dani, Serg and Todd for this moment). However, I wasn't the only one who was struggling at this point as both Dani and Sergio started to feel the altitude a bit here and both began to feel pretty nauseous. I think it's fair to say, we were all incredibly relieved when we finally reached the next station.

Think this is further on but you get the idea - lots of people with all the lights lighting up the many people on the path above. Horrible! (Photo courtesy of Todd)

Here I went straight into the toilets and put on all the remaining layers I had - trousers and a hoody, and topped it all off with a rather stylish New Zealand poncho! Oh yes! Station 8 seemed like there were many parts to it with buildings further up the mountain so I asked everyone if it was ok if we carried on a bit to a stop further up as then, when we got going again, we would be heading to station 9, rather than just another building of station 8. Everyone agreed so we moved on, stopping only to get another stamp on our stick. By the time we made it to the next cabin, everyone was pretty tired and so we decided to sit down for a little while, fill up our water bottles and gather our strength. Here it started to rain on us with wind hitting us from the side so it was a pretty miserable time, but was definitely needed. We were always on the watch for large tour groups though, and so when a couple of bigger groups were looking read to start off on the next bit of the path we decided to grit our teeth and head out before them. This next section wasn't so bad - we were going at a much better pace than before and the extra layers I had put on (I forgot to mention I had put on gloves at this point) were really helping my mood and comfort. The only real problem I had with this section is that not only had my hip not stopped hurting, but the other one had also begun to hurt too. Sigh. Half way up this section is when Dani really started to be hit by altitude sickness. She pushed through and made sure to drink lots of water, but when you feel sick, there is only so much you can take in before you want to chuck it all out again. We were all very impressed how she persevered but it did mean that by the time we had reached the 9th station, she was feeling pretty bad and needed quite a big break to recover (I say quite big, we can't have been there more that 30 mins). When we got to the station, we sought refuge in on of the cabins that also happened to be burning stamps on the sticks. We were kicked out pretty quickly, but were allowed to hover in the doorway whilst our sticks were being burned which was heavenly. After this we made our way to the side of the cabin which was a little more protected from the wind and Dani was able to sit down for a nice break - eating some cookies to get some sugar back into her. At this point also, feeling the cold, Sergio decided to splash out and bought himself a pot noodle for an extortionate amount of money, just so he could get a boost of warmth. He was kind enough to let us all take a mouthful which was incredibly invigorating to get that sense of warmth. At this point, as this was the last station before the summit, I went all out, shoving my woolly hat on top of my 3 hoods (hoody, rain jacket, poncho) and activating all of the heat pads I had brought with me. I kept two for myself (one for each hand) and gave one to Dani (in the hopes of cheering her up a little) and one to Todd (because I like him). I did feel awful though as it meant that I didn't have one to give to Sergio (sorry Serg!) but hopefully he understood. It turns out that these heat pads for me were a saviour as once my fingers start getting cold, it's not long before I go into survival mode. Luckily, because of these pads, I could take it in turns with each hand, taking my fingers out of one glove to wrap them around the pad whilst the other hand held onto my stick, then when that hand became too cold I would switch it over. With Dani feeling much better we hopped in front of another tour group and began the final stretch.
This went well for a short time, but we soon caught up with a line of people all making their slow way to the summit. It was an incredibly frustrating time. We could look up and see where the lights ended where we knew the summit must be, but we were moving so slowly that it never seemed to be getting any nearer. One of the really nice parts of climbing at night were all the lights. Pretty much everyone was wearing a headlamp and if you took a moment to look back down the mountain you could see hundreds of hundreds of lights making a path up. It was a pretty magical sight, and my mind obviously went straight to Disney - like the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland. It also made me very grateful that we had started our climb so early despite people saying we wouldn't need to - imagine being that far down the mountain at 3am. They must have known that they weren't making it to the top before sunrise.


Obviously this isn't my photo, but these lights are all hikers heading up the mountain.

There was still hope for us though, so we kept up our slow ascent to the top. At this point my hips were screaming out in pain and every step made me whimper a bit (pathetic right), everyone was starting to feel the strain and Sergio in particular was starting to feel the cold. In fact he had to improvise with a tshirt round his head to get more warmth and when it got lighter and I could finally see him properly, I was reminded of Lawrence of Arabia with him in his get up! It put a smile on my face which was nigh on impossible at that point so I'm pretty impressed at that.

Sergio, aka. Lawrence

The last 600m were the most excruciating part of the whole climb as it was going so slowly. When we saw it was only 600m to go we all perked up a bit - not long left. However, it must have taken over 30mins to go 200m so when we got to the 400m bit we lost all optimism that we would see the sunrise on the summit as it was already getting light and we could see colours on the horizon. We kept going though as the sky got lighter and lighter, and as we finally reached the top we saw the sun peaking through the clouds. At the top of the mountain there is a final torii gate and two Okinawan shisa dogs (see last post) guarding the way. We made sure we were all together and held hands as we stepped through the gate - we had made it. We started together and finished together. What an experience. Again, I'll admit, I got a little teary at the thought that we had done it. We found ourselves a small place out of the way of the crowds and spent a well earned break taking photos of the sunrise, the view and the people. There was also a strange cloud that looked really interesting so that was fun to watch and photograph.

First few rays of light

Happy we made it - check out the cloud in the background

We made it together!!

Hordes of people still coming through the last torii gate

It's hard to see but there are lines of people still making their way up the mountain!

More Lawrence!

It was still pretty cold at the top and at this point we were all pretty miserable so we decided not to spend too long at the summit. There is a chance to walk around the crater and go to the official highest point of the mountain, but none of us had the energy or motivation to get to that, so we set off looking for a place to get stamps on our stick instead. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anywhere to do this, and I wasn't surprised as I had read on many reviews that it was nigh on impossible to find, so instead we found some standard ink stamps that we put on our sticks ourselves. With this done, and the crowds being ridiculous at the top, and with the fact that Dani and Serg had a bus to catch at 11, we decided to begin the descent straight away.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention. We made it to the top of the mountain at 4:30am. A full 9 hours after we started the climb! We think that without the crowds we possibly could have done it in 7, but God knows what kind of shape we would be in by the time we got to the top. We were just happy that we reached the top as the sun was rising, its just unfortunate that it took us those extra hours because of the crowd.
Ok, so the descent. It was hellish. There is no other words to describe it! I don't like going downhill at the best of time as it hurts my knees but this was 4 hours (it took 4 hours) of walking/slipping/sliding down uneven volcanic rock slopes. It was horrible. Happily my hips stopped hurting but instead my knees and ankles were screaming out in pain. Plus I was worried about all the pressure I was putting on my toes. After being so exhausted from climbing 9 hours, plus being up for 24 hours already, this wasn't the happiest moment of the trip, and I will definitely go to say this was the worst part of the climb - even worse than the pain, cold and frustration of the last part of the ascent. It was possibly worse that we could see as it was light now because we could see the end but after hours of walking it didn't feel like we were any nearer to it. The down path spat us out right at the 6th station. Do you remember me saying that the walk to the 6th station from the 5th was really easy? Turns out it's not so easy 12 hours later after you've climbed a mountain! I am ashamed to say I started to cry just a little as we neared the end. We could see the buildings of the 5th station but to get there we had to walk up a quite long slope. I couldn't do it. My hips burned with every step and my steps were getting smaller and smaller. Cue Todd, my hero. If it hadn't have been for Todd, I would have sat down at the side of the road and cried. However, although he was struggling himself, he saw how much I was hurting and came and grabbed my hand. 'We started this together, so we're going to finish this together'. He practically dragged me up the last little bit. I don't know how he did it but he helped me finish and I will always remember that.
So that was it. We finally made it back to the start, a grand total of 13 hours after we started! It was pretty insulting to see all the freshed-face people at the station ready to start their climb, and all the families that seemed to be excited to head up the mountain for a ways to have a picnic. I just tried to ignore all this as Todd and I retrieved our bags from the lockers and booked a bus back towards our hotel. We said goodbye to Dani and Sergio who were heading back to Tokyo to spend the next few days whilst Todd and I were going to spend time in the area at the base of Fuji. We got onto the bus that would take us to the station near our hotel, and promptly both fell asleep. There's not much to say about the rest of this day. We got to the station and were pretty mad when the taxi driver wouldn't take us to our hotel because it was so close. If I had had the Japanese ability I would have told him it didn't matter how close it was, or how much the taxi cost, we didn't want to walk anymore. Luckily the hotel was literally minutes away, but it was still a struggle for us to drag our bags down the slope to the hotel. Unfortunately as well we were there around 12:30 and check in wasn't until 3. We left our bags at reception and headed out to get some food as we knew once we were in our hotel room, we wouldn't leave. It was incredibly painful to walk anyway but we managed to find a little supermarket and picked up supplies for the evening. We then headed back to the hotel and slept in the un-air conditioned lobby until we were allowed to check in at 2:30. Once in the room I tried to stay awake as long as I could. I had a well deserved shower and pottered around tidying up my bags. We watched some tv and ate some food and made it to 5:30pm where we gave up and went to bed. What a day. What an experience.

Dead at the end

No energy to smile! This sums up all our feelings right now.

Monday morning saw us up and refreshed and much more mobile than the day before. For example, I could actually use my legs to step up into our bathroom rather than having to physically pick them up with my hands as I was having to do the night before. Today we had planned a rather easy day of sight seeing as we weren't sure of how much we would be able to accomplish. Around Fuji there are 5 different lakes and beautiful surroundings so we were planning on spending the day around 2 of these lakes - Lake Saiko and Lake Kawaguchiko. We took a train from our station to Kawaguchiko station where we bought a 2 day pass to use the hop on/hop off retro bus service that went to all the nearby tourist spots.

Our transport for the day

I had made a list of possible places to see before we came to the area but I had brushed over one sight that was recommended to us at tourist information. We decided to check this sight out first as it made the most sense on the bus route. The bus was great and we were lucky enough to get seats at the back that sat sideways meaning we had a perfect view of the two lakes going past. The bus route was a circuit so we got off at the first stop which was a village of old fashioned straw roofed houses. It was very cute and the weather was perfect for it. Beautiful clear blue skies with a fantastic view over towards Mount Fuji. We were pleasantly surprised with this place as we assumed we would only be able to see the outside of these houses, but in fact each house was open to go into and they all held different things, whether it was information on the conservation and renovation of the site, restaurants, or produce and crafts from local businesses and shops. It was great to wander around between these houses and we even got an explanation about the charcoal kiln on the grounds. Granted it was all in Japanese so I only understood about half of it, but it was still very interesting and the old man telling me about it was obviously very knowledgeable and passionate about the kiln. We knew we wanted to catch the next bus which only came every hour, so we didn't spend as long as we could have done in this village. But we definitely got a lot of nice photos and we were glad to have been told to come to the sight. I must have seen it on my research of the area but glazed over it as it didn't really seem like something we would want to do. I'm glad I could be proved wrong.

Getting an inside view of the kiln

Great views of Fuji on a beautiful day

The next stop on our travels was the Wind and Ice caves. These caves were formed when Fuji erupted the last time and the Wind cave is also known as the Lava cave as you get to see great formations in the rock where you can tell the lava had flown. The wind cave was used as cool storage in the past, as the temperature never usually goes above zero degrees year round. Now there are shelves that hold silkworm cocoons and boxes of acorns. We didn't spend long in this cave as there wasn't much to see but it was still interesting to look around. Next was the Ice cave. To get to this cave was a twenty minute walk through Aokigahara Forest, which I was a little worried about, but we were also keen to do as we had heard many things about this forest. Mainly, that another name for this forest is the suicide forest as it is a key spot for Japanese people to come and 'lose their way' and take their lives here. It's pretty macabre but luckily we weren't in the spot that has all the signs saying 'please rethink this', and 'life is precious', as we were in the more touristy section of the forest. Despite knowing what this forest is often used for, it was a pleasant and peaceful stroll and the nature around us was absolutely beautiful.

Awesome boots!

We managed to get to the ice cave with my hip only hurting a little bit and here we had a quick snack before continuing down into the cave. At the entrance to the cave I was also quite excited to see that there were free boots for hire as the cave could be very slippery and not suitable for most footwear. I happily swapped my little shoes for these little boots and felt very stylish as I made my way down into this cave. There was a long queue going into this cave and I thought we had just been unlucky as we had joined the queue just after a large tour bus load. However, once we started to crawl into the cave I soon realised why it was pretty slow going. I'm glad I'm quite small and felt pretty sorry for Todd as we were crouched almost to hands and knees making our way into the cave. We both said afterwards how we were glad we felt more limber than the day before as it would have been impossible to do this then. Once down into the cave it opened up a little and we were presented with a wall of ice and then a great display of natural ice in the next cavern. In the past, this cave was used for storing ice throughout the year as the temperature was always below freezing. Unfortunately this cave was smaller than we anticipated and we were out quicker than we realised. However we were very glad we saw it and took some nice photos.

The queue to get into the cave

Watch your head

Bit of a tight squeeze to get in!

So much ice!

Ew.. corn flavour ice cream!

After this it was getting closer to late afternoon and we were aware that the buses would be stopping in a few hours. We were also starting to tire and so decided to bypass the third and final cave we were aiming to visit (the bat cave!) and instead make our way back to our hotel. We walked back through the forest to the wind cave where we could get the bus but before we boarded we made sure we bought the corn flavoured ice cream on sale - a local delicacy! Yuck!! It tasted exactly like corn which was strange, and I'm sure if I liked corn it would be good, unfortunately it's one of the few foods that I can't stand so after a mouthful I happily passed on the rest of it to Todd's capable hands. We then got on the bus - making sure we got the seats that would face the lakes on the way back, and headed back to the hotel. Before we got the train back to our station there was time for one last ice cream (blue rose flavour) and a little look around the souvenir shop.

Views of the lakes on our way back to the station

Old train at Kawaguchiko station

With Fuji in the background

Blue rose ice cream

Cute train back to our train station

We got the train at the same time that I got a migraine, so when we got back to the hotel I was out of the count for a little while. However, earlier on we had decided to go to the izakaya next to our hotel for dinner so after a couple of hours rest we headed back out for dinner. It was a really nice little izakaya and we had a great, tasty, and relaxing evening before going back to the hotel to call it a night. Ready for...

View from our hotel room of FujiQ Highland

FujiQ Highland!!! This was the day I had really been looking forward to on this trip. FujiQ Highland is the amusement park at the base of Mount Fuji. It has four main record breaking roller coasters that I was really keen to try.

Very excited right now!

These are: Fujiyama - it was the tallest and fastest coaster when it opened in 1996 and was pretty bloody high! Dodonpa - goes from 0 - 106.9mph in 1.8 and is the world record holder for fastest acceleration. Eejanaika - a "4th dimension" coaster that had rotating seats within the car and had the most inversions of any roller coaster. And Takabishia - the worlds steepest roller coaster with a drop angle of 121 degrees!!

Waiting to go in before the park opened!

Knowing I get pretty badly travel sick on roller coasters we decided to hit the biggest one first - Eejanaika! This coaster was pretty awesome but I am now certain that I can't go on coasters that go backward!! The best thing about this coaster was that at times you weren't really sure what direction you were going and then all of a sudden you were plummeting down a steep hill going forwards! It was exhilarating. Another great point I thought about this coaster was that you were quite far away from the seats in front so you go a great view of whatever was going on whenever you were going forward - you felt really unrestrained! Feeling a little worse for wear after this coaster we headed towards Fujiyama. After an hour wait I was fully recovered and on the ride. This ride was really quick and fun and it was all going well until the end where it made jerky half pipe type loops on the way back to the start. Bleuch. This ride would also have really great views of Mount Fuji. Unfortunately on the day we went it was pretty overcast so we couldn't actually see it, but we knew it was there where was nice. Feeling really peaky I decided not to let this bother me and we began the wait for Dodonpa. This wait was horrible as my travel sickness had really started to hit but the queue moved fairly quickly so I couldn't just sit and recover. Feeling a little unsteady when we sat down in the seats, I couldn't help but feel my blood pumping harder as the coaster lined up at the starting point ready to do it's thing. Wow. That's all I can say - I've been on fast accelerating coasters before (the last one was Stealth at Thorpe Park going from 0-80mph in under 2 seconds) but this topped that by a mile! My scream seemed to be sucked back inside me as the car accelerated off the spot. The way both myself and Todd explained the feeling to each other was what it looked like in Star Trek when they went into warp speed (yes, nerd alert I know!). It felt like we weren't moving but the tunnel and air were moving around us! It was amazing and a huge adrenalin rush, and out of the three, this would be the coaster I would queue up to go on again!

Our passes for the day.

After the raft ride

Unfortunately by the time we had finished the third one I was really being hit by my travel sickness and the last coaster looked pretty twisty so I gave in and realised it would be a mistake to force myself on it. I was pretty sad, but I was still glad I got to go on the others and so let Todd go on this last one solo (whilst I tried to make myself feel better with a Oreo cookies and cream ice cream!). After an hour wait, Todd was off the ride and we headed for a delicious lunch (Japanese curry and rice for me!) we then went on our last ride of the day, a really fun river raft ride which was like no other raft rides I have been on before. There was only room for four people on this ride and we had to wear seat belts. We were dragged up a sleep slope which was far higher than I've ever been on a water raft ride, then we were pushed off into a circular drop that spun us around really fast plunging us into water at the end. It's incredibly hard to explain the ride but I will say that we were both glad we bought ourselves some ponchos to wear as by the end of it we had puddles of water sitting in between our legs - definitely the wettest raft ride I've ever been on! It was a great ride and a perfect boost to end on. The last thing we decided to do was to check out the big souvenir shop. Unfortunately this was a the other end of the park, but as it's quite a small park it didn't take us long to get there. We also treated ourselves along the way with a chocolate churro on the way there, and dippin' dots on the way back! Yummy! At the shop we managed to get all the Fuji related souvenirs we wanted and even got a few purikura type souvenir photos which I was really keen to get. We made our way back to the train station and at our station got some take away Mos burger to take back to our hotel so we could be lazy for the rest of the evening. It was perfect. We had a great evening of reading and relaxing and we were all packed up and ready to go back to Tokyo in the morning.

With Eejanaika in the background! (Photo courtesy of Todd)

The next day was mainly a travelling day. We checked out of our hotel and got the bus back to Toyko, we managed to sneak in a quick lunch at TGI Fridays before getting the monorail back to the airport. Here we met back up with Dani and Sergio and heard a little of their travels before getting onto the plane back to Tokushima. No problems with any of the travel and we got home with good time to unpack and chill ready for school the next day.
It was an absolutely fantastic trip and I feel the four of us have gotten much closer as a result - you don't go through an experience like climbing a mountain without forming some special bonds between you and your fellow climbers. I am really happy I managed to do it, but I will never, never even think about doing it again. And I would recommend to anyone thinking of doing it to think again and really make sure it is something they are willing to do, as it's certainly an ordeal and not easy. Anyway, I am incredibly proud that we all made it and will have my stick as a talking point and good memory for the rest of my life.
Phew!!