Mount Fuji's killing us softly

Today was a great day in ol' Japan. We started by heading to the kitchen for a bowl of ramen noodles and a plan to bike to the base of Fuji.

Along the way we saw this really wacky looking coaster at the Fuji Q highlands amusement park. Japanese themeparks are a little like how Disney World used to be. You pay an entrance fee and then a fee per ride with the option of a day pass for all rides. So Gail, Em and I plunked down 1200 yen to get in and 1000 to ride. Em passed on this ride and when you hear the description you won't blame her.

You start on the ride going backwards up the incline...on your back. Then just before the moment of truth, it flips you upside down so you are diving head first at the ground. From there it tosses you into multiple loops (it has the world record for most upside down turns on a roller coaster) where you end up seeing only ground, not the car and not the track. At every flip it feels like you are falling sometimes vertically sometimes backward but definitely falling.



After that, we headed out to the Sengen Jinja which is the base of the trail to Mount Fuji. It turned out that it was tougher than we thought to find so we stopped off for a dinner at Coco's which Gail told us was actually a US west coast chain. Kontatsu and an assortment of rice, miso soup and more. Delicious! Ironically, you are expected to get your own drink but not your food. They have a drink bar where you can do the unlimited refill bit of Coke, Sprite, Orange Juice, Calpis etc.

Yes, Calpis.

Full of food and carbonated beverages we headed toward the shrine entrance. It is beautiful and if Shibuya was Coruscant's entertainment district, then this was the forest moon of Endor. The tall trees filter most light except for parts here and there which add an Indiana Jones esque quality to the place.

Not wanting to miss out on Fuji and sunset we trucked on. With a slightly hazy sky, it was really difficult to photograph the mountain. We ended up settling on these, but they just don't do it justice. Mount Fuji truly fills the frame even at quite a distance.

By the time we sketched the scene in our respective journals it was time to go. The ride back was pretty nice but there were some parts of the ride (since we went a different more direct route) that had very little in the way of a sidewalk so we just walked slowly and flashed our LEDs.

To cap off this great day we all headed to a neighboring Onsen or "hot spring". The warm water was just the ticket to send us off to sleep (which I am doing as I am writing this). All in all not bad for a day's "work"

--Joey and Emily

Emi-chan Takes Over 5/6/07

Hey everyone! I arrived in Tokyo this afternoon and my brother picked me up at the airport (thank goodness because I would have inevitably gotten lost and probably cried). The city is very crowded and confusing. I did learn and identified a few kanji characters: "stop", "exit", and "yen". Joey's Japanese is better than he says. He was able to ask directions, buy tickets and talk to people. We went to Starbucks in Narita Airport where I tried out my Japanese for the first time. I predictably ordered my chocolate milk over ice and the barista understood me! That was pretty exciting.

After dropping our bags at the Sakura youth hostel, we headed out to explore this lively and very overwhelming city. (Above　is a picture I took a little ways outside our hostel. Look at the tree: there is a prayer pinned to the trunk.) It is very crowded but clean. The streets are colorful with advertisements and neon lighting that illuminates buildings. Everything is smushed together. There are pagoda style homes that are about a foot apart. The people are overly accomodating. When asking where places were, people would actually walk us to our destination.Joey took me to Shibuya for a little while...Wow! Above is a picture of an arcade in Shibuya.

I'm exhausted so I will wrap this up. Japan is awesome. Enough said.

5/7/07

Emily writes again:

I'm really tired so I will make this quick: Joey and I are at a hostel near the base of Mt. Fuji with our new best friend, Gail. She was staying at the Sakura hostel the same time we were and she will be traveling to Kyoto with us as well. We had to take our shoes off before entering the hostel :-D and they have Japanese toilets! (I'm not gonna lie, there was a bit of an incident lol). More on everything later...night night! Love yall!

P.S. To Amy, I will try to find a charm for you.
Since today is a school day, we saw a bunch of kids in uniforms around town and on the subway. They were adorable!

More photos to come...