After the shinkansen (I love Shinkansens) ride from Nagoya to Shizuoka (south-west of Fuji) we grabbed some food (tortilini – yummmmmmm) and hopped on some local trains on our way to fuji station. Fuji snuck up on me whilst I was gazing out the train window at the ocean, it literally snuck up on me. I turned around for a second and it was there! They call fuji a “shy” mountain and I can definitely see why. Even on the train it kept ducking out of view behind buildings and the train itself… and when we finally got off the train and rushed to get a good look at it, it was hiding behind clouds. We saw a bit of the snow covered peak through little holes in the clouds but there wasn’t that much we could see.

But what we COULD see was most definitely breath-taking. It just looked as though the earth rose into the clouds, it was most impressive. We asked around at Fuji station for bus information, they said the next bus would rock up in about… 4 hours…. Yeah, not gonna do that.

So we caught a different bus that was supposed to apparently maybe possibly should kind of drop us off somewhere in Japan. Sounds good. We jumped on and it headed up the foothills of Fuji – awesome. It dropped us off near a hospital in the most remote, country-like Japan I’ve ever experienced in my entire exchange. Just fields and fields of tea, small roads and hills everywhere and hardly a building in site. Looking down the hill we could see the city of Fuji and the bay. Looking up the hill was of course Mr. Fuji himself.

Oh so, I might add that after getting off the bus, the map we had made no sense and so we were lost. But there was a nearby hospital so annie went in and asked for directions to fumuto no ie (Fumoto’s house – our hostel). In the Japanese friendly fashion, some guy ran outside the hospital, jumped into his car and he drove us straight to our hostel! Ahh awesome!

Our hostel was run by an old couple and it looked as though we had been the only people staying there for the past year. It also almost felt like a campsite. 3 “houses”, the first house was the “office” and where the ojiisan and obaasan (grandpa and grandma) lived; the second house was the “Member kitchen” where they cooked your “member” … no actually, that was our kitchen to use; third building was the dormitory. We had a great view of the mountains in the area, the bay, and of course fuji.

We needed food to cook for dinner, and there wasn’t store in sight. So Ojiisan took us to the grocery store after running a few errands around Fuji city where we bought ingredients to make some home made burgers as well as some bacon and eggs for breakfast the next morning.

Dinner was a hit, how I miss burgers with eggs on em. Sleep was a bit uncomfortable. The pillows were absolute shite – felt like rocks. But it all turned out ok, we were tired so we all got our sleep.

We woke up early, around 4-5am, to watch the sunrise. When we went outside it was still dark, but we could see the outline of Fuji, MINUS THE CLOUDS! It was a clear morning, and as the next 3 hours past, the sun rose and there was a clear view of Fuji, unobstructed by clouds. Fuji is a giant. I was in total awe.

After gawking at Fuji, we went back in for a bit of a nap. We got up a bit later again (Fuji hiding behind clouds again), and cooked up some bacon and eggs and readied ourselves for our next leg to Tokyo. We told Obaasan and Ojiisan that we were going to leave, but Ojiisan asked us if we knew Kendo. His english was quite broken, but Obaasan spoke much better english and translated for us: He wanted to show us some Kendo (“Not Kendo, but like Kendo”).

Ojiisan walked out of his quarters carrying weaponry. Obaasan and Ojiisan were old, they’re the ancient Japanese dinosaurs you see walking the streets when any Australian (probably American and English (wo)man too) would refuse to do so because they were too old. Ojiisan pulled out a sheathed Katana, put it in his belt and started showing us his stuff (swordsmanship, not his penis – that’s 2 penis references now). He kept it simple, but it was cool watching him slashing his sword with the city of Fuji below him and ocean and mountains on the horizon.

Then he motioned his sword towards us, “Dozo” he said offering them to us to have a go. I pretty much immediately was like “FUCK YEAH GRANDPA!” and jumped in for a go. He then went threw giving each of us a 15 minute lesson with the sword. He specifically gave Paul a “Jouzu” (“Skillful”) and said he liked his technique. It was really fun, and that sword was a LOT heavier than it looked.

After our lessons, and a quick chat with Obaasan, then Ojiisan drove us to the nearest train station where we said our goodbyes.

We then lugged our crap back to Fuji station, then onto Gotemba station where we caught a bus bound for Shinjuku, Tokyo.  Fuji is, and always will be one of those memorable stop overs that I’m sure i’ll never forget.

Ciao for Now!