Mt. Fuji is out!

We woke up Sunday to an absolutely gorgeous sunny sky in Tokyo as we headed off for Mt. Fuji. We rode the long distance bus after getting some breakfast to go at our trusty 7-11. Who knew that store would be such a blessing here in Japan?
As we traveled through the suburbs of Tokyo on the elevated highway, all of us sudden Mt. Fuji appeared out our window in the distance! It is amazing as you don't see other mountains around it - it just appears by itself, with the top part already covered in snow and ice. We arrived almost an hour earlier than we had thought, after a very comfortable ride. Now the mountain seemed to be right there to reach out and touch. K's Hostel here in Kamaguchi has a pick-up service so we phoned them for a ride and they came in about 10 minutes.
We haven't yet learned his name but the driver/host at the hostel has excellent English and has been enormously helpful. Another passenger being picked up was a young man from Bangkok on his first trip to Japan. He was only going to spend one night so he spent the afternoon on a bus around the Lake seeing some of the Lake Kamaguchi sights.
 I had been e-mailing since arriving here friends of Sr. Trai Nghiem, one of Doug's monastic friends, whose name is Akemi. Shortly after our arrive at the hostel, they (Keisuke and Toshito arrived to meet us. It turns out they are like second parents to Akemi. She was born in Texas and then moved to Japan for about 12 years.The friends, Keisuke and Toshiko Izumi, are a delightful couple who live between Yokohama and Kamakura (where we are headed tomorrow for a day) but also have a little apartment in the Hakone area near Mt. Fuji. It's still about a couple of hours ride from here so they were so sweet to come all this was to spend the afternoon with us.
It turns out they had never been in this area before so hope they enjoyed seeing a different part of the Mt. Fuji area as well.
Anyhow, it turns out their daughter, a couple of years older than
Akemi, played the violin as well as A. and they became friends. Now the daughter lives I think in Yokohama and is married and works as a translater. She had studied in London and also in Beijing so speaks Mandarin and English. When I talked about my friend's son who writes for Lonely Planet and leads tours here in Japan, Toshiko mentioned that her daughter had translated some for Lonely Planet, I guess from Chinese into Japanese.  So they have known A. since she was five. Kazemi lived in Japan until she and her mother moved to Seattle for a better education. When her parents split up, she stayed with her mother and went on to study in Europe. She played as a concert violinist at a very prestigious orchestra in Berlin, I think, and they mentioned something about a Mahler Chamber Orchestra. I know K. had said she was playing concert tours until about five years ago when she joined Thich Nhat Hanh in Plum Village and became a nun. I met her for the first time at my house in October when Doug and 15 others stayed with me for 4 days when they were on the US Tour. She had given me the names of some friends to contact when I was here.
So we spent a lovely afternoon with these generous people. It turns out they had lived 5 years in Netherlands near the Hague and 5 years also in New Jersey when he was working for some electronics company. Their English was really good.
Our guide at the hostel was very helpful in suggesting things to Keisuke for us to do that afternoon, since they had never been in this area. First they took us for lunch at a very Japanese restaurant nearby. Long low tables were filled with tourists eating lunch so we had a few minutes wait. They ordered the local specialty, a miso based soup filled with all kinds of vegetables and the local thicker noodles. It was delicious! Betty and I shared a large bowl and Keisuke and Toshito shared one. We took many pictures and had a delightful conversation.
Next we headed up, up, up the highway to the 5th Station on the side of Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately we followed all the way up a diesel tour bus that choked us with fumes but we shut the windows. With pine trees dense on both sides you didn't get the sense of being up high until once in awhile there would be a glimpse of the valley in the distance. But when we arrived at the station, there it was! We were right on the slope! I never thought we'd be able to get that close. Snow and chunks of ice were all around and I was glad I had gone back into the storage area to grab my extra windbreaker as it was COLD! This is where now the pilgrims start their hike to the top of Mt. Fuji. It used to be near the bottom at a particular shrine. They've been doing this pilgrimage for 1000 years or so! Mt. Fuji is the highest and I believe considered the most sacred mountain in Japan. K and T said they had never been up here. There was a statue inside one of the buildings of a guy who when he was 105 had climbed up and down 13 times in succession!! We got to talking then about Keisuke's parents - his father is 100 and his mother 95 and still living on their own in a different prefecture east of Tokyo. He is the oldest of 4 sons. He thought the average life expectancy for Japanese men is now 78 or so and women over 80. Must be all the fish, vegetables, healthy living, hot spring soaks, etc. We have seen so many elderly Japanese out walking around all the tourist places we've visited. The retirement age is 60 so they have a LONG life after retirement.
There was a post office up top so I wrote out a post card to Jackson and Sarah to be stamped and mailed from there. Of course, there was also a small Shinto shrine with a terrace overlook the other side down to Lake Kamaguchi and in the distance the Hakone area. They suggested we might want to go to Kamakura via Hakone area but it's a lot of bus rides and train changes and I don't know how much we'd really get to see in one day with all that traveling and still get to our reservation in Kamakura tomorrow night. We also didn't think we'd be able to refund our bus ticket back to Shinjuku station in Tokyo that we already paid for. So I think we'll just stick with our plan and keep Hakone area for another visit! I feel content that we really got to see a lot of variety in this country and didn't just stick to the Tokyo area as many tourists do. But you always leave things to come back and see and there are plenty of them here.
After K and T dropped us back at K's hostel at nearly dark - they still had a couple of hours drive back home, Betty and I walked to a local grocery store to pick up some dinner and eggs and veggies, etc. for our breakfasts for a couple of days. After dinner, we walked with the guys from Bangkok (another one was also staying here so he joined the first one) over to the local onsen for a great soak! They had some outside tubs so we spent most of the time looking at the moon and stars while the cool air kept us from boiling in the hot water! It's a lovely way to end the day!
Our roommate last night was a young art teacher from Wales, Sharon Flint,  who is 4 months into an 8 month trip (and I'm feeling tired after 6 weeks!) around Asia. She just arrived from Tokyo and is kind of doing our tour in reverse. She previously was in China as well, and then Vietnam, Cambodia and I think India. Betty talked with her before I came in the room so I didn't hear all of it. But we compared notes on travel in China. She is also doing a blog so she gave me her URL (www.flintythenomad.blogspot.com - for those travel bugs like me who will read about ANYONE's trips) that I'll check out later. She said she doesn't mind wearing the same 3 outfits but she said she felt grungy in Tokyo with all the beautiful girls there. So she went out and spent 10 pounds on a "Tokyo dress." She felt much better!
She also told me how to get on directly to add my entries as I constantly had to e-mail to Michelle to have her upload it. Now this morning with her directions (go to the blog FIRST and THEN sign in and that seemed to work), I'm able to type the entry directly into the blog. Yea!!! She also told me how easy it is to add pictures but I don't have my gadget that I put my stick into to upload pictures. I'll work on adding them when I get home.
I forgot to mention Sharon (the woman from Wales) mentioned she went by bus up to 5th Station and met a German guy who was also going to try to hike a bit. The two of them hiked up to the 6th station. She said she was glad he was along as it was very treacherous (the hiking season ends in September but I guess no one stops you!). She fell and also scraped her leg on something. So I'm glad we never even gave it a thought!!
So off today on bikes, after cooking our breakfast in this HUGE kitchen, to see Lake Kamaguchi and more peeks at Mt. Fuji!