The Quest for Mount Fuji...

...is unsuccessful.

My dad I and set out for Mount Fuji today, and it was unsuccessful. Thank you fog, clouds, and ill planning (could've probably taken a bus up to a guaranteed spot, but we didn't find the bus, damn). After an hour and a half train ride, another 40 minute train ride, a 20 minute trolley ride, and a 15 minute gondola ride, we couldn't see Mount Fuji, because it was obscured in clouds. I did get a nice 10 minute exposure to volcanic gas, and for people who haven't taken earth science (I did...lol, but you don't need it to know this), volcanic gas is high in sulfur, which incidentally smells like rotten eggs. That was really pleasing. That was the entire day actually. Oh, and we went to the top of the tall building again to look for Mount Fuji off into the distance, but that didn't work for the 3rd time. I can't believe I went to Japan and didn't get to see the snow topped peak :( Ohwelp. Can't say we didn't try, or spend a lot of money trying. So yeah, I took a couple pictures of mountains that aren't Mt. Fuji. The Japanese countryside is very pretty and the mountains make for great scenery, although my pictures probably don't show that whatsoever.

OH, but I did see somebody almost die today! It's not supposed to sound that exciting, so the exclamation point was probably a poor choice of punctuation, but holy crap. The old woman looked like she was sleeping half dead on the chair like 3 feet from me. And when we stopped at the next station, the two people with her tried to support her and get off the train (it was really fucking hot, so no blame on the poor old woman), but she was like a blob of jello and actually couldn't walk, so they laid her down on the floor of the train and monitored her pulse. She looked really close the verge of death though, it was really disturbing. I think her tongue might've gone a little black too, but maybe I was just imagining things. We left her at the train station in the middle of the mountain. I hope she's alright, that'd be a terrible way to die...on an overheated tree on the way to see Mt. Fuji. Not like she would've seen it anyways (do I sound bitter, I'm not actually, but I'm a little bummed).


Anyhow, after we got back, my dad and I got too lazy to go look for quality food, so we stopped by at the local FamilyMart (which is like Seven Eleven), and bought some microwaved Japanese TV dinners, and they were pretty decent actually, and half the price we paid at any restaurant, and I got to eat pineapple and drink milk tea, and got some dessert. Worth it? I think yes.


More Bonus observations:


-Japanese beds are all really firm (I'm 3/3 on this hypothesis, for all 3 hotels we've been in). And I freaking love firm beds. I'm only going to buy firm beds in my life.


-The weather has been pretty nice the last two days, still sorta hot and humid, resulting in sticky, sweaty, and disgusting me, but much better than the first three days. My theory is that the Japanese loss in the World Cup released a lot of that pent up energy westward toward China (since I hear it's going to be hot as balls in China), and instead sent a little cool wave through Japan brought on by national depression from hitting the crossbar in penalty kicks. Either that or something about cold fronts and clouds. On a side note, Japanese announcers are awesome when it comes to soccer commentary, since the only thing I can understand is when they say players names. So to me, it's like "Nagasaki koniciwa mitsubishi arigato KAKA tokyo sushi CHRISTIANO RONALDO." It's really exciting.


That's really it. Sorry Jordan and Kristine, no vlog. I'll do that when I'm in China, hopefully.


Peace.