I arrived home-sweet-home today, from Japan, where it’s hot and sticky. We had a fantastic time, that just compells me to write some sort of account of some of the highlights. Firstly, its is sooo nice to be in cool winter Sydney instead of the hummidity of Japan in summer.
Rather than wait, I managed to perform my ritual accident on the morning of day one (beat that!), resulting in a mild concussion. But thankfully I was travelling with a doctor this time so had instant attention. You just don’t expect to find a tobogan run in a park in Japan. Since I didn’t have a tobogan the dare devil in just had to “have a go” … “skier style” ( i.e. just using my shoes, stretching the arms out in front, stick bum out), and all before anybody could say anything about it … “whoo-hoo”! It was a bad idea, but it looked like I might have gotten away with it … until near the very end. Last thing I remember was the sensation of flying and thinking 1) “ooh, how did that happen?”, and 2) ”this could be nasty”. Next thing I recall is finding myself wandering up the hill with everybody else peering down twoard me with and overhearing comments like “oh my god”, “that looks painful”, as a golf ball sized lump took possession on my left temple, and others on other parts of my anatomy. Did you know that blood drains to the point of least resistance? So in my case, with gravity, to the eyes. The “rancoon eyes” faded after couple of weeks.
Tokyo is great but a bit too busy and crowded for my liking. Yokohama — where Sharon’s parents are living — is more spacious, planned, with parks, harbour and sea breezes to ease the summer hummidity. We escaped the heat on some days during excursion to the highlands where there are traditional Japanese towns for some Temples and Forests, and perhaps some Zen if you can get it. Heading to the beach one morning was interesting but not great: it hard to find beaches that compare Australia. Another day we all took Liam to the Zoo, where mishap No. 2 nearly happened: we were at the tiger pen when the tiger lined its bum up in my direction. My eye’s grew wide as the tail raised and an apperture was revealed to me … it started to tighten. It was a “fight or flight moment” … we were about to be scent blasted. I chose “flight” and … basically … caused mayhem when I flew straight into Liam’s (empty) pram. With legs akimbo, sprawled on the and all the drinks got knocked over and I crashed on the floor. I managed to avoid a scenting but with bottles and bags rolling in various directions, me sprawled on the floor legs akmibo, I momentarily found myself the main attraction in the zoo.
Mount Fuji sits majestically in the background. For mad-dogs it just has to be climbed. At over 3,500M (12,000ft) it’s no picnic. Contratary to the name, it’s not a mountain: it’s a volcano, complete with lava flows to climb/clamber over, or else shale gravel in the other section that makes every step forward resulting in rolling/sliding half a step backwards (a bit like when you walk up a sand dune). We had a slim window of opportunity to climb Fuji-san. So, we got prepared and travelled via Tokyo to base station 5. Meantime the weather closed in on us 
The conditions were terrible and had to seriously consider whether to go ahead. There were other small groups from USA and Singapore, so we banded together. It’s probably fair to say there was some trepidation about whether we should attempt the climb under the conditions. But collectively we mustered the confidence and decision to aim to get to the next base station and decide then whether to continue or pull out – i.e. “let’s try it”. We had decided to climb through the night so as to rendevous with the sunrise around 5am, and descend in the morning. And so belong a very long night.
We set off into the dark sporting head-torches, clad in waterproofs, with rain and cloud swirling and blasting all around us: Through the night the weather conditions were just consistently bad: driving wind, swirling cloud, constant blasts of high wind, which on a few occasions was laced with hail and sleet which really really stung. To put it in perpsective: At one stage the wind suddently blasted my headtorch off my head! I hadn’t ducked for cover in time. Thankfully it landed at the feet of one of the other climbers some meters below/behind me so was able to retrieve it (critical if climbing at night!). We briefly saw the full moon rise over the horizon before we dissappeared into clound again. Cynthia (Sharons sister) unfortantely succumbed to altitude sickness and wasn’t helped by a tummy bug she’d picked up in Tokyo that afternoon. The only sensible thing to do for her was to pull out by checkin into sleeping digs at station 7, and agreed to meet at base station 5 next day. The climbing just gets harder and harder the more you go on. Er, except for Sharon that is … her gym addiction pays off at times like this, and she was able to go at a fantastic pace, hardly affected by altitude and reached the summit first. Altitude sickness hit me quite suddenly and severely at station 9, the last station before the summit. It was horrible: The base of my head/neck just “seized” — to sit, blink, breath, and concentrate on just existing/holding-my-world -together was all I could manage. I’ve never quite experienced anything like it. The head-pain and nausea where completely and totally debilitating. I had entered an abyss. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t go on, I couldn’t even go back, and I couldn’t stay there. Thankfully Siong had the foresight to bring some marevellous little pills … the wonders of modern medicine … within 10 minutes I was able to talk again: and slowly within another 15mins my mental and physical faculties started to operate again. We were well into the snow-line at that stage and saw plenty of people pulling-out at this time to sleep at various stations but at premium prices: mainly due to the freezing temperature, the extreme winds, the altititude.
Siong also started to feel the effects of the altitude, the shortness of breath, the headache, so we established a similar pace (i.e. 20-30 paces then stop to catch breath for 2-3mins), we climbed together to the summit. We didn’t make it to the summit for the sunrise, but instead saw it from 150m below the summit where a gap emerged in the weather: between the cloud line below, and the cloud line above: providing some nice photography opportunities. Meanwhile, those on the summit were at the confluence of the weather and had to take cover as hurricane strength winds and cloud swirled up the other side of the mountain and across the top, and they saw only the mist of the clouds. They seemed keen to get getting outta there and descend … we crossed paths and swapped tips and equipment. During one of these brief encounters I saw a distracted climber get blown by the wind 6m along a path — way too close to the edge. The conversation was halted and we all re-focussed on priorities again — safety.
Reaching the summit seemed like it was never going to happen, we keep turning a corner expecting to see it … only to find yet another vista to climb. It tedious and draining. When we finally got there the wind was roaring around us. We took a couple of minutes to try walking over the summit-lip to look into the volcano caldera, but nothing was visible in the cloud, and it was apparent we where risking being blown off the top. It was also freezing cold with wind chill factor. A hasty descent off the summit followed. Feeling the effects of the altitude diminish was pure relief, but to descend sensibly/safely takes nearly as long as the ascent. By the time we reached rendevouz with Cynthia at station 5 we’d been climbing non-stop 17-hours (up and down). We were absolutely exhausted. A green-tea ice-cream provided a momentary energy boost, and within 30 minutes we were wisked away on a bus to Tokyo, and everybody blissfully slept in their heavenly cushioned bus seat (comfort is entirely relative). On arrival in Tokyo the heat and hummidity was suddenly very welcome again, at least initially :)
Next day we jumped on the bullet train and were wisked off to Kyoto — the ancient capital of Japan and the cultural centre of Japan. Having been there before and visited zillions of Shinto temples and shrines … we opted for its other great alternatives: Shopping (i was a bit grumpy about that option), eating (happy), and rehabilitating our legs and feet at the Onsen (extatic about that one). Onsen is the famous Japanese art of bathing in volcanic hot springs. Oh, the sheer ecstasy of easing aching limbs into perfectly hot water (42deg – the point just before you start to cook). And then into the freezing-cold plunge-pool, and then back into the hot pool. Not sure I’ve got the hang of the Japanese “modesty towel” (judging from some of the looks I recieved), but thankfully Japanese are very accomodating and tolerant.
And now we’re back in Sydney. The cold weather is welcome, but its raining as hard and continuosly as it did the previous 4-weeks before I left. Was there even an interlude??? It’s hard to believe there’s a drought in Australia. Its back to work tommorrow, where meantime a project team has arrived from India (I organised this before I went away) ready to commence my next systems development project: A monster of a project to replace 13 systems around Asia Pacific with a single system, including 200 functional requirements spanning content management, multi-lingual requirements, ecommerce, search functions, security, systems integration, software porting, data migration etc … This promises to be its own kind of Mount Fuji 
I have been now been conditioned for it well, grasshopper.
