Re:Creation

[note: this text is compiled from charred fragments of the extraordinary diary of an english expatriate gentleman, monsieur roger choltham, who perished from the earth, along with his house and possessions, in 1749. his residence in the countryside near avignon caught flame in the middle of the night on july 31st and burned nearly to the ground. because of the distance at which mssr. choltham lived from the nearest villages, the tragedy was not noticed until the following day, as is chronicled in sorgues' town log. all the people from these villages wondered at the event, just as they had always wondered what the englishman's business was in france. none, however, felt the need to mourn choltham's passing, for he had been somewhat of a recluse, living without matron or maid or heir in his house, which could better have been called a mansion. and besides, his french was not so good. a cursory search was made of the debris before the property was cleared and auctioned to one mssr. desruisseaux, who had always thought it a shame choltham had let the fields about his house lay fallow. choltham's body was never found, but this is the nature of fires. as for the diary, it was burned in a very curious fashion, such that all entries before what appears to be the last, july 25th, disintegrated upon touch, but july 25th itself was preserved with little damage. it is presented here, reconstructed where necessary by myself and my colleagues at oxford. - N. Rochinauld, ed.]

july 25th, 1749

that thing which i have feared above all else happened yestereve, and the events of today confirm it beyond no doubt. i am the last of our order. my order, i should say now. i had known we were few, declining in the world, but so few? i suppose the curse has accelerated and, one-by-one, fallen on my brethren in england and india, and i despair that our great libraries at bombay and cambridge will fall out of existence. so much wisdom and learning, covered in dust for too long, is now to become it.

but that is the course we chose when we closed the doors to our order and sued the gods for immortality, hoping to preserve things as they were forever. why in all our wisdom could we not see that immortality is always at someone’s expense? why didn’t we anticipate a counter-suit? and the particular gods who had granted us immortality so swfitly were all too happy, in their damnable treachery wherein they derive their twisted joy, to grant the prosecutors’ request just as swiftly. so we were cursed. marked.

not all of us were, immediately. in fact, i didn’t believe in the curse until i heard about the Passing of professor ransfeld, and then later made sure of it with my own eyes; professorship had assuredly Passed to my colleague darmon, who transformed in front of me as proof. this was a curiosity! we had thought there would be no more Passings after we became immortal, but the gods had found a loophole in the pact: we never specified that we wished to live forever in our world. among gentlemen, and respectable gods, this would have been taken as given, but is clear that the gods we dealt with were barbarians and connivers.

and so, because these demons, as they should more properly be called, stole life from innocents (against our knowledge and will) and gave it to us, and because the innocents objected (as one would expect), the demons cursed our order, so that the current professor would eventually leave this world and be forced to live out his immortality in another (and knowing now how cunning are the gods, i would not wager that this other world is a kind one). since the binds of the rite of the Passing are restricted to this world only, it has returned, even though ransfeld never actually died.

we were somewhat relieved that the curse only affected the current professor, but that is the trouble with immortality: because of the curse, we would all eventually be professors, and be forced to suffer that the curse depart us from this world. and so it happened to me last night. it happened to me, the lowest in our order and therefore the last to be Passed the professorship and the last to remain yet on the earth.

i proved my professorship to myself by becoming an owl and flying to sorgues and then the six miles to avignon and back. it was exhilirating, but already the curse is doing its work. i feel that my professorship will be the shortest in the history of the order, and now i understand why ransfeld and darmon and the rest went crazy before they left; they could see glimpses of the world to which they were going.

when i laid myself down to sleep last night and closed my eyes, i had my first vision of it, and it burned my eyes. i saw that i was in a wide expanse, and there were people around me. a red mist swirled about us, choking me and causing tears to stream down my face, and so for a long while i could not discern what these others were doing. i learned, after clearing my eyes, that they were tilling the earth with some kind of glowing implement, which i took to be molten metal that somehow retained a solid shape. the pain involved in holding the tool was obvious, and it seemed that the red mist actually emanated from the subdued groans of the people and from there made a link with the others around them, so that if i looked carefully i could discern that the mist formed a moving grid, with heavier and lighter patches, that connected everyone together.

the folk themselves were dressed in heavy black cloth, robed and cowled so that i could see nothing of them save the pain. they did not notice me, and in fact i did not feel as if i were physically in that place, or i would surely have been burned by the dead, steaming sludge that passed for earth. i never learned why the people were working the hellish field, as there was nothing growing, nor do i think there could ever be anything good grown there.

just after i had been able to notice this, i shuddered with the most potent feeling of shame i have ever experienced. i saw that i was not completely disconnected from the world i was spying on, for all the slaves, as they obviously were, stopped their meaningless toil and shuddered as well. they seemed to draw into themselves, as if experiencing the same shame i had felt. and then i saw the source of this emotion, which, upon reflection while writing this diary entry, must have been one of the minions of the very gods we had made a pact with.

at that point, however, i was altogether consumed by the shame-producing object that was approaching. it is hard to describe it though it seared my soul: it was not a shameful thing, but instead much more like shame as a thing. it had no particular shape as it floated among us, but flickered from form to form, conveying failure and indecency (one of its favourite forms was unmistakably a phallus). wherever the thing went (and as i looked about i noticed that there were more than one of these unholy spirits drifting through the vast fields of black-robed sufferers), the red mist which tied the slaves to each other and to their harmful labor grew stronger and more defined.

the people, though it was obvious they knew the floating devils were there, took no notice of them, but instead turned their faces as if to hide them deeper in their black hoods, endlessly churning the burning soil and endlessly churning out more ethereal chain via their pains.

i realized, since i was only seeing a vision and not yet a vassal in the fiery fief myself, and since my mind hadn’t been continually ravaged by pain and shame like those of the slaves (my great tutors ransfeld and darmon were among them, as i eventually caught their faces, grimacing and unawares of my presence), that these shifting, floating demons were the police, the very right hand of the god who was king of this hell.

then i opened my eyes, and i knew that no time had passed at all since i’d closed them. the vision was gone, but small flames started to lick at the edges of my sight. they are doing so even now, and i know that it will not be long before the bindings call me to that world permanently.

i do not know if my predecessors were granted the same extensive vision of their future home as i was. and i do not know if my mind will be altered so much when i arrive there that i will slavishly allow my own shame to provide ever-stronger bonds to useless existence. but maybe as the last of my order to pay the price for our dealing with devils in laws and magics in which we thought ourselves wise, i could be the first to throw off the burden of shame and strike back against the evil gods. what we need is a rebellion, right now, and i intend to lead it.

but presently i must order things here for my departure. i will speak a command that all record of the order’s activities, purposes, and existence be destroyed on my Passing (for such is the right of professor), except that this journal entry be left unspoiled. for what i have seen with my eyes closed is too horrible to be ignored, and if by reading this some might come to be aware of our order, against the regulations that have been in place since the beginning, it is but a small thing compared to the good it might do to warn the world against making agreements with treacherous spirits, and what curses can be avoided thereby.

resolved,
roger s. choltham

i recently helped my friend jason give his blog a new feel. you should check it out. i also updated the sidebar. sorry, nothing else interesting is happening.

in roughly chronological order:

1. i got a new electric guitar! it’s a carlo robelli ush-500hb, and it is beautiful and cool. (and, i will be using it to play the first splendour hyaline show ever, tomorrow night!)

2. i started playing ultimate frisbee again. dav and i have been going out sunday afternoons to a place in lake nona. it’s good to run around and throw the disc, and occasionally make a spectacular play. competition is always pretty good!

3. i started work at excelsis, a non-profit company here in downtown orlando. it’s really cool, and i’ve been having a sweet time as the summer intern. check out the website for more info on what excelsis is. the only downside to the whole deal is the driving to work (leave house at 7:40am), and the driving home (get home at 6:15pm). since i need a lot of sleep, that means my free time per day is about 3 hours. no fun! i haven’t got to hang out with practically anybody.

4. dav and i have been climbing pretty frequently as well, since we got memberships at aiguille, and we’re starting to see some marked improvement after our rather poor start-of-summer attempts.

5. i’ve been beta-testing a new online computer game called savage. because of work i haven’t really been able to play very much, but i’ve got pretty decent and it’s a fun game.

6. last weekend, dav and i drove up to gainesville to visit chris and jason and paul. we each (sans paul) ate a stogie burger from conestoga’s on saturday. they contain 1-lb hunks of meat. wow. that’s a lot of meat. we also visited the gainesville ale house, place of much repute and renown. the highlight of the trip, though, was seeing jasser’s and nyffy’s new project: the bewitching hour, which is a superb work of art.

7. as you can tell, dav and i have been hanging out a lot.

8. i’ve been reading the chronicles of narnia (in chronological, not authored, order). i put down the first two before gainesville, and then horse and his boy and prince caspian this weekend at gainesville. i’d forgotten how much these books really rock (in fact there’s been at least one point in each story where i have teared up. it’s more gripping now than it ever was as a child).

9. i did something sneaky and underhanded and bad: i went behind your backs and created another blog. a lot of people i have met from work, and some of their relations, have a weblog community which i have been privileged enough to join. don’t worry–i’ll still post here! but you may want to check the other occasionally for more on-topic and well-thought-out posts.

well, that is about it. other than that i am growing fat and tired from sitting at a desk all day, all week. i love school, where i can bike to class.

oh, i lied, there’s more:

10. i bought a bunch of cds. soon i will update the sidebar with the info, so stay tuned! bye! and leave me comments, i love you guys. of course now you know i am somewhat of a liar…and doubly so, because i have another list item:

11. tyson vozza came to visit me yesterday in orlando! well he didn’t come because of me but he was here so we hung out and saw pirates of the caribbean. not a bad flick at all. anyway it was the first time any stanford friend has ever visited me in orlando, so it was a bit weird but cool.

rock.

sunday morning we woke up and got ready to go to church. aiko fukuda, sans takashi (who was gone on a business trip), took us to their church, a small but beautifull built church within walking distance. we sat through the service, not really comprehending much of anything, until an american missionary working there came over and started interpreting for us. after the message (which was surprisingly original and something i wish i remembered now…), my dad actually got up in front of the church and talked about why he was involved with wycliffe bible translators (they all knew takashi was), and how just about anybody with any skillset can take part in the work. after that we had lunch at the church, where i met several younger people, all girls, between the ages of 18-24. i answered their questions when i could understand what they were asking, and had a pretty good time. although, they all liked to giggle a lot. after that, i was invited by several people to “sports day”, which is primarily for younger kids through high-school-aged kids. since i had nothing else to do, i went with them to a gym for the afternoon, where kids of all ages were divided up into two teams, and where we played vicious rounds of volleyball, dodgeball, soccer, and aerobic dance (yeah, you should have seen that last one).

i made friends with another 20 year old guy named take, and a german missionary who spoke english and japanese named tobias, and our soccer team dominated. i will confess, however, to quite shameful performance at dodgeball (they play a rather different style of it, which involves much more strategy than i remember).

that night was sushi dinner with aiko fukuda and her mother-in-law, and it was fabulous. here are some pictures: [plates of sushi, oh how good!] ["unagi" over rice (eel). it was amazing] [my dad and i with aiko and her mother-in-law].

and with that, our time at the fukudas had drawn to a close. on monday, the next day, the plan was to do a little more touring around the city, then to go to a hotel near narita, which we had got reservations at before talking with the fukudas, where we would spend monday night. tuesday we were to leave for the states!

and all did go pretty much according to plan: on monday we toured around a different part of town: asakusa, an older and more formal area. kazu was once again our guide, along with his girlfriend and her friend, both from the east coast of the states. it was fun to have some more americans around to talk to. the most memorable event of the day was visiting the senso-ji shrine, the largest buddhist temple in tokyo, i believe. here are the accompanying pictures: [lantern gate] [view of another tower] [same tower from another angle] [my dad and i in front of the lantern gate thing]. there was also a pretty huge market leading up to the temple: [market by senso-ji]. after hanging out around the temple for a while, we got some lunch at a ramen bar, and we all had a fun conversation amid the slurping of giant noodles.

then, it was time for us to take leave of kazu & co. so we headed back to tokyo station via the subway and metro [metro station] [subway station]. from there we took the narita express, a fast train from tokyo to narita, which beats the limousine bus service any day. we got to the airport and took a free shuttle to the holiday inn hotel where we were to stay that night.

from then on things moved much more slowly and relaxed: we had a quiet dinner at the hotel restaurant that night, i took a long bath and read, and we watched CNN. boring, yes, but it was nice to slow down some. the next day, tuesday, was our last day in japan. we got to the airport 4 or 5 hours before our flight, and went to the admiral’s club. there i started reading a book series i had brought, consisting of the riddle-master of head, heir of sea and fire, and the harpist in the wind, all by patricia mckillip. i’d read it before, but i was struck again by what a fantastic story it is, and i ultimately finished all three books before landing in san jose. also, in the admiral’s club, i had a few jack and cokes, toying with the idea of trying to match Jonathan’s Day of Most Alcohol Consumption^TM. i also took a picture of the 777 which turned out to be our bird to san jose: [american airlines' flagship].

sooner or later we got on our flight to san jose, and absolutely nothing interesting happened on it. i read non-stop, as i mentioned before, and finished the trilogy i had started. i didn’t end up drinking a lot; for whatever reason i guess i didn’t feel like ingesting a conintuous stream of wine. we arrived at san jose something like 5 hours before we left (go back a few posts to my itinerary, if you want), and hung out at the admiral’s club there before our next flight, which was late. it left eventually (which is more than you can say for some flights!), and we got to dallas no problem. we paid our respects to dfw’s admiral’s club also before our flight to orlando. i mostly just sat and thought about the trip, since i was too tired to do much else. but in order to fight of jet lag i didn’t sleep on the flight to orlando, either: it, like the rest, was without event and we sailed smoothly in tuesday night.

it was a real adventure, i think, full of physical and mental and spiritual challenges to overcome. more important than that, though, i became rather enchanted with japan and japanese culture. i would definitely love to go back, spend a year or two there, and learn japanese. i would love to talk to japanese people, with their emphasis on personal respect (something that has not only gone down the tube in america, it has completely left the tube), their reserved nature, and their hard-working minds and hands. but the future–who knows. i doubt that i will ever love one place enough to settle there when there are so many places that i’ve not yet visited, so many languages left unsampled…it is overwhelming sometimes, but i guess that’s just what happens when you have, as a personal goal, to know everything and be able to speak to everyone in the world.

for now, i am just happy to have been able to spend a week there, in a real house with real japanese people, and not stuck in a cramped high-rise hotel afraid to dive into the differences below. and, i am happy to have been able to spend a week with my dad, for the time was precious, and the memories it created will be even more precious the further back they point, like a map to better times.

the end.

for me, the rest of the trip (the 21 – 24 of june) was somewhat lost in the shadow of mt. fuji, and the length of the description of this might lend itself to that interpretation as well. however, there were a lot of things worth mentioning about it, and i’d say that most of my cultural experiences and philosophical thoughts about japan and japanese culture happened in that time.

on saturday, my dad and i took a bus to shibuya, a younger, hip, shopping and music district of tokyo. there we met a young man named kazu, the nephew of aiko fukuda, who is from japan but is finishing up his theology master’s degree in the states (so he has excellent english). we had been able to persuade him over the phone to give us a tour, and that he did. we spent much of the day wandering around shibuya, doing a few touristy things and going to a few touristy shops (in one of which, miraculously, we met michael, our mt. fuji bus friend! that’s three random running-intos, which made me wonder if something was going on “upstairs”. but nothing came of it, really). we also visited the meiji shrine, a shinto temple in which is enshrined the emperor meiji (and i forgot the history of it by now, of course, though kazu was a veritable fount of knowledge concerning it). here are some pictures: [a few sake barrels in an enormous mosaic, donated by various companies to the shrine] [a procession of shinto priests and priestesses in the temple courtyard]. none of my pictures of the temple itself turned out that great…

that afternoon we also went to another part of town east of shibuya, where we went to a five-start hotel to look at some art. there was a wedding going on, so we weren’t allowed into some places, but they did let us see some banquet rooms, with gorgeous art all over the walls and ceilings [meguro gajoen hotel banquet room]. this hotel is probably the nicest i’ve ever set foot in. here’s an example of how classy it was: the men’s restroom had a fountain and natural-looking stream with koi and rocks and plants in it, nice dark wood and bamboo, tasteful plants, black marble sinks and floor, and the list goes on. i should have taken a picture of it!

outside the hotel were two little shrines, one of which is buddhist for sure, and the other one of which i’m not exactly sure about. here are the pictures: [shrine 1] [shrine 2].

after the hotel, we three went to a great little tempura bar in another area of town, and had probably the best meal i ever ate in japan. they killed and cooked and fried all the food right in front of you, and gave you a huge variety of all kinds of things. it was fascinating. ah.

anyway, we said our goodbyes to kazu and went back to the fukudas to sleep.

as it turned out, we had made it up in 5:15, which wasn’t all that horrible! we rested a little bit but not for long because the cold was being blasted through our clothing by the strong wind. so we started the long descent. it felt a lot faster (and was, of course) than the ascent, and we practically zoomed by places that had been particularly hard on the way up. of course, the going was hard on the old knees, and we had to rest occasionally just so all our joints wouldn’t give out. but, it was much nicer than going up, and i was able to do some jogging now and then to get the blood flowing and muscles moving.

we made it down in about 2:45, and on the way i took these beautiful pictures at sunset: [view of valley below] [clouds rolling in the hills below] [the shadow of mt. fuji on the clouds]

so, we got back to the 5th station a little after 7pm. we had done it! we were extremely tired, but excited. the plan was now for renee and sue to drive my dad and me to fujiyoshida station so we could catch the 7:57 bus back to tokyo (this was, of course, the last bus of the day). we stopped at the convenience store at 5th station to get a drink and ask if perhaps there were any trains that left instead of buses, when we found out two very disturbing pieces of news: (1) there was a gate on the road down from 5th station to the base of the mountain, and (2) the gate closes daily at 7pm. we checked our watches: 7:05pm. oh no! we ran to their car and sped off down the mountain road to get to the gate and hope it wasn’t closed.

it was practically dark now, and the road down was long and windy (it now seemed much longer than it did when coming up, even though we were going faster, since none of us wanted to be stuck on mt. fuji for the night, what with it being out of season and there being no accomodations anywhere). on two occasions we almost ran over something in the road: the first was a deer (which i saw and yelled “stop!” in as curt and commanding a voice as i could muster without accidentally causing sue, the driver, to have a non-deer-related accident. thankfully, she jammed on the brakes, only then seeing the deer. i shudder to think what would have happened it i hadn’t seen it). the second was a cone (which i saw again and yelled “cone!”).

anyhow, we eventually made it to the gate, at around 7:40pm, and it was definitely closed. it was a big metal affair, padlocked securely with no hope of breaking it open. so, my dad and i got out of the car, slid under the gate, and walked down to a guardhouse, hoping that someone might still be there. as it turned out, there were still some workers there having their dinner, and with hand signs and short, one-word sentences, we were able to let them know that our car was on the wrong side of the gate. they were only too happy to get the key and unlock it for us, no doubt not wanting 4 gaijin wandering about on their mountain any more than we wanted to be there sleeping in the car all night.

our adventure was not over yet, however! we realized as we left the foot of mt. fuji that none of us had any idea where fujiyoshida station was…we had been driven from there by mrs. takahashi, and we had even got lost on the way up with her. so we just drove wherever we thought looked best, going somewhat the right direction, but losing hope all the same. sooner or later the clock turned to 7:55 and we knew that we’d never be able to catch the bus back to tokyo. we were resigned to finding an expensive hotel (they’re all expensive in japan) somewhere in the area and then heading back to tokyo the next day (which would also have the effect of causing the fukudas to believe that we’d died, certainly). but just then, we drove by a hotel which i recognized, and which had its own amusement park…i saw a sign which read “fujikyu highlands”, and then i remembered! our bus had stopped there, 2 or 3 stops before fujiyoshida, on the way in that morning! so, if we had any luck at all, we would be able to catch the 7:57 bus from fujiyoshida station as it made its way back to tokyo, since it was 8:00pm and the bus could not have got to fujikyu highlands yet! we pulled into the parking lot and talked to the station manager who was just leaving, but affirmed that, yes, the bus to tokyo was going to stop there, and that it left at 8:04pm.

yes! my dad and i rejoiced that we’d be able to get back despite getting lost. we thanked god once again for orchestrating events to our benefit. and we thanked our friends renee and sue for breaking a number of traffic laws, trying to get us to the bus on time. we said our goodbyes to them, and then a few minutes later got on the bus back to shinjuku station in tokyo. from there we took the metro back to soshigaya, and walked, tired, sore, and covered in volcanic dust, back into the fukudas house.

after assuring the fukudas that we were ok and had made it to the top (they were impressed), we went immediately to bed. and i dreamed happily of the beauty and power that god put into creation.

we kept a better pace all the way up the first round of switchbacks up to the 7th station, where we lunched on trail mix and had a rest. there i took this picture of the next leg of the journey: [up from 7th station]. you’ll notice that the terrain changes a bit there from volcanic scree to large, clumpy conglomerates of rock which one had to climb over. that was definitely my favorite part of the climb: some 4th-class scrambling over really interesting rock formations. and, since i could now use my hands and arm muscles, my feet got a bit of a break. i found myself getting way too far ahead of the other three, however, and decided to slow down. it was at that point that the wind begain getting pretty bad. it was sustained, as i said, but the gusts were what really took us by surprise. if you weren’t holding on to something when they hit, you were easily blown off your feet. and, the wind carried with it tons of little dust particles and rocks which did there best to scrape the skin off our faces.

eventually we got through the scrambling part and made it to the 8th station (i don’t think i mentioned this, by the way, but there are 10 stations, and the 10th is at the summit. the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th are all fairly close, and then there’s quite a ways between the 8th, 9th, and 10th). [my dad and i at the 8th station]. after the 8th station there was a little more scrambling over the big odd-shaped rocks [side view of volcanic scree and rocky path], and then it turned into more crappy terrain and steep switchbacks.

from there it was pretty sustained until the top: sliding terrain, super-steep paths, harmful wind, and a beating sun that burned my neck horribly, though i didn’t realize it till later because the temperatures had quickly dropped into the upper 40s. i had given my dad his backpack back for the scrambling part of the climb, because i couldn’t do it with a pack on my stomach. soon i had to take it back because the steepness and the altitude were getting to him (i was starting to feel shorter of breath as well–we were probably at 10,000 ft. now). i took this picture, off to the right of the path, where you can see huge ice patches still there despite the sun (and i wondered what it would be like to slide down it!): [ice patches].

what felt like hours later we reached the 9th station, or thereabouts, and encountered michael, from the bus! he was on his way down, in shorts and a light sweater. he told us that he’d made it to the top in about 2:45, which was phenomenal. i was a little jealous that he’d had no companions to slow his progress, but then was immediately ashamed, since the whole ordeal was very much a father-son thing for me, and i wanted both me and my dad to make it to the top (which was why i had been carrying my dad’s pack of course–he’d suggested that i go on ahead and he could wait for me to come back down, but i would have none of that!). anyway, he warned us of the winds at the top and then kept jogging back down.

finally, not too long after that, we caught a glimpse of the wooden shinto gate that marked the entrance to the 10th station, a few hundred feet above us. then, we knew that we would be able to make it. and, a long time later (having to stand still and take cover with the howling wind, we were not moving very fast), we were there! [shinto shrine gate and lions at 10th station entrance]. and once through the gates, we crested the lip of the crater and were able to see the inside of mt. fuji. the winds were phenomenally powerful (around 100mph, we estimated), and we had to keep low to the ground in order not to be blown off our feet. we had a thermometer, and it was in the 30s, so very cold! [my dad and i with crater in the background].

i took a short video with my digital camera at the top, showing that we had actually made it. it’s a little big (5mb), but you can download it here: [video from the top]
also, i took a panorama shot from the top, which is kind of hazy because of the wind and elevation, but here it is: [panorama from the top]

the drive to 5th station took longer than expected, but at the end of it we found ourselves getting out of mrs. takahashi’s car at an elevation of about 5,600 ft. at this height and because of the situation of the 5th station, the wind was a constant, deafening roar, with gusts that made it hard to stand even on flat cement. my dad and i worried about this momentarily, wondering how much worse it would be on the tricky upper slopes, but put it out of our minds. and, so as not to lose time, we had a quick prayer with mrs. takahashi for safety, and said our thank-yous and goodbyes. then we cinched up all our straps, configured our hydration packs for hiking, and set off on the trail. despite the wind, it was a sunny 80 degrees at the 5th station (much better than the balmy and sweaty 95 of tokyo), the trail was not to steep, and life was good! around then i noticed an interesting atmospheric oddity–a little cyclonic type cloud formation that hovered a certain distance off fuji, and just kept rotating and rotating. here’s a picture: [our cyclonic friend]. that cloud formation stayed there for just about the entire duration of our extent, rotating happily, and i can’t figure out why it was there. anyway.

soon enough, however, the going got fairly steep (we thought, but little did we know it was practically flat compared to what was to come), and we got mired in problems. my dad, jogger extroardinaire though he is, was having trouble with the intense cardiovascular nature of the climb. thus, we had to rest frequently, and my hopes of getting anywhere near the summit before we had to turn around to catch the bus began to diminish steadily. still, we made it to the 6th station alright, and, trying not to look up and see the vertical mile we still had to go, pressed on. shortly after that, i took this picture, wherein you can get an idea of how far we had to go (you can also notice the swirling clouds at the top and the ice patches still left even in summer): [don't look up].

then began the Switchbacks of Death, as i like to call them. hundreds and hundreds of switchbacks, each fairly short, but extremely steep, and consisting of volcanic gravel that was extremely hard to gain purchase in. it wasn’t so much hiking anymore as slogging through shifting rock. my dad was still having some trouble tiring out quickly after each rest, so we were stopping more often and longer than i liked–at each switchback practically. so, since i was feeling alright, and as if i could run up the mountain if i wanted, i took my dad’s pack and carried it on my stomach. the combined weight of his and my packs was probably around 50 lbs (8 liters of water is heavy, and i had all my cooking gear–stove, 2 pots, food, though i was never able to get the fuel tank filled. so it was a lot of useless and dead weight). needless to say, this evened the playing field a little bit: i stopped getting so far ahead and my dad stopped to rest less often.

however, i had already settled on not making it to the top, since at the rate we were going, we were going to take at least 6 hours up. then, when i had lost all hope, two americans caught up to us from behind (which was odd, because so far we hadn’t seen anyone else on the mountain–it was fantastic! a beautiful day, and no one in sight!). their names were renee and sue, and they were wives of americans working in tokyo. we got to talking, and soon realized what a blessing it was that we had met each other. they had been wanting someone to climb with, and also they had not brought much food or water. more importantly, they had brought a car to the 5th station. my dad and i, of course, had plenty of water, having brought some for cooking that we would no longer need. we also had an entire 5lb bag of kirkland’s signature trail mix, and all sorts of other useful hiking gear (first aid kit, moleskin, etc). so we decided that we would all go up together, and that way they would have food and water, and we would have a ride back to the main bus station at fujiyoshida! it almost felt as if god had been steadily increasing the possibility of our being able to climb up to the top, from getting us a ride to the 5th station, to sending two people who could help us and whom we could help.

anyway, that renewed my spirits quite a bit, and i trotted up with hope, still carrying my dad’s backpack. our joining the two ladies also had a positive impact on my dad, maybe because they were around 40 and he didn’t want to be shown up by women not much younger than him. at any rate they were better at encouraging him and each other than i was (all i had been able to manage was “come on, dad! your body can do this, you just have to keep a sustained pace and not give in to the pain”, which i guess wasn’t very helpful).

the next day, friday, was another early morning. we caught our bus at shinjuku at 7am and settled in for the 2-hour ride. on the trip we made friends with a canadian guy named michael, who was planning on climbing the mountain that day. he told us of an american he met in the tokyo streets who’d done it about a week previously, and who had said it was certainly doable. in fact, this american had made it up the mountain in 3 hours (much less than the average 5.5 – 6 up), and had not, of course, been eaten by the forest, fallen hundreds of feet down ice cracks, or been blown off the mountain by winds. this report confirmed my suspicions that the mountain wasn’t all that bad, and made my dad more willing to try for the summit if we got the opportunity. the rest of the ride we talked to michael about various things and had a decent time in the cramped seats. i also got this picture of fuji from the bus, unfortunately the only one of the whole mountain, since it was dark when we were again far enough away to see the whole thing: [view of fuji from bus window]. as you can see, there was a layer of clouds covering the top of the mountain. what you can’t see is that these clouds were swirling very visbly around the mountain, like a miniature hurricane. and they were going fast. it was actually quite unreal, and made me wonder what it would feel like on the summit, in those winds and clouds, if we tried for it.

in talking with michael, we also discovered that there was a bus from the 5th station back down to fujiyoshida, so that, if we were to try hiking the mountain, we could get back to tokyo on our own (one of the logistical problems we faced had been getting down from the mountain, even if we could convince the takahashis to drive us to the 5th station. we were under the impression that no buses or taxis ran from the 5th station back down to the fujiyoshida station out of season). unfortunately, the last bus down from 5th station (5th station, remember, is about halfway, elevation-wise, up the 12,376 ft. mountain, and it is where the summit hike begins. you can drive up to it.), we were told, was at 4pm. we figured that the soonest we could start climbing was probably 10am, and if we wanted to catch the bus we’d have to go up and down in no more than 6 hours. seeing as the average up-hike alone takes 6 hours, my dad was doubtful that we could possibly make the last bus. i was game for trying anyway.

the bus ride ended soon enough, and we met mr. takahashi and his wife and fujiyoshida station. there we tried our best, standing in the wind which was abnormally strong even at the foot of the mountain, to persuade them to take us to the 5th station and then let us climb up the mountain. eventually, after showing them that we were well supplied with gear, food, and clothing, they acquiesced, and my heart rejoiced! it didn’t rejoice too quickly, however, because my dad reminded me that we’d need to be down by 4pm, whether we had summited or not, to catch the last bus back to fujiyoshida (so we could get back to tokyo). i agreed, and settled for going as far up as possible.

we generally ate our dinners with the fukudas and takashi’s mother at her place. every meal was an adventure, as any number of unfamiliar items were continually placed in front of me. i ate everything, near enough, with a minimal of facial muscle distortion, and soon began to distinguish what sorts of things i liked and what i didn’t. japanese food is very good.

the first night there my dad and i went to bed early, due to jet lag, and woke up accordingly early on thursday morning. that day we went to work with takashi at the wycliffe center [takashi and my dad on the way to the station to go to the center]. (i should actually put “center” in scare quotes, since it was a one-room office with a living quarters directly above). my dad wanted to see the office for obvious reasons, and i was excited to see how wycliffe was doing things in other parts of the world (it’s really a fascinating organization, with divisions in most of the world’s countries). there are 5 or 6 people that work in wycliffe japan, of which takashi is the director. we hung around the office for a bit, and i got to know some of the employees a bit. i also learned how to type japanese on a windows computer, which was, to say the least, fascinating. i really wish english had as interesting a writing system.

more began to unravel then in the mt. fuji debacle. takashi had asked a pastor friend of his (takahashi-san), if he wouldn’t mind showing us around the base of mt. fuji. the plan was, my dad and i would take a bus on friday morning to fujiyoshida station, in a town at the base of the mountain, and mr. takahashi would meet us there. he would drive us in his car up to the 5th station of fuji (which is “open” all year round, and from which the traditional hike to the summit begins). that way, we would get as close as takashi wanted us to get, without attempting to do something as foolish as climb to the top. takashi and my dad (who had been somewhat wary of doing mt. fuji out of season in the first place, and who was probably wiser in me in that the many stories of people dying on the ascent made him take heed) cheered this plan as excellent, but to me it was the worst of all possible plans. i could think of nothing more unsatisfying than to drive to the base of the hike, look up to the top, and then turn around and head back, hearing, “now wasn’t that fun?” i was definitely in a conquering sort of mood, not a be-conquered sort of mood. but there was nothing i could really do except act disappointed, which i did in such a way so that my dad would get it and not takashi (i didn’t want to offend our host).

anyway, after that, takashi conscripted the wycliffe secretary there, misao, to take us on a tour of the shinjuku area, which she did [shinjuku 1] [shinjuku 2]. we visited the bus station to get our tickets to fujiyoshida, and went to a christian bookstore in the area, where i picked up a very nice japanese bible, written in furigana (kanji with the hiragana readings). then we took leave of misao, caught a train from shinjuku to soshigaya-okura, and walked the mile or two back to the fukudas, where we arrived just in time for dinner!

my dad and i talked before going to bed that night about the fuji situation. he understood my disappointment and said he wanted to climb himself. one way or another i convinced him that we should bring all our gear in our packs the next day to fuji, just in case we could get the takahashi’s to give us leave to climb the mountain. he agreed, and so we filled our hiking packs with 4 liters of water each, tons of trail mix, my stove and fuel canister (empty at the moment), warm clothes to combat the near-freezing temperatures if we should reach the summit, and various other necessities. then we slept, and i dreamed of standing happily on the crater of the volcano i so wished to defeat.