Mount Fuji: The beginning

When I first thought about writing about my climb up Mt Fuji, before the climb to 3776.2m, I thought of doing a sort of spoof; something based on Michael Palin's Rippin Yarns (Thompkin's School Days - The 20 mile hop) , which about summed up how seriously I took the 'challenge'. After all, hundreds of thousands of people have done it - even a 94 year old woman apparently.
I did however take things seriously enough to get some proper gear - some energy bars, some Gortex trousers, a head lamp, and I borrowed a proper ski jacket from my mate Eric (ta buddy). But as I recall my experience, it just doesn't seem fitting.

My lax attitude to climbing Mt Fuji was not unusual. Although, most heeded the advice by the organisers, the general spirit was that it was just a bit of a hike.

Anyway so why were we doing it? Well, when I first moved to Japan, I was assisted with flat finding, furniture buying, bank account set up (etc etc) by a company called ReloJapan. In particular, a very helpful person called Karolina. Although my new deal does not included Relo assistance, Karolina invited me along to the event thinking I'd be up for the challenge and experience (too right) and it was for a good cause, a charity organisation called Hope International. Hope mainly set up clean water facilities to the poorest of the poor in numerous regions.

I then find out 2 weeks before that she can't make it due to a wedding! A convenient story!
Shizuka wanted to go too, but couldn't get t he time off work.

So I caught the bullet train to Tokyo from Tsubame Sanjo and met up the the rest of the climbers from Tokyo.