The following is a run down of our trip. Probably kind of boring to read if you weren't there. It is mostly for my reference so I remember what exactly we did a few years from now. But maybe you will enjoy it.

Sunday, April 11^th

Our flight arrived an hour late at 530pm. We took the Keisei line to Ueno station, changed to the subway to Shinjuku. We had 3 bags and a ski bag and we wandered from the station to our hotel 0.25 mile away. We had emailed with Lynette, a highschool friend who moved to Japan 5 years ago, to meet at our hotel. We were 45 minutes late, but she was still waiting. We dropped our bags and went out with her fiancé to get our first Japanese meal. They took us to a traditional place and we ordered all kinds of great food. For most of the rest of the trip we stuck to “picture” menus, but that night we ate it up.

Monday, April 12^{th ­}(also my 10,000-days-since-my-birth, day)

We started off with a walk around the Shinjuku neighborhood. It was raining quite hard that day. We hoped it would let up, but it never did. We then walked through the Shinkuku-Gyoen park, supposedly one of the best places to see cherry blossoms. The blossoms were amazing and because of the heavy unrelenting rain we had nearly the entire park to ourselves. We even stopped in the tea-house and treated ourselves to Japanese green tea.

We continued on and caught a subway to the Asakusa neighborhood. In the dusk (and rain) we admired the lit up Senso-Ji temple. We also had dinner in this neighborhood.

Tuesday, April 13^th

As with most days, we got a 6am start. We took the subway across town to the Ginza neighborhood. We heard the Tsukiji fish market was an interesting place to visit, despite them not really appreciating tourists because it is the fish market for Tokyo. They love seafood there and a lot of seafood is traded at this market. It took us a while to figure out how to get in, but we eventually waltzed into one entrance, dodging forklifts and trolleys. We walked around for a while not really seeing much other than forklifts and Styrofoam boxes. We eventually found our way to the Sumida River to see the foggy river and boxes and boxes of fish.

Eventually we did find the active trading section. Imagine all the fish, mollusks, and squid you have ever seen at aquariums, but resting on ice instead. Imagine the entire sea scooped up and placed on ice. The variety of seafood for sale there was staggering. The stalls of seafood sellers went on in every direction. We took probably 200 pictures of all the crazy seafood we saw.

We finished the market by getting a sushi snack. Fatty tuna. Probably the freshest fish I have ever eaten. Man vs Wild style. Almost.

We then walked through the Ginza neighborhood to the Imperial Palace. We walked through the gardens, looked at the palace, where the emperor actually lives. We caught the subway from Otemachi to Shibuya. We crossed one of the most famous pedestrian intersections in the world, found a soup bowl, then caught the train back north to Shinjuku (one of the busiest train stations in the world) and walked to the Tokyo Metropolitan Office. We took the elevator to the observation floor where I hoped to get my first view of Mt. Fuji. It was a bit to hazy, but we did a get a great view of city stretching out to infinity in every direction.

I’m not much of a city person and I had very low expectations for Tokyo. I was very pleasantly surprised and it is now one of my favorite city cities. It is clean, it is quiet, it is efficient, it is interesting, and it is nice to look at.

After the observation tower, we went back to the Shinkuku-Gyoen park to look at the cherry blossoms again in the sunshine.

That evening we caught a bus to the mountain town of Hakuba. After a strange 1 hour delay on the side of the highway, we eventually made it shortly before midnight.

Wednesday, April 14th

We planned on skiing the very next day, but we awoke to ferocious winds, even down in the valley. The winds were most likely much stronger up in the mountains (the wind, is also why we didn’t attempt Mt. Fuji at the beginning of the trip). It is tough to have a fun time skinning in a wind storm, so we took the bus to Nagano instead and then on continued on past Yudanaka to visit the “snow monkeys” that bathe in the hot springs.

The snow was melted out at their elevation, but we made the few kilometer hike in to visit the monkeys anyway. We had a ball taking pictures of them and the ones bathing in the hot spring were of course the most fun.

We returned to Nagano and visited the Zenko-ji temple. In Tokyo the cherry blossoms were a bit past their prime, but in the mountains at the temple they were absolutely spectacular. We had a great time taking amazing pictures of the blossoms in the evening sun.

We returned to Hakuba to find out that there had been reports of tornadoes in the valley. Probably a good call on postponing skiing.

Thursday, April 15^th

During my online research about skiing Mt. Fuji I met a Tasmanian expat who was living and skiing in Hakuba. Since there wasn’t much of a backcountry community in Japan and didn’t often have someone to ski with, he offered to take us out for a day. Along with a guy who was doing a work/travel trip at the lodge we were staying at, the four of us went out for some skiing. He drove us north to the Tsugaike National Park. We took two lifts up. From there we continued skinning up. At that elevation things were absolutely socked in and we couldn’t see more than 100 yards. It made all the difference in the world to have someone show us around his ‘backyard.’ He took us to his secret stashes and we made laps all afternoon. It had snowed the night before and we lived the dream of skiing powder amongst the birches. We were deskinning for our final ski down back to the base when the clouds finally dropped and we got a view out over the clouds, and a view of the nearby peak that we didn’t attempt to ski because of no trees to offer orientation.

The clear weather rejuvenated us and we rallied the 1000 feet up the nearby peak from there we skied a continuous descent of 4500 feet of super fun untracked snow through trees all the way back to the car. In total we climbed 4500 feet. It turned out to be our only ski day, but it was most certainly a very full and satisfying one.

Friday, April 16^th

We had originally planned on skiing at least 3 days out of Hakuba. We had also planned on skiing Mt. Fuji. According to my weather forecasts websites the weather for the weekend was finally shaping up to be halfway decent. The skiing in Hakuba was fun, but without amazing weather it wasn’t that unique. There is great skiing back home, but there isn’t Mt. Fuji.

So we decided to call Hakuba good and we caught the first train out of there to Matsumoto, just a bit further south in the mountains. We spent the afternoon there and visited the Chuo-koen castle with cherry blossoms. We then rented a car and drove to Kawaguchiko, the popular departure point for Mt. Fuji. The weather on the drive down was partly cloudy, but as we popped out of the tunnel into Kawaguchiko it was snowing. That wasn’t in my forecast!

The forecast still called for it to clear up over the weekend. Less good on Saturday, but still nice on Sunday the day we planned on summiting. We went to the information office to inquire about the bus to the 5^th station (equivalent to Paradise at Mt. Rainier.) To our dismay the road up the mountain was closed on Saturday due to the snow. Maybe it would open on Sunday. It continued to snow. I usually love snow, but that day it made us sad. Snow meant higher avalanche conditions making climbing Fuji more questionable.

We cut our losses and used the car to drive around town and look for a Ryokan, a hotel with dinner and breakfast and hot spring baths. We stuffed ourselves with all kinds of sushi and other Japanese food. We then relaxed in a private bath room with a “view” of Mt. Fuji. We soaked and watched the snow fly harder.

Saturday, April 17^th

Overnight it had snowed nearly a foot in town. Snow at these elevations was supposed to quit by this time of year. We got breakfast. From the dining room we could see out over the city. Like magic the clouds parted and we got our first view of Mt. Fuji. We only had our cell phones with us and we took pictures while eating fish for breakfast. As soon as it came, the mountain left again, not to return again for the rest of the day.

After breakfast we took a soak in the hotel bath.

The bus up the mountain was still closed due to all of the snow. We decided to try for a Sunday/Monday summit attempt. To pass the time we rented a car and drove south to the Izu peninsula. We drove nearly 10 hours straight taking in the coastal scenery. On the return trip we drove through the inland mountains and stumbled upon a spiral bridge. A sort of hyper switchback like the spirals at parking garages, but much bigger and in the mountains.

Sunday, April 18^th

We woke at 6am to bluebird skies and an amazing view of Mt. Fuji from our dormitory room (we stayed cheap our second night to compensate for the expensive first night). We busted out of the room to go take pictures of the mountain. We ended up walking around the entire Lake Kawaguchiko (with the bridge). We turned a 10 minute photo grab, into a 3 hour walk. Crossing the bridge we spotted a cherry blossom tree ablaze with morning light. Heather decided we should continue on across the bridge as there might be great pictures of blossoms and the mountain from there. She was right and she wasn’t the only one who had figured it out. There were well over a hundred other photographers in that spot. I have never seen so many fancy cameras in one place in use. It was a blast to be taking that picture with so many other people.

The combination of bluebird skies, morning light, prime cherry blossoms, and fresh snow probably happens once a year if you are lucky. And we were lucky and took pictures for hours. If we weren’t going to have luck climbing Mt. Fuji, we were certainly going to have luck photographing it.

We went back to the hotel to inquire about the bus. We planned on catching the afternoon bus, hiking in to the only all-season hut, spending the night, and waking early to make a summit attempt on Monday. The hotel informed us the bus was only running to the 4^th station today (the equivalent of Nada Falls at Mt. Rainier.) We decided to catch an earlier bus and hike in to the hut.

We showed up at the information booth and they informed us because of all the snow and lack of access, the hut was closed that night. Damn! Our plans ruined. We pared back our ambitious plans and decided to do a day ski tour from the 4^th station instead. The next bus was in 30 minutes.

We exploded all of our gear out on the sidewalk. Throwing everything into our ski backpacks. Heather ran and grabbed some snacks. We jumped on the bus with all of our gear. We spent the 40 minute ride tightening our boots, organizing our packs, putting on sun screen, and hydrating. The last bus down was at 3:30. We wanted our 4 hours on the mountain to be the best they could be.

We showed up at the 4^th station to nothing but clouds, dense trees, and a thin layer of snow. (The snow from the night before was melting quick in the spring sunshine). There was supposedly a trail from the 4^th station to the 5^th. We wandered around with our ski bag looking for it, but no luck. We contemplated just scrambling up the forested slope not knowing where we would break out into the snowfield. It was too steep and slippery and covered with downed branches to make safe progress in only a few hours. We reluctantly gave up our dream of skiing on Mt. Fuji.

We stashed our boots and skis in the forest. We walked past the road block and decided to walk up the road as far as we could with the time we had. The road was bare or covered in less than 1 inch of snow (why the hell was the road closed) so we made rapid progress.

Within 90 minutes we found access to the treeline. We scrambled up the slope for twenty minutes until we decided we were running out of time. We had an excellent vantage point of the rest of the mountain and Lake Kawaguchiko (neither of which were visible from the 4^th station). The route looked like it would have been an excellent ski, nevertheless it wouldn’t be possible without a tent and sleeping bags. We appreciated it as best as we could and rallied back to the bus.

Since we now had an extra day, we decided to take the night bus to Kyoto.

Monday April 19^th

Monday was a giant day. We were on our feet for 16 hours. We showed up in town at 6am and found out hostel. We then took the bus to the Southern Higashiyama neighborhood where we started a laundry list of site seeing. We first went to the Kiyomizu-dera temple. It was still early, so there was hardly anyone else there. From there we walked north on the Sannen-zak road to the Ninen-zaka road. We took a reading break in the Maruyama-koen park. We stopped by the Shoren-in temple, where we witnessed some sort of Buddhist proceeding. We then walked through the Heian-Jingu shrine complex.

We took a break by shopping at the Kyoto Craft Center. We then soldiered on to the Nanzen-Ji temple area. There we visited a zen garden, then we hiked into the forest up a hill behind it for a few kilometers, mostly just for kicks.

At this point we were feeling pretty beat, so we decided to relax by buying an ice cream and continuing north on the path of philosophy along the canal. Eventually, out of money and very hungry we found some dinner, then took the bus back to our hostel…

Where we found Steven! Great friend from high school as well. Who has been living in Japan for the past 4 years. Before I got a chance to go visit him, he moved back to Seattle. However, he coincidentally had a business trip in Kyoto while we were there.

He took us to a great dinner in downtown Kyoto and then we walked around for another hour while he showed us all the great people having a night on the town in Kyoto.

Tuesday, April 20^th

Like our first day, our last day was quite rainy. We started by walking through the Nishiki Food market. We continued north, looking at more markets. We eventually made it to the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park. We had a fun time having a leisure stroll and taking pictures amongst the blossoms. We then bussed back to Kiyomizu-dera temple where we started in Kyoto. This time things were much busier and the shops were open, giving a different feel. We bought another ice cream and got dinner. That night we took the bus back to Tokyo.

Wednesday, April 21th

We went to the airport and finished our trip.