Mt Fuji

They say he who climbs Mt Fuji is wise, but who does it twice, is twice a fool. 

So I decided to prove my wisdom and climbed the mountain a couple of weeks ago. The mountain stands quite high at 3776 m and it can be dangerous going up, therefore they have an official climbing season from July to the end of August. Apparently this year alone, more than 200,000 people made their way up, so it’s entirely doable. 

But because it was already out of season I was worried about hiking alone, so I posted a message on a forum online and found three other people keen to go up. It’s quite exciting going on a mountain with some total strangers. We decided to do a night hike, in order to get there just in time for sunrise. It might sound strange, but this is apparently the way to do it. The legend says that if you see the sunrise from the top of the mountain many good things will be bestowed upon you, so it’s definitely worth the effort. 

I bought some gear (including a cool headlamp), prepared some sandwiches and some energy bars and early on Saturday morning I took a bus from Tokyo to Kawaguchiko 5th Station, which is as far as the bus can get. Got there at about 2 in the afternoon, and my online friends eventually turned up as well. Because our plan was to get to the top by sunrise, we had to wait until about 10 PM, so by the time we left I was already tired and sleepy. 

Going up in the dark is quite an interesting experience, as you can’t appreciate the main thing about mountains: the view. Just total darkness. As we got higher and higher we started seeing the city lights down below. My concern about hiking alone turned out to be totally unfounded. A lot of people were quietly doing the same thing. At some point we even ran into some sort of traffic jam and we had to wait for a while. 

On the way to the top we found many huts packed with people sleeping on the floor. It looks like they’ve paid a fortune for this privilege. It also became clear to us that we were going to get there too early so we stopped at one of the stations to get some hot noodles. It was getting very very busy so we decided to make a move. The last hour was just one long queue. It’s not quite Shibuya, but close. I can only image what it’s like in August. 

On the top it was quite cold, dark and windy. As it was still dark and I was sleepwalking by then, I found a little corner and instantly fell asleep. When I woke up, to my surprise some other people had taken my example almost keeping me warm. 

And then the sunrise came, which was quite spectacular. And being so high and above the clouds it nearly makes you think it was worth it. I was beginning to understand why the Japanese consider Fuji-san a holy mountain. 

The sun changed everything instantly and soon people were basking in the sun. At this point I realised I was actually on a volcano. No vegetation at all, only gravel, ash and slag, a big crater in the middle and some glacier nearly melted down by the unusually hot summer. It took me more than an hour to go around the crater. Signs of a violent eruption could be seen everywhere. 

One the way down I had to stop and eat one of my sandwiches as my knees were shaking. All I could think of was a nice bed to collapse on. It took me less than a couple of hours to go down (as opposed to six to go up) . By this time I had lost my mates and I was trying to catch up with them. It turned out they were too tired to continue, so they slept for a while on some rocks on the way down. I found the car park at Kawaguchiko 5th Station much more attractive. 

After a long wait the bus arrived and the next thing I remember is getting off at Shinjuku Station in Tokyo. 

Would I do it again? Probably not. It’s quite hard (I don’t know how all these people do it) and although the view from the top can be breathtaking, the overall bleak landscape didn’t impress me. And it’s the journey that counts, isn’t it? 

I took some pictures which can be seen on my Picasa album. 

Also, I tried to track my hike, but my phone died as we neared the top. It must have been the lack of oxygen. Here it is anyway:

Bond... James Bond

This might look like an ordinary brick, but it’s not. It’s got quite an interesting story to tell.

Forty-fifty years ago, a lot of the technology that we now take for granted wasn’t readily available. Take the laser for instance. You can get a laser pointer for a couple of pounds these days, but fifty years ago a laser was a toy one could only find in a research lab.

It so happened that a young scientist was at the time working in one of these research labs. One day he got an unexpected visit. The producers of the latest James Bond movie wanted to talk to him. They were looking for a laser for some special effects in the movie. It turned out they came to the right place. They got their laser, and even a custom built “time bomb” (actually just a display with a counter on a refurbished barrel). The person doing all this is in fact one of my colleagues. He is now retired and comes in only once a week and he had a brilliant career.

Being a sort of “consultant” for the movie (which is called Goldfinger, by the way) he even got to go on the set once. As a souvenir he took one of the “gold bricks”. “It used to have a shiny golden colour” he told me one day, “but my wife’s been using it in the kitchen”.

Aubergines

I love aubergines. I really do. I love their shape, their colour, their texture, not to mention their unique taste. One can cook so many nice dishes with aubergines.

And they seem to be coming in all sort of sizes as well. Here are two extreme examples.

Aubergines in Romania:

Aubergines in Japan:

Church Dress Code

My friend was in Rome last week. She wanted to visit St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, but she wasn’t allowed in. Her shoulders were uncovered and apparently this doesn’t go very well with the church dress code. So she bought this t-shirt to solve the problem. Perfectly acceptable this time.

Conspiracy Theory

She always told me she “was on the pill”. I never suspected she was on THIS sort of pill:

And to make things worse, one of my friends casually gave me this present (zoom in for details):

I’m slowly getting the big picture here and I smell a big conspiracy going on.