Hanabi @ Tokyo Bay


... Our feelings of contentment are strongly influenced by our tendency to compare....

Finding yourself

Well, there has been some unintended time lag between the last entry and today - dont blame me. Its the blog website...hehe. I have not been able to upload any pictures I took - thats really sad, and definitely half losing the motivation I had for blogging. So there you go, no Hanabi & Matsuri pictures - both events of which I took some nice pics...

Why finding myself... true enough, people stranded alone tend to think more. So what about my fellow singaporean friends who dont venture out?

"Are we good person because we want to do good things or is it because we know that it is the social norm to be acceptable as a good person. So if the society does not deem being a good person as acceptable, would all of us still be a good person or we will unleash the devil within us. Bottom line, when a person is a good person, if he/she really a good person by nature or is it because he/she is just putting up an act" - this is written by Bitching Judas. Initially when I read it, I felt it just a cliche. But recently, the qn has been popping back into my mind frequently.

I received a surprise card from my sister from Sydney - she went there alone - and indeed also took the time to "find herself" and wrote me her new found revelations abt herself. Of course, to be ethical I shouldnt disclose her privacy -- just want to say that being alone in a foreign country always makes one think and reflect more, sad as it may be sometimes, its a good thing. Otherwise one may never find himself, or know what the hell he is doing, what exactly he is striving for, or know the true meaning of life... I thought I knew when I was back in Singapore, but now I am revisiting what I thought I knew.. taking time, but hope to find some good answers before I am due to return....

There's no place like home

Now I have officially passed the half-way, half year, 50% mark to completing this assignment in Tokyo. 1st 6 months here were total delight, excitment with fresh and quality food and fruits everyday; thrilled with meeting so many talented people at the workplace - most had international experiences; best of all making a new close friend - she just asked me to join her for vacation in Iran!..crazy and intelligent girl!; and of course enjoying the new found Freedom - i.e. having the whole apartment to myself, with neither nags nor chats when I do not wish to speak.

Strangely enough, after crossing the half-way mark, hmm its suddenly going downhill. I dont know why. Hehe, I missed being more pampered back in Singapore. Hmm I didnt have to do laundry, or the dishes. I didnt have to think about if my alarm clock was going to run out of battery and I would wake up late for work (dont have an excuse to be late since I stay only three mins away from my office), didnt have to think about when to collect my dry-cleaning, didnt have to think about asking the apartment management to get someone to fix the bulbs, curtains etc. All those were easy tasks, not difficult, but at least I didnt have to bother about such domestics back home. I missed waking up and having overnight boiled soup!

Since my mum concluded last week that I am an unstable girl, lets see if my excitment about staying in Tokyo ever comes back... otherwise I am really hoping that I wont be missing Chinese New Year in a matter of few (??...6!) months...

Perfect Way to spend a Sunday @ Daikanyama

Mount Fuji Finale

We finally reached the 5th station at 9am. At the trail exit gate, we saw people (friends/relatives of climbers) waiting there to congratulate the climbers. At the waiting area (beyond the exit gate), we saw/heard more speeches and cheering. Shortly, buses started arriving with people about to start their climb; most of them could recognize that we had just completed ours, and gave us the kind of look at fresh army recruits would give newly-returned war veterans. It felt great!



So in total, we had climbed for 13 hours (10 on the way up, 3 on the way down) over a span of about 19 hours, with minimal sleep. There is a saying in Japan that goes "everyone must climb Mount Fuji once, but only a fool climbs twice".. Haha!




The above narration is mainly from buddy climber and bf. Last pic - SORE BUT PROUD LEGS taken by bf after we completed the climb.

The Descent (Mount Fuji IV)
After about 40 minutes, we started the descent. Fortunately, the descending trail is separate from the ascending trail, and much wider and gradual. However it is predominantly loose gravel, so you have to keep steady and maintain balance all the time because it is very slippery. By 7am, the weather had cleared and the sun came out. For all the difficulty faced during the ascent, the view we had now during the descent made all our effort worth it. We were still above the clouds, but there were some clearings in the clouds, and the sky was a brilliant clear blue.

Climb to the Summit but no Sunrise (Mount Fuji III)


So we joined this human climbing chain (at this altitude, the trail had narrowed to 2 persons wide), and started our slow ascent. The winds were getting stronger, and at about 2am, it started to drizzle, then the drizzle turned into a medium rainfall (the kind that seems to last forever).

From here on, the climb became very difficult. Many people were starting to feel the exhaustion and sleepiness; we started to see more people rest at the side of the trail, some had even fallen asleep and their friends were trying to wake them up - some threw up (we could tell they had eaten noodles), some would fall asleep while walking and then suddenly wake up just in time to catch their balance and not hit the ground. I also fell asleep (for less than a minute) standing up a few times when the line wasn't moving.

You have just enough energy/mental-focus to command your leg to take the next step and keep balance, but the rest of your brain is just numb/shut-off. By 4am, we were still another hour away from the summit, and the clouds below us started to glow very lightly. We would not be able to see any sunrise unfortunately, because the clouds were too thick. By 5am, we reached the summit at 3,776m.

It was great to finally break out of the human jam and walk freely. The rain had become heavier, and like most others, we headed for the 'rest hall / food hall' for shelter, a place to sit down (benches) and hot food! We had Udon and some vegetable/fish-cake soup (oden).

At the Hut (Mount Fuji II)

By 7.30pm, we reached our Mountain Hut (we booked 2 beds in advance) at the 7th Station, about 3,200m above sea-level. These huts are very very basic; there is usually a main/lobby area that serves as a dining hall, a kitchen somewhere behind, and the sleeping area is a communal i.e. 2 levels of wooden bed-racks that span each wall. In our hut, each person had a 2-feet wide sleeping space!

The toilet was outside the main hut, and there was no basin or shower facility. Water supply is regulated, so the only free-flowing water we has was from a special water tank, with a special tap that dispenses an incredibly small amount of water per second. So, all very very basic.

Dinner was served (curry, rice, salad, tea) and then we were given our breakfast to keep with us - two packets of something similar to Lor-mai-fun, in an army-style plastic pack (so you just tear it open and squeeze it into your mouth), plus two small sausages and a piece of Japanese omelet.


By 8pm, we were lying in our upper-deck 'wooden rack bed' (it had a thin mattress, and sleeping bags were provided) trying to sleep, which was difficult because:

(1) there were at least 40 other people in the bunk, some snoring, some burping, farting etc... very strange environment;
(2) the thin air - throughout the night I could hear people using their oxygen inhaler (the oxygen pump was Loud!)
(3) it was only 8pm.

The plan was to wake up 4.5 hours later at 12.30am and continue the climb to the summit to witness the sun rise at 4.30am. I could only sleep for about 1-2 hours and gave up trying. By 11.45pm, we decided to continue the climb. We got up, prepared ourselves, packed, and stepped out of the hut.

We were shocked to see that there was already a 'human traffic jam' from our hut all the way to as far up as we could see towards the summit. It was a trail of lights, ranging from normal hand-held torches to head-strapped lights, to flashing multi-colored batons. Some climbers choose not to stay the night, and start the climb in the early evening instead, climbing overnight non-stop.