By the way. . .

The other day

I climbed Fuji San with Joshua, Chie and Adrian.



My camera died before I got a chance to take any photos,
but here are some that Adrian gave me

We look cold and tired, because we were.

We started climbing Fuji San around 9pm-ish so that, in theory, we would have been able to reach the top in time to see the sunrise.
(We did reach the top, but we enjoyed the sunrise before getting there).
I, in my unending brilliance, had decided to stay out all night the night before because I was having too much fun with too many people that I knew I was never going to get to see again.
As I result, I climbed Fuji San on about two hours of sleep, and two feet that still hurt from dancing
(Yes, yes, the rumors are true. Well, a few of them at least.)



It wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been so crowded

(Can you find Melissa?)




When all is said and done, it was totally worth it.

Totally.

To Hell and Back

Kyushu

So, remember back in May when I went to Kyushu with a bunch of jocks?

Well, as it turns out, it was awesome. I'm sorry for not having told you about it sooner.
No, really. I really, really am.
You see, I'm moving out of my apartment sometime between this very minute and six hours from now (The shipper will be here between the hours of noon and six in the evening). So, it's safe to say that I'm not in the frame of mind for blogging. Nevertheless, you and I have much catching up to do. So, if you don't mind, I'm just going to get down to business.



The trip consisted of:
All of these people piling into this car

It was quite cozy

We drove around all of Kyushu

The first stop we made was Mt. Aso

It was beautiful,

but it smelled like eggs (in a bad way).

The boys did a little swimming

and some ninja-ing

We all took sand baths

and went to (The) Hell(s)

We went to see where the devil would wash his clothes, if he had any

But mostly, we did a lot of driving around,

enjoying the view,

and looking for places to camp.

Usually,

by the time we found a place and got our tents set up,
it would be evening.

Nevertheless, every night the boys faithfully barbecued different kinds of meat
(and I ate cold tofu and whatever else I picked up at the nightly konbini run.)

Except there was this one time. . .

Where a bad idea

turned out even worse than we had anticipated.


I have never before been so happy to say,
"I'm sorry, I can't eat that, I'm vegetarian."



Seriously, the trip was amazing. Kyushu was my new favorite part of Japan (up until last week when I went to Okinawa, but we'll talk more about that later.) and the people I went with were amazing.



Rachel did most of the driving

This guy has a heart of gold

This guy was amazingly interesting in all the best ways.

(mountain man)



This guy was non-stop laughs.

KA-WA-IIIIII!



This lovely family

consists of a beautiful (inside and out) married couple from Ukraine who cooked amazing food and taught us words like "achiki" in Ukrainian. The big baby is a boy who has a seemingly endless supply of witty things to say. He was fantastic.



All in all, it was a wonderful trip. Unfortunately, I'm far too exhausted to give it the story telling it deserves. I apologize. Your patience, understanding and inexplicable interest is appreciated.



Stay tuned for more inadequate stories and amateur photography.
Oh, by the way, some of the photos above were taken by Rachel or Luke. Neither of whom you know, nor do they know about this blog. So, I think we're pretty much safe.

And that, my friends, is all I have to say for now.

I'm going to go sit and see if I can become any more boring and/or insane with leaving-Japan-paranoia.




(For those who want to know, it means "glasses" as in eye.)