My tummy hurts. I think it’s from eating too much and the change in cigs. I switched to Larks that only have 1mg of tar. Boyf is trying to quit smoking and made me stop as well. Except I don’t feel like stopping yet.

Had dinner with my host family today at some expensive looking place.

And before that, I ate tacos with my friends and drank a little over half a shot of hot sauce in exchange for Eyobe paying for my food. 5 bucks might not be worth doing that. It was awful! And I wasn’t allowed to drink water for 6 minutes!

Reiko is pregnant! Reiko is Kenji’s wife. Kenji is the guy that I teach English to. So awesome!

The fact that our lesson was cancelled sucks cause that’s $40 that I don’t get to earn. But let’s not be greedy — after all, she’s pregnant! Yay!

I adore her two little kids. So her pregnant is an uber good thing.

I finally told Matsui about Nori (the new boyfriend in case you guys don’t know yet) and he kept laughing all throughout. According to Matsui, I think like a guy. Lol. Yay?

I just wanna gush at how hot the boy at the leftmost is with his hair like that. It’s an old picture. I hope he styles it like that again!

For valentine’s day in Japan, the girls are the ones who are supposed to give guys chocolates.

So anyway, the day before vday, Nori calls me up drunk and says, “Give me chocolates tomorrow.” And I was asking him what chocolates he wants and he tells me that he’s not actually a big fan of chocolates.

Talk about weird.

Anyway, since we both like drinking, I told him that I’ll give him a bottle of Jack Daniels instead. Which is expensive, mind you.

And so the night of vday, after I got off work at 9:30 at night, I go to Jingu Nishi station and he was waiting for me by the train station wicket.

I had dinner at his apartment. It was the first time that he had dinner with his parents since he came back from Cambodia and his mom was worried about him I guess. The food was awesome. The alcohol was too.

Minus the fact that I was totally and shamelessly still drunk (or hungover, pick one) the next day. And mind you — I had 2 finals that I didn’t study for.

For my internship today, we went to Shirotori Garden. We were told to wear long sleeves and bring insect repellent. But since I don’t really have any long-sleeved shirt, I didn’t wear any. I didn’t really want to wear a jacket just so I’m in long sleeves.

Boy was I lucky they lent me a long-sleeved shirt. Too many mosquitoes! And thanks to Lisa, I was protected by the insect repellent. I forgot to spray my feet though — got half a dozen bites there cause I was wearing my sandals.

So the guy toured us around Shirotori Garden. And I wasn’t really listening. I couldn’t understand anything and he spoke so fast so I just stared out in space. I think he noticed. Oops.

And then this very very energetic girl came and told us the stuff we’re supposed to do. Like sweep under the roofs to remove the cobwebs. After which we picked up trash around the garden. I picked up a torn pair of pants (they were heavy cause they were wet with rain water), a bunch of cans, cigarette boxes, pet bottles, and a whole lot of trash.

We were tired after so the girl let us rest. And every time she let us rest, I’d take a nap.

I dunno why but I feel so drained and stressed and tired. It’s actually starting to get me depressed. I think it’s because we change job discription so often that it’s just really stressing. Or that we don’t really know beforehand what we’re supposed to do.

I loved feeding the carps though. It follows you around and scrambles to get the food. It swims one on top of the other! And they’re so big! A cup of fish food costs ¥50. So Lisa put in ¥100 in the box thing and made me get a cup. When one of the maintenance guys saw us feeding the carps, he motioned for me to go to him (I thought he was telling me to throw my cup in the bucket he’s holding). Apparently, he has this bucket with a lot of fish pellets in it. YAAAAAAAAAAAY. It was fun.

�

Video in my blog.

We were stationed at the information desk today. They held the 14th Internation Conference on Biological Inorganic Chemistry at the Nagoya Congress Center.

On our table were various brochures and maps regarding Nagoya.

And really — not a lot of people passed by. I mean. I didn’t really do anything.

There were hours where nobody passed at all. And if anything, the first person they ask is either the Japanese girl with us on the table (prolly cause she’s well-dressed — formal and everything), or Lisa (cause she’s American!).

So then Lisa lent me her iPod touch so I can play… MONOPOLY. I’m hooked.

GIMME! I WANNA PLAY MORE! !%”$!$#”%#

We were supposed to watch sumo today but then they ran out of tickets at around 8:30 or something. Boo hoo. Drat. I bet ya not all the people who bought tickets (prolly those in advance) went to watch.

So then we ended up in Sakae and had breakfast in Yoshinoya. Unagi — how I heart thee.

And then there was earning some moolah from English tutoring stint. And then SLEEPING THE AFTERNOON AWAY. Woke up in a panic cause I felt like I had to be somewhere. It was 7 in the evening.

Dinner was Chinese and ice cream can’t be had.

Still mucho nice day.

(I dunno why I’m talking weird. Your guess is as good as mine.)

I’ve been avoiding writing in my blog cause I remember the whole lot of things that I still have to blog about. Right now, I’m still amazed at how independent I’ve become. I remember Eyobe telling me that he thought that I’m the person who best adapted to Japan living. Aww.

Okay, gotta finish hanging the laundry! I hate hanging — I’m too short for this job.

July 15, 2009

It was sooo freaking hard.

Background: people can only climb Mt Fuji all through July and August. And a lot of people usually climb at night so that they get to the top just in time for the sunrise. Now normally, the climb takes around 5-6 hours. 8 — if you’re pacing yourself (altitude sickness, you know).

Everything was against us. Since it wasn’t peak season yet, the last bus from Fujinomiya Station to Fujinomiya Fifth Station (Fujinomiya Gogoume) was at 2 in the afternoon. We got to Fujinomiya Station at way past 7. So since there were 7 of us, we decided to take the taxi to the fifth station. We had to divide ourselves into 2 groups. One cab cost us ¥9,000 something. The bus ride to the fifth station would normally cost around ¥2,000 yen. So ¥18,000 divided by 7 wasn’t really all that bad.

The cab driver of the cab I was in was pretty chatty. He was asking us stuff about being exchange students and told us tips about the mountain. He even stopped at a store to wait for us buy some flashlights because only Mika brought one.

We started the climb at 9. It wasn’t a really easy climb. I had a hard time catching my breath (I tire easy). But I trudged on. I wasn’t exactly lagging behind. I was just scared cause I heard about a guy dying the day before. And although the taxi driver told me that it rarely happens, I was still worried.

I was clutching on to Dustin as we went up because he seemed to be a pro at it. He could’ve went on ahead with Matt and Jess (who were climbing pretty fast), but he made sure that I was alright.

All the way to the old 7th station, I almost fell off the mountain because the wind was so strong. By then, we were above and among clouds. When we reached the 7th station, we all huddled together — all 7 of us. We were cold and tired. And by cold, I really mean cold. Dustin and Matt are from Alaska and they were huddling with us as well! I think the cold might not have been that bad had there not been such a strong wind.

At that point, I told them that I’m okay with not reaching the top and that I was okay with staying at the 7th station even though it might cost me around ¥7,000 a night. I was really scared and tired and cold. Saying these now, you might think that I might be exaggerating. Heck, even I can’t make myself believe what happened. I mean, if I didn’t experience what I did, and then I read what I just wrote, I wouldn’t believe a word of it.

But then Mika won’t let me quit, she went, “Tiff, just one more station!”

So we trudged on. My gloves were soaking because of the fog and mist and clouds (I can’t differentiate among the three, so shoot me — I think all three were present). We were among the clouds. My hair was whipping around my face. And my face was being sand blasted. Lol. It stung because the wind was really really strong. Plus, when I closed my mouth, I could feel the sand grind. Phweh.

And I was thinking of all the things I plan to do if I survived it (yes, SURVIVED). Like how I’m going to tell my parents I love them (I love you MOM! And sis too!) and how I’m going to start studying really hard.

When we reached the 8th level, I was a mess. Matt and Jess were already there. Matt took one look at me and said, “Tiff! You look like a mess” (I forgot what he said exactly). But then he led me to the bathroom (where you had to pay ¥200 to use it and you’re not allowed to stay and use it as shelter). Soon, everyone caught up and everyone was wet and shivering.

So then we all decided to stay at the lodge at the 8th level for ¥5,000 per person (free use of the bathroom!). The lodge didn’t even have heating but then at least we would be out of the wind. It was howling. The lodge had extra clothes so they lent us dry clothes.

As I was trying to sleep, I was shivering when I asked Dustin, “Is it this cold in Alaska?” He told me, “Sometimes. But then people aren’t usually out in this weather.”

And we could’ve woken up at 4:30 to watch the sunrise but I don’t think anyone thought it that important to see the sunrise. By then, I really didn’t mind — I’d rather rest. But then we had to leave the lodge by 7am. And then we trudged on. It was a really cold morning. Cold because we were up a mountain.

Before I reached the 9th level, I saw snow! For the first time in my life!

So yeah. I reached the top. The pictures of Mt Fuji are mostly from the 9th level. And then there’s a picture of me by the caldera (did I get it right?) filled with snow :>

End melodrama :3 All true story. None exaggerated.

More pictures at http://e1c33.multiply.com/

I’m back in Nagoya now. Tokyo was amazing. I can’t say I didn’t like it but at the same time, I can’t say that I did. Too much things were happening and I kind of realized that I don’t really want to study in that kind of environment. Besides, most people know how to speak in English so I don’t really know if my Japanese can improve.

I’ll blog more about my escapades tomorrow.

Let’s just say that I ate a lot of McDonalds on that trip. Lol.

Right now, I’m heading out to school to meet with friends and eat at Sushiro (today’s a holiday so we don’t get dinner here at the dorm). It’s Dustin and Matt’s last day here in Nagoya :c It makes me quite sad.