Mount Fuji Climb: The True Account of my 11 Hour Overnight Hike up the Tallest Mountain in Japan

At 2am last Saturday night...

I sat wet and shivering in 20 degree weather at the summit of an active volcano and the tallest mountain in Japan. I'd spent a few hundred dollars on hiking equipment and a guide and seven hours climbing through the fog and rain, in order to get to that point. The icy rain had soaked through my wool gloves and my hands were numb and swollen. The wind was so strong, my fellow hikers and I had to huddle together behind a bolder, just to insure we didn't get blown off the side of the mountain.

And at that point, I found myself thinking: What am I doing here? This is insane!

And it was. But we had been warned.

Ten Hours Earlier...

Our bus from Tokyo had pulled up to the fifth station of Mount Fuji and parked itself in a giant cloud of mist. You could barely make out the trees and cars around you and the majestic cone shaped face of Fujisan, made famous in paintings and postcards the world over, was no where to be seen.

"If I were you, I wouldn't hike it," were our guide's exact words. "You're going to be miserable if you go up there." It was like a line right out of a horror movie, uttered a few scenes before the innocent hikers meet their untimely deaths. It was cliche, that it was tough to take seriously. Plus, as we all studied the sky, we could see patches of blue peeking through. That had to be a good sign, right?

The 40 of us took a vote and it was unanimous. We had all set aside a weekend, paid good money and had traveled three hours to get there. We were going to take our chances and hope that the weather cleared so that we'd be able to get that million dollar shot of a 'Fuji sunrise'. Because really, that's the only reason anyone bothers hiking Mount Fuji at all. The views at sunrise are supposedly breath-taking and on a clear morning, you can even see the urban skyline of Tokyo rising from the distance.

As our guides passed out energy drinks, headlamps and canisters of oxygen, they gave us the lowdown on what we'd expect. This wasn't going to be a 'Japanese-style' climb. We weren't going to be inching our way up in a long winding line. There would be roughly two groups; a fast group and a slow one. Each of us had a band of florescent red masking tape wrapped around our ankles, so that if we got lost, we would be able to spot each other in the dark. We were each assigned a buddy, but ultimately, if we lost our way, it'd be our responsibility to find our way back down. If we didn't arrive back at the fifth station by the scheduled meeting time the next morning, the bus would leave without us. There would be no search and rescue party.

"If you fall down and get hurt, just make sure that your right leg can be seen. Because if I see a leg with the red tape, I'll stop and help you," was roughly what our guide instructed us.

He said it as a joke, but he was serious. The mountain would be crowded with people. So much so, that at points along the narrow trail, we'd probably have to push and shove are way past people.

I was worried. The one and only time I'd hiked for seven hours continuously, was on an 8th grade class field trip, where I'd suffered from exhaustion and heat stroke and had thrown up on my sneakers. I was also worried about the high altitudes. The peak of Mt. Fuji stands at 3,776 meters (almost 12,000 feet). When I was in the Indian Himalayas last summer, I'd gotten a bad case of altitude sickness and had to go to the hospital. Although I'd been at a considerably higher altitude, the experience had made me swear off high altitudes and mountains in general. I had felt dizzy, disoriented, short of breath and at one point, I had been able to feel my arms and legs.

The Ascent...

The climb started off downhill and even though it was lightly drizzling, we were all in high spirits. We were all marching merrily along as one giant group and some people were even singing. This contrasted sharply with the hikers who passed us on the trail coming back down. We all noted their mud-splattered clothing, dripping wet hair and pained expressions as they marched silently and resolutely down. They looked miserable. But we were still optimistic.

There's a ranger station of sorts at the sixth station. And that was where we were each given a green paper map, highlighting the various trails that criss-crossed up down the face of the mountain.

"So, let's say you're hiking up the mountain alone and you fall and break your ankle. Will the rangers come rescue you?" I inquired.

The guide solemnly shook his head 'no', which made me wonder why the ranger station existed to begin with.

The next few hours, we made our way up the long volcanic ash trail, stopping at each station to catch our breath and breath from our oxygen canisters. I treated mine like a baby treats his bottle; I kept it within easy reach and sucked on it every 10 minutes or so. It wasn't that I necessarily needed it, and perhaps it's effects were only psychological, but every time I breathed in the pure H2, I felt it running through my veins, pumping energy into my exhausted muscles.

The stations were were really only small wooden huts that were staffed by people who lived in them throughout the summer months. They sold small bottles of water, Snicker bars, Ramen, hot cocoa and coffee...all which started at 5 dollars and slowly increased in price the further up the mountain we went. But that was nothing compared to the price of staying overnight in one.

For 80 dollars per person, you got a 'hotel room' which was really a only a few inches on a tatami mat, where, (as our guide informed us) you'd get the added bonus of cuddling up between two ageing Japanese men, one on each side.

Even more outrageous still, the price of even stepping foot inside the heated comfort of a hut, even for just a few minutes, was 4o dollars.

I couldn't believe that anyone would pay these outlandish prices, but as it grew dark, we watched as the huts slowly filled up until weary hikers were scrunched up into the corners with barely enough room to sip a cup of tea, let alone comfortably sleep. It was unbelievable.

I lost my Buddy...

It was around this time, that I lost the buddy I'd been assigned at the beginning of the hike. I don't know if it was the rain and foggy darkness or my sheer exhaustion, but it turned out the man in the pink poncho I'd been steadfastly climbing behind for the last 30 minutes, wasn't my buddy from Montreal but some random Japanese woman. To make matters worse, I couldn't remember when I'd last seen him or even what his name was. I just prayed he was somewhere in the throng of hikers behind us and not hurt and alone somewhere.

The 8th Station...

There were numerous huts that called themselves the '8th station' so as a result, our hopes were dashed each time we arrived at an '8th station' to find that we still had a few more to go until the summit. Starting at around eight o'clock, the huts started to refuse to sell us food and water. One hut barred us from even sitting down on their outdoor benches and resting.

Apparently, the big tour companies have a monopoly on all of the stations. They rent the station and all of it's services out for the night, which essentially leaves anyone who hasn't booked through that company, stranded in the rain and cold, without any access to food, water or a toilet. Our guide and the hut owners got in a screaming fight about this. It was the first time I'd heard a Japanese person curse someone out...it was bold and aggressive and completely shocking.

We eventually reached the "Fujisan Hotel", which was really just another wooden shack in disguise, but they let us rest there. We ordered enough food to feed an army and tried to eat as slowly as possible. I ordered a 12 dollar plate of beef curry and was able to make that single child-portioned plate of food last 30 minutes before they kicked us all out of the restaurant.

Midnight...

It was a painful venture back into the cold again. It hadn't stopped raining, and even though we were all dressed in water-proof rain gear, the strong wind whipped the rain against our faces and it dribbled down into the dry clothing underneath. It was so foggy that even with our headlamps, we couldn't see much more than a small patch in front of us. Gone was the steep but relatively smooth volcanic ash trail, and instead there were rocks and boulders that we constantly had to haul ourselves up and over.

And then I lost the group...

Miraculously, up until that point, I'd managed to keep stride with the 'fast group'. The 'slow group' of climbers had long ago fallen hours behind us. Some we had heard, (over the radio) had quit and chosen to hunker down at a hut for the night. But I'd begun to slow down at that point, stopping every minute or so to breath and blink the water out of my eyes. It was then that I noticed that the group had disappeared around a bend somewhere. In fact, it seemed as if everyone had disappeared and for the first time that night, I felt like it was just me and the mountain. I looked down the mountain side and was met only by darkness. I was engulfed in complete silence. It was eerie.

I fought the urge to panic and instead picked up my pace up the mountain. Even though I couldn't see the trail (or the cliffs on either side), I was convinced that if I just kept climbing, I'd run into someone.

The Summit...

I eventually found my group waiting ahead. My relief, though, was short-lived. Someone in the group was feeling sick from the altitude and our guide said that the wind had grown stronger and we'd have to walk in a single-file line now and stick close together. The path was narrow and the wind so strong that when you stood up straight, the gusts would hit you so hard it was tough to keep your footing. We had to hike bent over as close to the ground as possible. This made for a slow and painful climb. I kept thinking about how just the week before, two hikers had met their deaths up there. One had gotten blown off of a cliff and the other had been hit by lightning.

We stopped to rest every five minutes after that. Ice had begun to freeze onto our jackets. I was tired, dizzy and my muscles hurt in places I didn't know had muscles. My knees hurt. My wrist even hurt, from gripping my hiking stick so tightly.

We now began to stumble across hundreds of Japanese hikers strewn across the path like discarded trash. Some were merely resting, but some looked like they had collapsed and now refused to move. Quite a few were sleeping. Yes, sleeping. They were hunched over each other, wrapped in blankets and clinging onto boulders. They looked almost comfortable. And if it weren't for the rain and the gale-force winds, I believe that many of them could have gotten a good night of uninterrupted sleep out there.

We continued, and then the path got more congested. We'd reached the infamous 'line'. The fact that we were at the height of one of nature's most fantastic creations, and we were all waiting in a line to proceed to the top, didn't even surprise me. We were still in Japan, after all.

When we reached the summit, I barely even acknowledged it. Some people shook hands and high-fived each other. Some people hastily snapped a few photos. I just searched for place where I could sit down, before I fell down out of exhaustion. Apparently, as we soon found out, there weren't many options.

There were a few huts at the top, but none of them were open yet. The wind was blowing from every direction, so it didn't really matter where we sat. There would be no escaping it mother nature.

Everyone crammed around a toilet...

There way nothing to do but wait. As cold as I was, I was grateful I'd worn as many layers as I had. People commented that I looked very 'arctic' in my faux-fur-lined down jacket, but it was a life-saver. I saw a lot of hikers violently shivering up there in sandals and wet towels or scarves wrapped around their heads. A few people carried the broken remains of wind-torn umbrellas.

Probably the most bizarre thing I saw all night, was when I ventured away from where we were huddled to use the restroom. The little cement restroom was jam-packed full of Japanese people, all of them standing squished together in complete silence. A lot of them looked near frozen and many of them were sleeping. It was more crowded in that bathroom than on a subway train during rush-hour. It was insane. No one was waiting in line for the restroom, they were all just in there to get out of the cold.

Here comes the Sun...

Despite everything that pointed to the contrary, up until the sun rose, I still stubbornly clung on to the belief that the sky would clear and that we'd be able to see the sunrise and the spectacular view. Or at the very least, some view other than the vague outlines of boulders. Thanks to the dense fog, that was the sum total of all I'd seen of Mt. Fuji. It just seemed like such a waste to have paid all of that money and struggled all that way, only to have seen the inside of the summit bathroom.

But in the end, there was no actual visible sunrise...rather it just gradually got lighter until we had no choice but to accept that there would be no brilliant photo opportunities this trip. We then headed down, worn-out and defeated.

Here's an awful picture of me standing at the summit. This is one of the few photos I took, because it was raining too hard to risk getting my camera wet.

The Descent...

It took three hours. And those were the longest three hours of my life. Those who think that hiking downhill is easier than hiking uphill, haven't experienced it on no sleep. My back muscles were spasming under the weight of my pack and my knees ached from the strain of keeping myself upright as I slowly trudged down the steep and gravely path. At one point, my buddy (yes, I'd found him again!) and I got separated from the group. There were several descending paths and we'd been warned that the wrong path would lead us down the complete opposite side of the mountain.

We stood at fork in the road and studied the pieces of wet soggy green paper that once our maps. Dazed and numb, we took a wild guess and headed left. Luckily, it was the right decision and we located our group at the bottom, where they were drinking beer in a half-hearted celebration of our survival. Mostly though, everyone was too weary to feel anything but relief.

One Week Later...

I later asked my guide how our climb ranked in comparison with other groups he'd guided. He told me that of the four years he's been leading tours up Mount Fuji, three times it's rained and twice it's been that cold...but never has it rained that long or been that cold all at once. I guess we just got lucky that way.

He did say that our hike was a success, in that most of us made it to the summit and no one was injured or got seriously ill. So I guess there's that, at least.

Our Fuji climb was an adventure and it definitely wasn't mundane or boring. And there's nothing like a near-death experience to make you appreciate being alive.

But I'd still like to see the view...and possible hike around the crater. So I just might give it another shot next summer.

The only question left is...Who's coming with me?

"One who never climbs Mount Fuji is a fool, and one who climbs twice is twice the fool."

- Japanese Proverb

Quick Update On My Life: Sendai, Mount Fuji and I'm Going to be in a Magazine!

Matsushima, Japan. Matsu is the name of the type of tree that grows on the islands and 'shima' means Island. There are dozens of little islands like these, all over the bay. It's breathtakingly beautiful.

Some Good News

I've had the last week off and spent a relaxing few days at my friend's grandmother's house at a small seaside town north of Sendai, Japan. I was treated like royalty! Her grandmother cooked all of these elaborate and delicious meals and even hand-stitched me pajamas. (!!!) We went hiking and on a boat ride around these gorgeous little islands off the coast and pampered ourselves at an Onsen.

I go back to work on Monday, but next week will be an easy week since half of the schools I teach at will be closed...and then next weekend I'm going to climb Mount Fuji, which is something I've been looking forward to for a while. I've bought so much hiking gear, I'm practically ready to scale Mount Everest...except for the part that I'm sort of out of shape at the moment. It's a seven hour, overnight hike. And that's just up the mountain. I've got to get back down, too. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of pain I'll be in when it's all over. To me, a strenuous hike is up the four flights of stairs at my subway stop when the escalator isn't working.

I'm also going to be in a magazine! Yes, you're now reading the words of a soon-to-be PUBLISHED (!!!) writer. An article I wrote for a local Tokyo magazine will appear in their September ninth issue. It only pays 30 dollars, but hey, that'll pay for like, eight cups of coffee here which means I can stop drinking canned dollar coffee from the vending machines.

Does anyone have any advice for climbing Fuji-san? Like, what should I wear? Seriously. Do freezing temperatures and possible rain showers warrant wearing a ski jacket and ski pants? Or can I get by with just a sweatshirt and a rain coat?

A Day Trip to Nikko and the Search for Cedar Avenue

Nikko and a Visit to the Toshogu Shrine "It's A World Heritage Site, you know."

Recently, I've come down with a bad case of 'concrete jungle fever'. So last week Monday, I saw my chance to escape this crazy, crowded city and made a run for the hills. Literally. I woke up at dawn on Monday morning, laced up my new pair of hiking boots, stuffed my backpack full of popcorn and sugar cookies and took the first morning Shinkansen (bullet train) to Nikko, (a mountain town three hours north of Tokyo).

Well I hiked. And then hiked some more. Got extremely lost and then quickly developed some debilitating blisters on my feet. After that, I sort of gave up my quest for waterfalls (which was what I'd gone in search for) and decided instead to visit the Toshogu shrine, (which is a World Heritage Site).

I'm not really sure what a World Heritage Site is exactly, but apparently it's a pretty impressive title to have bestowed upon a place because everyone I talked to, reminded me that, "it's a World Heritage Site, you know".

Here are some photos...

The 'Sacred Bridge' built in the 1630's

The famous depiction of the "The Three Wise Monkeys":

'Hear No Evil,' 'Speak No Evil' and 'See No Evil'

It was beautiful and impressive, in a way that only 400-year-old Buddhist shrines can be. But, after an hour of limping around the various ancient relics, trying to decipher the Japanese descriptions written on the plaques, I'd had my fill of historical monuments, World Heritage or otherwise.


There were four other shrines on the mountain, but I opted out of visiting them. I know that admitting this makes me sound bad, but I just couldn't stomach the idea of waiting in yet another line. That's what I came to the forest to escape!


So I sat outside the shrine and munched on my popcorn and people-watched as several women in their 40's with fake orange tans, 3-inch platform heels and mini-skirts attempted to wobble up the steep hill-side. Which was, I thought, a lot more entertaining way to pass time than visiting another tomb or marble dragon statue.



The Search for Cedar Avenue: "Excuse me, where are the trees?"



After fighting a loosing battle with mountain, I headed to the bus stop. I wasn't sure where I wanted to visit next, I only knew that I had a half of a day left in Nikko and wanted to see all that Nikko had to offer. After a few inquiries, I quickly discovered that I'd already seen all that Nikko had to offer. The mountains, the bridge, the shrines, the ridiculously-looking tourists. That's all, folks.

But then an aging souvenir shopkeeper told me about the trees. Apparently Nikko was home to the 'World's Longest Tree-Lined Road'. It was in the Guinness Book of World Records, even. He showed me a photo and it looked something like this:

This is a photo of 'Cedar Avenue', from the official Nikko tourism website. Cedar Avenue is 37 kilometers long and made up of 13,000 cryptomeria trees. The trees were planted 400 years ago.

I imagined a "Hansel and Gretel" type woodsy trail, complete with rolling fog, cool misty mountain air and maybe even a few monkeys.

What I got, was something a little different.

I boarded a train crowded with tourists, bound for 'Cedar Avenue'. I assumed that everyone was headed there as well, but when I stepped off the train at the Imate station, no one followed me. Not a single soul. And no wonder, I was in the middle of nowhere! Besides some rice fields, a 7-11 and some vending machines (of course!) the town was deserted.

Having no map or guidebook, I wandered around the town just hoping I'd stumble across the trees along the way. I thought it'd be clearly marked with signs or that they would be easy to spot from the train station. It is, after all, a 37 kilometer straight row of trees, how difficult could it be to find?


Wellllll, I wondered around for nearly an hour. I stopped everyone I saw and politely inquired in broken Japanese: "Where are the trees?"


They all stared at me in bewilderment. "Trees?" They repeated, indicating the forest around us.

We were, after all, in a wooded area in the mountains.

I tried to demonstrate. I drew in the air with my finger, a long, invisible line and then punctuated the line with short karate chops to indicate trees.


"Long, big trees." I repeated in vain, completely embarrassed. They all just frowned at me in concern.
I was working up a sweat, marching around the village in the afternoon heat. And I was getting extremely frustrated. There were several rows of trees that continued as far as the eye could see. The question no one seemed to know the answer to was, which one was the famous one?



But then I thought about it and decided: Who really cared? It's a line of trees. Old trees planted by some lord in the 16th century, but just trees nevertheless. And since when did I care about trees, (famous or not), anyways?


Well, I eventually came across what I can only assume was Cedar Avenue...and it dashed any hopes I had of discovering a hidden, fairytale "Hansel and Gretel" type hiking trail. Sure, there were two long rows of tall cedar trees, but there was also a busy highway that cut through the middle of it. I attempted to walk down the road, but after being gawked at, (not to mention nearly run over) by passing motorists, I called it quits and headed home.

I returned to Tokyo with a sunburn, blisters, bug bites and a new found appreciation for maps and guidebooks. Escapes from Tokyoland are definitely better if you've researched ahead of time, (or at the very least, google-searched!).

Note: If you're looking to visit Nikko, I wouldn't reccomend a 'day trip'. It's fairly close to Tokyo, but it's quite expensive to get there. While the Toshogu shrine is interesting, it's not really worth the cost and time it takes to get there, if that's all you're planning on seeing. I would suggest, instead, that you spend the night in Nikko and take a day to go hiking and visit the waterfalls, lake, and hotsprings, (none of which I had time to see). Also, if you're looking to save money, take the local train (rather than the Shinkansen). It takes an extra hour but it saves about 2,500 yen each way.

'Engrish' T-Shirts are Hirarious

Okay, warning: I'm about to fake fun of Japanese fashion for a second. But, I'm sorry. It's just too funny not to.

T-shirts with English phrases printed on them are really popular here. Unfortunately for these t-shirts (and the people who where them) somewhere in the manufacturing process spell check and a translation check were overlooked. Thus, people are left wearing shirts with sentences that make little sense and are not much more than a random jumble of words.

Like this t-shirt for example. Maybe it's a deeply meaningful haiku. Or maybe the manufacturer just thought those particular words looked beautiful strung together randomly like that. Who knows?

In other cases, the meaning can be understood, but there are typos and somewhere the message gets lost in translation slightly.

Well, who doesn't feel happiness when they eat a potato? I love potatoes! And I definitely want to buy this shirt.

Then there are the shirts that may be grammatically correct, but are totally inappropriate. Last week, for example, I saw an elderly Japanese gentleman wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a plate of spaghetti across the front. Written in cursive above it was the caption:

"Straight? So is spaghetti until you heat it up."

Now, was this man trying to make a bold statement about his sexuality or did he not understand what was written there and bought the t-shirt because he liked the cute spaghetti graphic?

Or, here's another example. A little over a month ago I was exploring my neighborhood mall, when I saw a woman, (40-ish) pushing an infant in a baby stroller. The woman's hot pink t-shirt read:

"Your lovers all wish they were sleeping with me."

Someone, somewhere in a clothing manufacturing company is snidely chuckling to himself right now, I'm sure of it.

Is it really wrong that I laughed out loud when I saw this picture? Especially funny are the kids and teacher in the background...Seriously, no one realized what his shirt meant and sent him home to change?

To be fair, Westerners aren't any better. How many people stupidly have bogus Chinese characters tattooed to themselves without bothering to verify the meanings first? And tattoos, (unlike t-shirts) are permanent! America's own Britney Spears apparently got a Chinese character she thought meant "mysterious" only to find out later it really meant "weird" (which is sort of fitting, don't you think?) And my boss told me a story of his friend who cluelessly had the Japanese word for 'kitchen' tattooed to his arm...because he thought it looked nice.

Anyways, it all makes for interesting reading during my long and otherwise mundane commutes to work. I like to surreptitiously study the people wearing these 'Engrish shirts' and imagine to what extent they understand what's written on them.

It's fun! You should try it! And then report back to me...

Drowning in a Sea of Humanity, or, A Typical Day in Tokyo

If 'three's a crowd' then the the word 'crowded' doesn't even begin to describe Tokyo and it's 11 million inhabitants, (35 million in the greater metropolitan area). It's fascinatingly congested, in a 'wow, how are they going to manage to squeeze that overweight tourist and his overstuffed suitcases into this already jam-packed train?' sort of way. Until, that is, you get swept into the the thick of it. Then, it's no longer a fascinating spectacle but rather, just plain frightening.

Human Bumper Cars, A Day at the Pool

A couple of weeks ago, I visited a water-park not unlike the one pictured above. It was a smaller version, but equally swarmed with people. Every inch of concrete in the park was littered with families picnicking or sunbathing. It was like a human carpet.

The worst part was the lazy river pool. You had to wait in line just to enter the pool and then once you were in, it was like being in a massive human traffic jam. Kids in giant plastic tubes and oily, speedo-wearing old men all fought for a space in the five-foot-wide pool as the quick-moving water jostled everyone into one-another. It was like human bumper cars. The water would push you for a max of two feet before you inevitably crashed into the person in front you. And the peculiar thing was, that no one seemed to mind. This, apparently, was fun.
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A Picture I took of the crowds at the Edogawa Garden Pool

Swimming in Human Miso Soup, A Day at the Beach

Last weekend I went to a beach near Tokyo and what I found most bizarre, wasn't that it was crowded (that was to be expected on a Sunday during summer vacation) but that it didn't have to be! There was plenty of space. But curiously, everyone opted to swim in the small stretch of beach that had been roped off by the lifeguards. If you could call 'bobbing up and down' swimming, because swimming in that small space was impossible. There was literally not enough room to swim horizontally, without kicking someone in the face.

Stranger still, was that the roped off section of the beach not only determined where people swam, but also where they sat. They could have set-up camp anywhere on the mostly deserted beach, (as my friends and I did) but they all decided to squish together in front of the lifeguard shacks and food booths.

My friend compared swimming at that beach, to floating in a giant bowl of human miso soup. It was warm, cloudy, full of seaweed and floating pale-as-tofu humans.

Cattle Cars, A Day on the Train

If you want to experience first-hand extreme crowds that rival the likes of those seen at Disney World on the 4th of July, visit a Tokyo train station between the hours of 7 and 9:30 on a weekday. It's like watching 100 circus clowns all pile into a tiny clown car; an extraordinary feat.

I take the train during rush hour, but I'm usually headed in the opposite direction, (away from downtown Tokyo) so the closest I get from the mobs of people is across the train station platform. Every morning, I sit in awe and watch it all transpire in front of me. It's better than television. It's unbelievable, (or the way it's pronounced in Japanese, "un-be-li-be-ba-lu", which, by the way, is my new favorite word).

How it works is this:


An already full train will pull up to the station. Whistles and horns will sound. Men on microphones will yell (in very courteous Japanese) something like:


"Step inside, please. The doors will be closing, be careful, please. The doors are about to close, please! Watch out, please! The doors are closing now, please. Thank you very much."

While this is being said, immaculately dressed, white-gloved guards are pushing people into the train car, like they are cattle.





What's even more un-be-li-be-ba-lu is that in the 20 short seconds it takes for all of the people on the platform to be shoved, pushed, squeezed and smashed into the train, and for the train to pull away, the platform is already teeming with people again. A continuous stream of dark-haired, dark-suited professionals flow out of the station stairwell, sort of like ants out of an anthill.


It's never-ending.

And the whole process is done with such factory-assembly line precision. From the way the people all line up in perfect lines awaiting their turn to board the train, to the exact seven second interval between when one train departs and the next arrives. It's truly amazing to watch.


But being an active participant is another story. The other day I was unfortunate enough to be on a morning rush-hour train when the air-conditioning was broken. The weather outside of the train was a balmy 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity. Inside the train, it was like being in a rice cooker. I was lucky enough to be wedged against the window (better view than the sweaty armpit or greasy head of a balding business man, which were my other options). The man sharing the view next to me was sweating profusely...and all over the window. It ran down the glass like raindrops. Totally gross. It was my personal version of Hell...and it's just a typical morning for most commuters.




Crowd Control

Tokyo-ites are ingrained from birth with the remarkable ability to share their personal space with thousands of strangers, day in and out, and not be upset by it. They instinctively take up as little space as possible. In crowded trains, they fold themselves up into origami pretzels to make room for other passengers or their belongings. Incredibly, they're also able to sleep this way, (collapsed like rag dolls with their heads in their laps). One of my talents is being able to fall asleep pretty much anywhere, if I'm tired enough, but my skill in that area doesn't even come close to the Japanese. The cramped positions that I see them sleeping in sometimes, it's astounding!

I don't think that I'll ever get used to the sheer volume of people here...or the fact that I'm never alone. There's no such thing as a deserted street here. Even in the middle of the night, there are people, people everywhere. It seriously irks me. I get so irritated that sometimes I find myself taking up as much space as possible, out of spite, (I know, I know, not the most mature way to handle the stress, but I can't help it).

"It's not fun. It's just--It's just very, very different."
-- Bill Murray's Character's answer to "Well, I'm glad your having fun in Japan". From the movie 'Lost in Translation'