The worst experience of my life.

On Friday Joe and I climbed Mt. Fuji. I would like to say it was a challenging but great experience, but it wasn't. We heard from friends, who previously climbed the mountain, that it wasn't that bad. So we thought it wouldn't be that bad, but it was. It was rainy and windy most of the way up and all of the way down. Most of the way, maybe for 2 and a half hours of our way up, it was just misty, not really rainy. Once we hit the old 7th station, it started pouring. Joe and I were soaked; our shoes were little buckets of water for two days. In the 9th station we stopped to sleep and eat. Our meal was terrible, I couldn't force myself to eat all of it. Our sleeping arrangements were just as bad. We went with 6 other JET ALTs, so the 8 of us had to share a small little sleeping space: 3 futons packed next to each other and 4 comforters. We were unable to get dry. All of our clothes were wet. And in this small little sleeping space some genius decided it was a great idea to hang hooks right above our futons so the customers could hang their stuff. In the middle of the night we kept hearing "drip, drip, drip" as our wet clothes drip-dried onto the futons and pillows we were using. For a couple of hours I wasn't even sure I was able to get warm, I kept shivering while Joe desperately tried to bring up my temperature. The rest of the ALTs decided that they wanted to climb the rest of the way up the mountain at 3 am to see the sunrise; Joe, our friend John, and I thought it would be best to let them go up so we could get some sleep, then climb the rest of the way up together. Finally around 3am to 6am we were able to get some sleep. Oh I didn't mention how around 2 Joe and I were really dehydrated, we both had headaches, and it was really difficult to breath, even just laying down, because of the altitude. Around 6am when we started climbing the rest of the way up, my chest was hurting a lot. It was really hard for me to breathe and I felt nauseous (I couldn't throw up because I had nothing in my stomach). At station 9 1/2 Joe bought me an overpriced can of oxygen that helped a little I think.
Finally we got to the top and all we could really think of was getting the hell off of the mountain. Our hands were super numb, every inch of our body was wet and there was no real view we could enjoy. We made our way down slowly (my knees were hurting). At one point I started crying because I thought I would never get off that blasted mountain and for the first time during our hike Joe screamed at me "You just have to keep going, that is the only way we can get out of here" or something like that. It was really funny, he wanted just as much to get away from Fuji as I did. We made it down in 4 hours and we were so happy. Joe was my guardian angel throughout the climb. He was always by my side (I know he could have climbed it faster than I did), he kept motivating me, and when I got sick he showed his concern for my health and even suggested to not finish the climb because my health was more important to him than a stupid mountain. That motivated me to keep going, we hadn't gone all that way just to quit on my behalf.
Here are a couple of pictures we took from the Shrine at the bottom of Mt. Fuji to the top of Mt. Fuji and finally on the train going back home to Tsuchiyama.
(I couldn't take more pictures because it was raining really hard and I was afraid my camera would get damaged, as it is my camera got soaked and I had to blow dry it)

Saying goodbye to Tsuchiyama Jr. High and Japanese class.

Friday was my last day at Tsuchiyama junior high. The teachers presented me with a gift (a yukata) during our morning meeting. Later around 9am I delivered a farewell speech in Japanese to the school. After my speech was over a young student came up to the stage and gave a speech in English telling me how happy he was that I taught him. He also said that he didn’t want to say goodbye but see you later and that he hopes I never forget Tsuchiyama junior high. I was really happy to hear this from him and got a little teary, I kept saying to myself “don’t cry, don’t cry”. After the closing ceremony was over I cleaned the school with the students and gave some of them my contact information (the ones I bonded with).
In the afternoon the principal took me to the Board of Education and I had to give a small speech to the superintendent in Japanese. He was very kind and said it was a good speech (I am sure I mutilated his language). The people at the BOE gave me a couple of really thoughtful gifts.
Later in the evening Joe and I went to our last Japanese class in Minakuchi. We had our last class and after the class there was a goodbye party. During our party/break time I asked my teacher if she wanted to take a picture with me. We posed for the camera then we hugged and she began to cry. Then for the first time I started crying, not just teary… I was crying. She told Joe (in Japanese) that I was really smart, kind and very helpful in class. She said she will miss me a lot and that she will try hard to learn English to keep in touch. I told her I would try to learn Japanese to keep in touch as well.
Overall Joe and I are sad we are leaving; we will miss Japan and all the wonderful people we met here. But we are happy to return to our home and our lives in Los Angeles. We still have a lot more to see in our remaining days in Japan, but we are looking forward to our return to our family and friends.

Trying to lose weight by fattening Joe up ...

it doesn't work.

I've been giving him extra portions and reducing my portions and we are both the same weight we were three weeks ago. He probably has a picture in the attic getting fatter for him.

Saying Goodbye to Yamauchi

Today Joe and I went to our last visit at Yamauchi elementary school. It was really emotional for both of us... it was our favorite school. Some of the students looked genuinely sad to see us leave. I will miss these wonderful kids so much. I hope they grow up to be outstanding citizens of the world.