20th July - 1 more week to go!

It's official, I move out in one week! This week has whizzed by and I only have 5 more sleeps in my wee flat in Iiyama (originally six, but as I am climbing Fuji this weekend through the night, I technically miss out Saturday night's bed time!). My last day at work is next Wednesday and I have to give my speech in Japanese to the entire school. I wish I was so clever as to be able to write my Japanese speech completely on my own, but Makoto kindly reminded me that it is very important to speak "formally" in these situations and then swiftly went through my speech and made all my words longer... and more difficult to pronounce!

This week I had my farewell dinner with Maruyama-san and her daughter in a local Italian restaurant before making a visit to granny's house for some Japanese tea and snacks. Granny Maruyama was not quite so accustomed to the strange foreign girl who sat on her tatami mat and spent most of the evening just looking at me!


Me and Maruyama-san

On Thursday night, I took a break from cleaning and packing and went into Nagano to meet up with Bel and two of her friends visiting from Adelaide. We went for dinner in the new Hawaiian restaurant complete with spam memorabilia and pina coladas!


Me and Pina Colada


Kate and Bel

Tomorrow I will make the long journey down to Kawaguchiko with Kat, Matt and Charlie and then take a bus to the starting point to climb Mount Fuji. I have been warned that it is both the hardest and the best thing to do in Japan, and am constantly reminded by my work colleagues of the famous Japanese saying...

"To climb Mount Fuji once is wise, to climb it twice is foolish"

This being my first time to climb Mount Fuji, I don't see how it is relevant because once I've made the decent I certainly don't intend to turn round and do it again!

Anyway, we will start climbing around 9pm and aim to be at the top in time for the sunrise at 4.30am. Then, once we've taken a million pictures (hopefully) of the sunrise, we start the 4 hour ramble down and search for the nearest onsen.

This of course being the "plan" and next week's entry will probably be completely different. Either way, if I don't make it to the top then I have already found some excellent pictures on Google to post instead so nobody will be disappointed.

まった　ね!