Japan cont...Hiroshima, Kyoto, Fuji

Hey Guys,

I have had a crazy few days in Japan of late, from the floating torii at miyajima to the memorials in hirmoshima, temples in kyoto and the conquering of mt fuji! I have had so many big nites over here usually ending singing karaoke at 5am or just yelling out ki-lay to every girl that walks past haha. I have self imposed myself to stop socialising with people from the hostels because evry small convo ends up in bright lights, j-pop, stumbling through city streets, entering 7/11's for ham and egg sangers, empty wallets, hoarse voices and of course the obligatory hangover. That said, I did manage to get myself out of bed occasionally and do some touristy stuff ->

The beautiful floating torii gates in Miyajima coupled with cheerful deer. Climbing the mountain and seeing hiroshima from the top...not to mention the iradescent fireworks display which you guys might have seen, it was that BIG! The Japs are fair dinkum pyros! The conversation at night time also brought out the best from the local jap contigent. They were questioning me and a couple americans over the important world discussion of fisting. It began with a mild enquiry as to how popular it was in America. The american rightfully downplayed the topic as being rather uncommon and mainly left in x-rated films. A few beers later and further discussions led to the japanese guy admitting that 'if you fist a Japanese girl, she will die'. So now you know, like Clint Eastwood, zie limitiations....(yes the westerners were raucously laughing for the next 20 mins)

Next was Hiroshima, a city dedicated to world peace and prevention of the manufacturing of Nukes. They have a building there which was one of the few left after the bomb. The peace memorial and childrens memorial were quite sad (tearful sad not lame sad) and the museum showed how powerful this weapon was. My only point of contention was Nagasaki, which the US bombed 3 days later with another abomb, the Japs didnt surrender until 6 days after the 2nd bomb...very strange. The bomb on nagasaki also wasnt intended for it, it was the second target after kokura which was too cloudy to drop the bomb.

Then from there I went to Mt Fuji and did the 5 hour trek uphill during the night time which i though might be cooler. It was cooler, it was freezing, i think i nearly died! but i didnt. the advantage of climbing at night was to see the sunrise in the morning which was fairly special in the words of bruce. At the top of the hill there isnt much to see except they have a post office there, strange and somewhat inconvenient but not my country. The downhill was almost as hard as the uphill, it was might slippery and i am grateful not to have done an ACL. This is probz the hardest trek ive done, the altitude air is quite severe (the top is 3700m up) and the track aint flash to walk on. but i made it!

Then today ive been chillin in kyoto with temples and all that which are lovely and peaceful. The imari torri has 4km of gates in a tunnel like thing to the top of the mountain which is quite novel. And the ginkaku ji temple was amazing to be in...top place for a party!