Fuji and Karaoke

Well they did it, congratulations bet there aren't many people in Loughborough who've climbed Mount Fuji and they got all the way to the top. For that matter apparently only about 1% of the Japanese population ever get to the top of Fuji San lots of them start but not many go all the way.

It rained most of the time they were climbing, Ben and Tristan were probably the least prepared surprise surprise, took them about 7 hours to get to the top. Apparently it was freezing especially with all the rain and it was pretty windy as well, Fuji is a 3,800mts high.

But they're down now and can bask in the knowledge that they did it, don't think they would do it again though,

Couple of photos at the top of mount Fuji, they got there about sunrise which apparently is the most popular time but this obviously means climbing at night which make things worse, you need a torch to climb, don't think it's that well lit.

This ones at the 5th station about half way up and before they started this is where most people start from. You can start from the bottom which is the first station if you want but obviously it takes a lot longer.

They met a couple of other guys while they were there and climbed up with them one was a Brit and i think the other was from Belgium, not sure about that though , think the photo below is about half way up from the 5th station.

These two are of the sunrise at the top and of the top gate, the one with the flag is on the way down, think it took about 4 hours to get down.

Any way they got back on Tuesday which was there last night in Utsunomiy as they had to got to Nagoya on Wednesday as their train pass's run out then and anyway the plane back to the UK leaves on Thursday at 11 in the morning from Nagoya.

So after they had had a bit of a kip took them out to to a bar which happened to have Karaoke in it.

The bar we went to was/is different to anything we have in the UK, I'd told them about these kind bars before and had said if we got chance would take them one just to see what they were like.

It was been to a similar one when i first came and said i would never go back but you know you should never say never. Basically it was just a small room not much bigger them my apartment, you pay 3,000Yen to get in and your drinks are free for the first hour but you can only drink Whisky or Soju which is like a Vodka. There are girls there whose job is to talk to you and get you to buy drink for them and stay longer.

As it happened this one was like a Philopeno bar, meaning the girls in there were from the Philippines, as it happened they also had a Karaoke. One thing led to another and the next thing we knew we were haveing a go, and were we bad. All the girls had good voices though which was just as well because we didn't. Couple of photos below, they didn't turn out very well but never mind you get the idea.

So that was it there last night in Utsunomiya and the second to last night in Japan, going to Nagoya tomorrow and would be staying there for the night. Think they'd had a good time done a lot of travailing, met a lot's of people. Last couple of days though there's been a lot of rain so hope that didn't spoil it too much for them, been nice to have them and I've done a few things i probably wouldn't have if they weren't here so it's been good. Dropped them off at the train station the next day, this is them packed up and ready to go.

Anyway now they are on their way normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.