I Climbed Mt Fuji!

Well, I had been in Japan for one day and then it was time to take on one of the toughest hikes in my entire life time! Still jet-lagged and worn out from the twelve hour flight to Japan - it was off on a bus to the most famous mountain in Japan. A national obsession, this hike is a thronging mob of people scrambling over lava rock in an effort to reach the summit in time to see the sun rise.



The weather was changeable to say the least. Quite rainy at first, but we had moments of clearing and actually even some sun on the following day.

I just loved the instructions for the Western-style toilets in the bathrooms.



This was the guide for our group - (Group name - Gogosan.) We were number 5. He reminds me a lot of a Japanese TV star I saw in a show about a fire department, called Fire boys.



This was his seventh trip up the mountain. The way it works, is that one gets a guide up to the eighth station, where one spends the "night". Night here actually means, you get to sleep almost four hours in a tiny little berth with 3 other people before being rousted out of bed to continue climbing the mountain in pitch dark. The stars are very beautiful and everyone brings flashlights or helmet lights and there is a long fiery procession up the mountain.



The climb was long and hard and sometimes I needed all four limbs to scramble up cliff-like lava walls. There is quite a spirit of doing something impossible together. When I was too tired to climb and pulled to the side there would always be ahelpful person asking Daijobu desu? Are you okay, to which one replied Hai, Daijobu desu. It took me three hours longer than the rest of my party, but I made it. In the end it was worth it for this view of silvery clouds in the valley.



Here is the peak - with the volcanic crater descending down some 700 meters.



The saying is that a wise man climbs Mount Fuji once, and only a fool climbs it a second time. It is an exhausting experience, and I wasn't sure I would manage it, but yes, daijobu desu.

Fun Tuesday - Some Things Take A Little Longer

Okay, I'm late on this. I'm leaving for Japan tomorrow and yesterday wasn't such a good day, everything I needed to get done turned into several other things that didn't get done.



I did however want to respond to this Fun Monday topic because I have a very fond memory form my childhood that pertains to useless trivia. In Elementary school we carpooled with our math teacher and her children. We sang goofy songs and had a marvelous time, and every morning this wonderful, wonderful person would ask us a trivia question to be answered the next day. One of the ones I remember best was what is the gestation period of an elephant. I'll never ever forget that it is 22 months.

Ren Faire Acquisitions

My spousal unit is fortunate to have a birthday right around the time of our local Renaissance Festival. This means that between birthday money and the generosity of relatives, he scores big time in the gift department. Of course we do have a favorite boutique at the fair and we have found some marvelous couture to jazz up our Autumn wardrobes. DC Aunt gifted him with this gorgeous purple and blue jacket:



Here is another view:



These items come from a designer named Marla Ferrara - Her store is called Lost Art Leather and I highly recommend her work if you happen to be in Colorado or see her at a Renaissance Festival. Her clothing is high quality and flattering.



The other side of the family was just as generous to spousal unit D and gave him this wonderful dark blue jacket:



And naturally I couldn't resist getting into the action either. I was rather extravagant buying myself this green jacket.

I love the fact that this year's designs have a high linen content. The texture is marvelous and the linen absorbs the colors to fullest saturation.



I couldn't live without this purple and green jacket either, so it came home with us too.



Looks like this year we can expect lots of Fall color

Renaissance Festival

Well, we made it to Renaissance Festival last weekend! It was wonderful fun. Here is just a glimpse of the two of us there. (More to come I hope!)

Updates

I may have mentioned that I have thrown my hat in to the vegetable garden ring this year (again) - of course it usually gets trampled by a herd of deer or chewed up by gophers, and this year the weather isn't really cooperating. It has just been so cool that things haven't grown as quickly as (I think) they should.

Here is my one measly triumph!



Did you see it?

Here it is again.



I have a little window box on the veranda where the animals can't get to it and I have one teeny tiny little cherry tomato. There are a couple of blossoms on the real tomato plants too (out in the regular garden), but since I am leaving for Japan in less than 6 weeks, I will probably never see them come to fruition. I have my hopes for this little tomato, though. Even though it already has a blemish!

In the mean time my nervous energy has gone into this sock.



I've sure ripped it out a lot of times, but I'm either getting used to the way it looks or starting to like it. I sure don't know how I'll ever knit a second one with an even vaguely similar design!

Latest Project

I've been playing with sock yarn and seeing if I could put a couple of different self-striping yarns together to make some more interesting patterns.



At the top of this picture you can see an experiment with slip-stitching and a solid yarn plus self-striping one.



It is about to be ripped out because I made it too narrow, somaybe I'll try something else.

Update on Afghan

Here is the afghan that I have been working on - Not quite half way finished
but progressing nicely.