About two or three weeks ago, Hui told me about the idea of climbing Mt. Fuji, one of Japan’s most famous symbols. This is a feat that not even 1/4 of the Japanese population has actually done.
Since it sounded like a really nice idea, I decided to go for it. (Actually I had been wanting to do that for quite a while already) 
Here we are at the fifth station in Mt. Fuji, where the bus left us. We arrived at around 7:00 pm more or less.
The idea: climb the damn mountain for 9 hours before sunrise.
At a resting stop… at almost the very beginning of the journey.
The guys checking the map of the area.
The sketch of the climbing route.
Actually, it was very different from what they depicted in there.
“We are here” – so the hand said.
Group picture during the journey to the top (almost at the beginning actually, notice that we still had enough energy to smile).
If you are wondering why do I have such a weird expression, it’s because my bag was killing me.
We were having more photo sessions…
Then suddenly, the ghost of a lost mountain climber appeared…
I’ve got to say that… the flash on my camera seems to be pretty powerful. It almost erased Amanda’s entire face.
My nee-chans!! Hoon and Hui.
The Korean gang, followed by the Malaysian twin sisters and one of the only two Japanese in our group.
The view of the city as seen from the mountain. I know you can’t distinguish anything, but I had to put it in here anyway.
The sign of one of the many stores along the trail to the mountaintop.
Guess someone was angry… (scary Korean girls 
)
There are no more pictures of this part of the trip because there was truly nothing else that was interesting enough to take a picture of it.
The view of the city and the clear skies at night were extremely beautiful though.
After several hours of climbing (and whining) we finally made it to the top. Some of us were half-dead by then, the rest… were completely dead.
Ahn’s grumpy face took a drastic change once we got to the top.
Those are the eyes of a person who is thinking “Yay!! no more climbing!!”.
There’s Hoon and Hui waiting for the sunrise, which took a long time by the way.
It seems that, as the sun rises, the spirits of Mt. Fuji start to appear as well. 
The view of the city as seen from the top of the mountain.
Everybody waiting for the sun to make its appearance…
The sun was taking so long to rise that some of us were falling asleep.
30 minutes later… “So… where’s the sun?”
Another one that just couldn’t stop herself from falling asleep.
Yeah… we were so bored waiting for the sunrise to come that we had to waste more time taking group pictures. 
One of the lakes around Mt. Fuji. Supposedly, there’s five of them. Although I couldn’t find a trace of any of the other four.
We were pretty much higher than the clouds themselves.
10 minutes later… still no sun.
The view from the top was truly amazing.
A weird… something. This thing was there at the top of the mountain. Its true purpose? Guess nobody knows.
The little kid of the previous weird thing I guess.
10 more minutes… no sun yet…
Something is coming!!!
So… this is it… the sunrise at the top of Mt. Fuji.
Is it really worth working your ass off for 9 hours straight climbing a mountain? I believe it is.
Well… I am guessing that hand gesture means “Yeah! we are at the top of Mt. Fuji” or something like that…
I’ve seen it before, but people usually use that gesture for cell phones.
Ahn: “Now that the sun is here I can finally go to sleep!!”
It might not look like it in the picture, but actually, this is a pretty steep slope.
The proof I was there.
Warning: It seems that going to Mt. Fuji makes your hair yellow colored.
Someone’s got a death wish I think.
We made it!! We climbed Mt. Fuji on Aug. 8, 2008!!
The whole group made it to the top of the mountain… together.
See someone with a familiar hand-gesture anywhere around?
Coincidentally, it was the birthday of the guy holding the sign.
A mysterious secret facility at the other side of the crater.
I guess there’s where the Japanese government stores the big robots that appear on the animes.
The crater of Mt. Fuji. Seems like a nice place to die.
The tourist center at the top of the mountain. The place was full of people.
I know the message carved in that stone thing must be something meaningful… I just don’t know what it means.
There were some beautiful sceneries on the way down as well.
Now… this is something I had never heard of before.
The way down was long… veeeery long. 
After several hours of walking and enduring heat, we finally made it back to the fifth station at around 11 am more or less. Damn, I was freaking tired.
There goes the next batch of people to climb the mountain.
So, i was under the impression that there were highlights, until you explained that it was the Mt. Fuji… you look like Hideki from Siam Shade in that pic jajajajajaja
I’ll tell Ernesto about this thread, you know that he is Japanese before Panamanian jajajajaja…