Mt. Fuji
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Before the great expedition to the top of Fuji, we had a two day Rotary Orientation Camp at Gotenba. At the camp we were able to meet all the new exchange students (as all the other students except for Mark and I had gone home) and also the Rotex from this year (Ex-exchange Students). It was another lot of speeches from the Rotarians and a lot of sitting around and listening! Then we had the party organised by the Rotex where we had all this food that not many people ate, and also more karaoke!

After the camp we then had to start our trip to Fuji. We woke up early and drove a far way to the 5th point on the mountain. We then had lunch and started the climb. At first it was not that steep, and the road was flat and lined with stones, but very soon it started getting really rocky and slippery and places where you had to climb a little way. We kept resting at each station and getting a stamp on our walking sticks and we were then told not to get any more stamps as we got them and we weren't supposed to. After that, the Rotarians kept in front of us and wouldn't let us past (even though they were slow slow sloooow). We finally got to the 8th point about 1350 m and that would be where we sleep the night. We all slept side by side in this kind of loft thing and tried to get to sleep to wake up the next day for the final park of the journey.
There were a few things that were bad about the trip (not mentioning the climbing, falling over, sore legs, sunburn, etc) but the main problems were the toilets. Seeing as there was no running water up on Mt. Fuji, that means no flushing.... Which means a unbearably, smelly, stinky toilet. It was not just the hole in the toilet where you can see all the remains, but it was also a Japanese style toilet. I decided to hold till I got back down to the bottom.
There was also the breakfast after the first day. We once again had curry rice, but this time it came with this packet beef stuff. We opened it and took one look at it, and all but 2 people ate it (Mark took one bite and let it be, and the Mexican ate it all.... what do they eat there?). The beef rather resembled dog food, with the jelly and the nice chunky beef bits. I had a sniff, and it also smelt like dog food. That was enough for me!

The next day we started in the morning after eating the beef.. And curry rice and then set off to get to the top. After about 3-4 hours? We got to the top and took a rest... but then they said, now lets go to the real top! We had about another hour hike to go around the crater in the middle and get to the highest point on the mountain. After that we were all pretty tired... but we still had the way down, which didn't take that long. Finally we got down to the 5th point and then went back into the cars to sleep all the way home.