August 6, 2026

I am now in Singapore’s Changi Airport on the way to the next leg of the trip. This is way too long already, so I’ll get right into it.

Mt Fuji

Summiting Mt Fuji at sunrise was one of the coolest parts of the whole trip. I had to to download an app, take a safety quiz, pay a trail fee, reserve a seat on a bus to and from the trailhead, get a train from Tokyo to the bus, and reserve a hut to stay in on the mountain which was a lot more than the trip baseline of zero planning. I would have given up at multiple stages if it hadn’t come highly recommended from a trusted friend. I’m so glad I stuck it out. The views were incredible, and the whole experience ranks among the best slightly underprepared Joa adventures, up there with The Enchantments and the Gooseberry Trail in Canyonlands.

I left Tokyo early and pressed every button at the kiosk before asking for help getting a Shinkansen ticket to Mishima. It may have been overkill, but it gave me plenty of time at Mishima Station to change, find a coin locker, and use my very limited Japanese to confirm the bus I reserved was real and would be there in an hour.

At the trailhead, I had to convince a man that I was prepared and they wouldn’t have to rescue me later. He gave me a map and warned me about oncoming rain.

There are 4 trails to the top of Mt Fuji. I picked Fujinomiya, the steepest and second most popular, because after a lot of research and weighing of pros and cons, I realized the only hut with availability was on this trail. I was loving it right away. The trail starts at the tree line. There are immediate sweeping views of the mountainside above the clouds dotted with shrubs. I was scrambling over weird volcanic rocks. It was a beautiful day, and people were so much friendlier on the trail than in Tokyo. I was exchanging lots of “konnichiwa"s, guessing what “douzo” means, and sometimes not understanding longer questions.

Before long, I was at the 8th Station¹ where I was staying which was good because the aforementioned rain was moving in. I went in and got my little corner and welcoming spiel. The main room slept about 60 people nearly shoulder to shoulder on two levels of pads. There was a path of mountain dirt extending into the center of the room surrounded by racks for shoes and provided slippers. There was a smaller room with tatami mats and low tables where they served a small dinner of curry and rice. There wasn’t much to do besides watch drenched hikers arrive, chat with other foreigners, and read Jane Eyre.

I was up and out a little before lights on at 1am because people were being noisy. The weather had cleared up overnight, and there was a full moon. When I made it to the 9th Station, there were 3 bros hanging around a vending machine. We got to talking about how the machine sold hot coffees. They told me they were from Myanmar but lived in Japan. I said, “Myanmar’s really dangerous, right?”. When I made no move to buy a hot coffee, they bought one for me (call me crazy, but the last thing I want on a mountain are a diuretic and a stimulant). Later they asked where I was from and said, “Isn’t America dangerous too?”

One problem with the summit of Mt Fuji is that it’s on the top of a mountain and therefore extremely windy. One the bright side, it’s a volcano and (no, no lava) the top is a summit with a rim, so you can always do a lap if, for instance, you’re cold and alone with 2 hours to sunrise. If I’d realized how close the summit was, I would have hung out with those guys longer.

A little ways along my lap, I almost followed a little spur to the highest point in Japan, but the signage was unclear. Instead of saying something like “Highest point this way ->”, it said “HIGH VOLTAGE”, and the last thing I want to do in a foreign country is get zapped. Around this time I saw other headlamps on the far side of the rim which I soon met up with at the top of the most popular Yoshida Trail.

That summit was much more developed. It has the best sunrise view as well as a post office, restaurant, and a couple vending machines. By the time I got there, there were already quite a few other people, and a steady line coming up. I paced around for a while searching in vain for refuge from the wind. I bought a small hot cocoa and tied my towel around my head as last ditch attempts at warmth. Eventually, just around 4am, I gave up and finished my lap and started descending the Gotemba trail which connects back to the Fujinomiya.

Just as I was kicking myself for leaving before the full sunrise, the trail turned a corner on a view out of a geography textbook. There was a lake and the ocean. There were clouds nestled in lower mountains. There were streaks of lightning from distant storms. There was a peninsula. Running down the mountain, the sparse vegetation gave way to forests then fields. The mountain huts, to farms then towns. There was the sunrise, and, just below it a needle which was the Tokyo Skytree. Since the Gotemba trail is less steep and less technical, I got to enjoy this view changing the whole descent.

The sections of trail before connecting back to the Fujinomiya were essentially surfing down piles of volcanic gravel. At the bottom, I bought a magnet, a postcard, and an “American hotdog” (corndog) from the shop with my remaining cash and asked the bus driver if I could move my reservation up to catch an earlier bus back to Mishima.

Osaka

Highlights from Osaka were a couple shopping streets, one very long (Tenjinbashi-suji), and one very hip with lots of cute young couples on dates (Nakazaki). Also in Osaka I thrifted a pair of corduroy pants which I’ve been looking for for a long time and played some pinball. Very fun.

I went up the Umeda Sky Building to make up for the views of Tokyo I missed. I also saw the Osaka Castle grounds and Dotonbori.

Kyoto

Instead of going to Takamatsu as intended, I decided to stay in Kyoto for my final stop in Japan. I did a day trip here from Osaka, but it got short shrift because I was up late talking to people in the hostel the night before. Also I decided to shorten the trip and it didn’t make sense to go so far out of the way for so little time.

Somehow the Fushimi Inari shrine was way cooler than I expected. I knew it was a bunch of torii gates, but I didn’t realize that it’s on a wooded mountain and that there are mazes of all kinds of different shrines and altars within it.

In general, I didn’t like Kyoto as much because everything was more spread out, so it was harder and less rewarding to walk between them, though I did enjoy a couple meals in old style houses with little gardens in the middle.

The other favorite thing I did in Kyoto was run, once up a mountain, and once along the Kamogawa (which I learned means Duck River). It feels kind of stupid to list that as a travel highlight, but it’s reassuring to me to know that I actually really enjoy something I spend so much time doing.

Closing Thoughts

I know this is already outrageously long. I’ve written the remaining postcards but forgot to send them before going to the airport, but I’ll get right on that tomorrow. If you’d like one, it’s not at all too late. It’ll just be from a different country.