If Japan had Monsoon rain, that’s what we experienced on our way up the mountain. My brother Geoffrey had summoned two dozen people to hike Mt. Fuji. 4 families and a few friends strode by equipped in mountain gear, while my boyfriend and I relinquished our only t-shirts to the pounding rain, protecting our camera bag with a flimsy sheet of plastic. When we arrived at the cabin, a girl with her 3 acquaintances took a picture, of our drenched, comic carelessness.

Geoffrey and George moments before the rain.

Something about the Sunrise here, it’s no ordinary sunrise, they even have a different name for it, “coming of the grand light”. We woke in time to witness this coming, the rain had ceased during the night and the early morning was still moist. Halfway up the mountain from the cabin we could see the clouds below us, and through the clouds glimmered a city ready to be awakened. We bowed our heads to the rising sun and headed for the top.

Lisa had left earlier in the night with another group, following a different herd in the dark. Only after leaving the cabin did she realize they were not us. She had come to join our party, not particularly all the way from America, rather a happenstance blog reader who is studying in Japan. She ended up marching the entire mountain top by the time we were ready to take our next steps. Luckily we met and shared some giddy moments on the steep hills.

Going down the volcanic rubbles was harder on the knees. Paul took a shortcut down a slippery slope, his legs went faster down the mountain than his body could hold, and when he hit that big rock and his legs sprung over his head, our herd of mountaineers gasped in synchrony. Nobody saw his body behind that rock for a moment, then he popped up and started to run again, this time to a flat spot. His scars and many bruises followed him all the way down the mountain, but when we reached a hot tub at the foot of Mt. Fuji, all he could think of was the beautiful scenery we saw at the top.