Climbing Fujisan, 31.08.-01.09.2007

Osaka - Kawaguchiko - 5th station

After work I departed for Higashi-Umeda Station in the center of Osaka, where I met IOC members Peter (Kunio) and Sebastien (with Kaori to say goodbye). We waited for the bus - and Minhao, who finally arrived after an impressive 7 min sprint from Osaka station, right on time for the night bus. But he was only lucky due to a very seldom event in Japan: The bus was 5 min after schedule.
In the bus we met Mauricio, Ed and Dominic, who had already boarded in Namba but - the same as us - had forgotten to bring some beer for the ride. So we had no choice but sleep and relax (as much as it is possible in a night bus, especially having long legs and sitting behind Mauricio) and arrived around 8 o'clock the next morning at Kawaguchiko station near famous Fujisan (also known as Fujiyama).
Here, we had breakfast and then had to kill about 3 more hours by writing postcards (that we could drop on the mountain post office), repacking our backpacks and changing several times from sunny to rain protection climbing gear and back again, each time the weather outside switched. But finally we could get on the bus to the 5th station, the last point on Fujisan to be reached on regular roads.
At 5th station, we met the rest of the IOC climbing group (Damien, Lisa, Keiko, Dominikus and our tour leader Estella). There, we used the last chance to buy some food or drop some rubbish (the rest had to be taken to the summit and down again).

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0234_Packing	0235_Waitig_for_the Nightbus_and	0237_Minhao	0238_Rain_in_Kawaguchiko	0239_Gateway_Fujiyama
0240_Killing_time	0241_Killing_time	0242_Killing_time	0243_Art	0244_Thomas_train
0245_Thomas_and_Fuji_train	0247_Queueing_for Thomas_bus	0248_Killing_time	0249_Thomas_bus_at Kawaguchiko_Station	0250_Bremer_Stadtmusikanten
0251_Ed's_breakfast_beer	0252_Sebastien's T-shirt_map	0254_Fujisan_in_clouds	0256_Waiting_for_the_bus	0257_5th_station
0258_Flagpole_and walking_stick	0260_Clouds	0261_Colorful_hikers	0264_Luckily_only a_painting	0265_Fujisan
0266_Climbers	0267_Up_there	0268_Fujisan	0270_Warming_up	0272_Lisa_and_Keiko
0273_Climbers'_breakfast	0276_Oxygen_in_pills	0277_Clouds	0278_Fujisan_in_clouds