*On the subway in Japan, there are “pushers,” who I guess are employed by the city, whose job it is to push people onto overcrowded trains. There is one station in Tokyo that over 3 million people go through each work day. On Ricky’s first day of university, the subway was so crowded that his tie got stuck in the doors, and he couldn’t get out for a few stops!
*We drove by some tea farms, and Ricky told us about his family who were tea farmers. He told us about the health benefits of green tea, including how it supposedly cures cancer. His uncle (or grandfather) was a tea farmer his whole life, but he died of cancer. The reason? He drank 10 times more sake than green tea.
*He was in America at a restaurant and tried to eat rice with chopsticks, but it was American rice (ie: not sticky), so he couldn’t pick it up with chopsticks and everyone made fun of him.
Anyhoo, we drove allllll the way up Mount Fuji to the 5th Station, which is as high as cars are allowed to drive up. This is also the timberline, so above the 5th station building, there are no trees. It’s so high up (the station is at 8000 feet), that the view is of absolutely nothing. You’re basically in the clouds, so you can see about 2 feet in front of your face, and everything is completely shrouded in fog. We drove back down the mountain (and THIS is where we had an amazing view).
At the bottom of the mountain, we went to a hotelesque place for lunch prepared “in the Western style.” This, to the Japanese, apparently means “with the head attached.” I know that’s how I prepare most of my meals anyway. It was a strange piece of chicken, with an even stranger prawn on top, head, legs, and all. Bree Teach and I sat with an old couple from Toronto, ironically enough.
Afterwards our bus driver (who, Ricky tells us, is the best bus driver in Tokyo – apparently the guy who was the best bus driver in Tokyo the day before died or something. Bus crash?) drove us to Hakone, a town known for its handicrafts and hot springs. We took a cable car up the mountain (Ricky: “For those afraid of heights, there have not been any deaths on the cable car… Yet”), and wow. 
The view. From one side you can see beautiful Hakone Mountains, and Mount Fuji off in the distance. From the other side, you see the Owakudani Boiling Valley, which is, as our tour itinerary tells us, and “ancient crater where sulfurous fume reeks and clouds of stream rise from crevasses.” Delicious. The smell, as soon as we step off the cable car, is pretty divine.
It smells quite similar to rotten eggs, only much worse than you could possibly imagine. Conveniently enough, they sell hardboiled eggs here that they boiled in the gross sulfur hot springs. They’re black from the gunk in the water. And people LOVE them. We saw them being sold, literally hundreds every minute. They also sell black-egg everything (I got a black egg piggy bank).
Our bus was waiting for us at the top of the mountain (Hmm, this guy is pretty good--), and he drives us back down the gill to Lake Ashi, where we are to board our Pirate Ship. Oh yes. It comes complete with pirates and all. Ricky, nice guy that he is, even got us tickets in First Class! Unfortunately, a few minutes into our cruise, 
I had to pee, and since there were no washrooms in First Class, I ventured out. Even more unfortunately, once you leave First Class, you can’t get back in. Even though I screamed across the boat for Bree Teacher to let me back in, she ignored me (she was busy playing out her Titanic fantasy), so I spent the rest of the cruise alone. With the peasants. 
After the cruise, we drove back to Tokyo (and somehow the drive back home was several hours longer than the drive there). After a few hours on THIS bus, and a few more hours wandering the streets of Tokyo looking for a place to eat (after quite an exhaustive search, we found a beef bowl place), we got on ANOTHER bus. Also, we saw this amazing sundae. For about 8 hours, overnight. Let’s keep in mind that this bus is built for Japanese-sized people, whose legs are approximately 3 feet shorter than mine. Uncomfortable would be an understatement.Even so, we arrive safe and sound, and ready for another day of adventure---
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