MOUNT FUJI

Mount Fuji was totally freezing. Wobbling around light-headed in the rain and sweeping wind and tripping on the black volcanic gravel. The Japenese climbers we passed on their way down were with ski sticks and waterproof head to toe moon costumes shook their heads at us, saying "OKI KAZE" (big wind) while I, in my giant green dinasaur Gajaping costume and Chinese farmers $1 sneakers and Triin in her poncho and ear-ache hat, trotted up the gravel path with a rucksack full of tofu and water. Mihel, our "trust me I`m Polish" buddy who shows me Aikido "Defense" moves while I am quietly reading my book on the sofa and beats my botty-wotty at chess told us we would need at least 4 litres of water each.

I drank about one cup of water the whole journey - that is from the bottle, I probably drank about 4 litres just leaving my mouth open for the rain to slosh into. We went up till Mikel, who boasted he had trecked for 3 weeks alone in Nepal and checked his alititude GPS computer every 10 minutes decided to head down. Triin and I said we were going on up a bit just so he would not give us his mountain conquoring stories again later and then, when our feet were frozen and I was pretty giddy from the thin air and thick rain, we headed down pausing to eat triins delicious mess of pumpkin and oatmeal surprise - the surprise was that it was the best meal we have had in Japan!
Anyhow, we got down, dripped all over the base camp cafe and then hitched a ride to the station and looked around the small town of Chizorka - a dull enough place - a couple of government-issue temples and I bought some socks with separated toe sockets then chilled at the couch surfing hosts place. We had to pay him 4000 yen for the transport and the stay and food thrown in so it was a bit expensive and not so cool - he paid for a bunch of sake and his friends came over and got drunk and it was all a bit lame so I table taco-ed his glass sitting room table and then sat down to write this email - sorry other way round - got to go and taco that table. We leave tomorrow for Kyoto where we have a couple of gigs. We have a poster that says very politely that we would accept any donations of food, money and accomodation and please please please help us - it makes busking much easier. We are mostly just playing bums music on the street- sitting out with the music notes all over the place - the good old fasioned way- being paid to practice! No great show but I have some tricks hatching.