So today we hiked to the top of　浅間山. This would be Asama-Yama, as i'm sure anyone who has traveled in Japan or possibly watched enough samurai movies knows, Yama means mountain. Anyway this is actually the 3rd vocano that I've ever seen personally and the second that I've climbed to the top of.

Lara, Shane, Jennifer and I went with Andy, a guy from the south eastern part of Nagano ken. Though his house is but 80 kilometers from us, it still took about 1:45 to get there because of the crazy-ass roads here and the super traffic and the mountains. At any rate we spent the night at his house in Mochizuki (the name means rice cake moon) and awoke at about 3:45 this morning to get cracking at the devilish peak. This seems insane to me, but actually the sun starts rising at around 4:30 because the Japanese in their infinite wisdom have forsworn the wonders of daylight savings time.
Anyway, we were climbing the mountain before 6:00 and had reached the summit at about 9:00 amid gale force winds and fog. It was a rippin good time while we ascended into the bomb shelter on the top and had a bit of breakfast. Honestly, I couldn't stand up straight, the wind was so fierce. It's possibly a result of the Typhoon that's coming our way tomorrow. Honestly, the hike up to the rim was really wonderful, some of the best scenery I've seen in Japan. Should anyone actually visit me in Japan, I'm all over hiking that one again.

I've posted some pictures of our previous hike to mount Aso in Kyushu. The landscape was pretty similar, but in this case we couldn't see it.