And sliding in at the just-under-2-month mark, we have... a blog! it will probably be a while before i blog again, for reasons that i'll go in to shortly, so i figured it couldn't hurt to spend a little time on the ol' compy.

First, in brief, what i've been up to.

CAJ graduation was on the 9th of june, and for the rest of june, i was basically a bum. nelle's twin brothers had just graduated, and they were only in japan for 2 weeks, so we all hung out and were basically completely irresponsible. they are huge soccer fans as well, so we were staying up till midnight to watch the first of the world cup games, and then passing out during the second, which started at four, then stumbling home in the wee hours of the morning.

I put together another hike, much like i did last summer, but this time there were 5 fateful travelers (including me and nelle), we were only out for 3 days instead of 5, and there was very little in the way of getting lost or nearly dying. this was the first hike where we had far more time than we actually needed to hike the distance we were faced with, and the supplies to match the generous timeframe, so when the second day dawned crappy and rainy, we hiked till lunch, then quit for the day. both nights we were in spacious and roomy "huts"- there was no heat or electricity or anything, but the windows were defiantly double pane storm glass, and there was definitely jugs of water. i did have a tent that i brought, and i would have used it outside just to use it, since it was a birthday present and as yet untested, but there was a problem with wildlife. at both huts, on both nights, we were totally surrounded by deer. now, i'm a fairly manly man, as anyone could tell you, but these deer were fearless, and would sort of surround any hapless hiker wandering off to relieve themselves in the woods. most of the time they stayed out of the range of the flashlights, which was not that great, thanks to the thick fog, but i had my headlamp, which made the 15 pairs of eyes reflect back at me out of the darkness. so, i opted to sleep indoors. for those that are interested in our route, we took the seibu-sen to chichibu, changed to the chichibu tetsudou-sen, and went to mitsumineguchi. from there we caught a bus to the bottom of a cable car, conveniently out of order. we went basically due south to kumotori yama, which is where we spent our first night. this is also where we spent our second night on the "death hike" of aught-five. we then turned our faces toward the rising sun, and hiked easterly the rest of the time, finishing at okutama station.

A little over a week later, i summitted mt. fuji, again with nelle, but this time with 2 other 20-something guys from church. as with everything, it was something of an epic adventure. as this was not "my" hike, but one that i joined by invitation, i was under the impression that some of the details, like where exactly we were to start hiking from, were taken care of. the plan was to start up fuji in the wee hours of the night and time our summit to match the rising of the sun as perfectly as possible. this is a fairly typical method, and the one that i have used on both of my previous summit experiences. we were a little mystified that there were almost no other cars in the parking lot, but we were all itching to get on the mountain, so we thought about it as little as possible. In fact, for the majority of the time, we saw almost nobody else, which is a little strange on one of perhaps the most commercialised mountain in the world. but the path was before us, the night was balmy, the night sky clear, and the moon providing all the light we needed to hike. it was beautiful. it became increasingly evident that we were not on the trail we thought we were, however. i mean, we were on fuji, and going up, so we were getting to where we wanted to go, but there are supposed to be stations all the way up the mountain that sell beer, juice, water, a bed for the night, canned oxygen, etc., and no matter how far we hiked we didn't see anything except closed, locked, and barb-wired huts, or a few posts and some foundation that testified that that hut had at one point seen better days. after 5 hours of hiking, which is how long it should have taken if we had started from the right point, the sun was rising, so we stopped and admired it. at this point, i was wearing: longjohns, hiking pants, snowboard pants, polypro longsleeved shirt, polypro t-shirt, northface fleece, arc teryx shell, and a woolen hat. and i was freezing. my phalanges were all turning white, and i was shivering uncontrollably. what's with that? but, sunrise revived me somewhat, although it took a good hour before i could start stripping my layers. as we got higher, the lack of atmosphere did it's insidious work, and i developed a crippling headache, which increased exponentially if i did anything to raise my heartrate. good thing i was climbing the tallest peak in japan. but, plodding on, we made it to the summit a scant 3 hours after our sunrise experience. we even climbed around the crater to make it to the proper tallest spot- 3776 meters up. we discovered after talking to some fellow hikers, that we had inadvertently gone up one of the longest possible routes, a route that pretty much nobody used anymore. going down, however, was an amazing experience. they use medium-large CAT type machinery to get workers and supplies to the top, and we were able to follow a track pretty much all the way down. the road zigzagged all over at first, but then headed pretty much straight down. it was about 20 feet wide, and made of gravel about 4 feet deep. you just point yourself downhill and try not to go so fast that your body outspeeds your feet. there was one small incident that involved me (of course) clipping the top of a gravel mogul with my foot, the result being that i pulled a beautiful frontal whiplash maneuver and began descending on my face, but no permanent harm was done. that spectacle was actually captured on tape, and i'll see what i can do to make it universally viewable.

I decided towards the end of the school year that in spite of the fact that many of the middle schoolers would be gone over the summer, i would keep JAM going for the month of july. having now been through every sunday in the month of july, i must say that i am glad that i went with what i believe God wanted me to do. there were anywhere from 8 to 18 kids, depending on the week, and as for leaders, there were as few as 2- me and nelle- and as many as 6- alumni that used to to JAM back in the day, high schoolers that were in town and wanted to help out, etc. i gave 4 of the talks, and nelle gave one. every single sunday, with the exception of this last one, was cloudy, a little rainy, and muggy, so we had to play games inside, which seems like such a waste. the weather cooperated for this last one, though, and we were finally able to play water games, much to everyone's delight.

Now that JAM is done for the summer, i've got this week still in tokyo, during which i'm attempting to get my legal japanese motorcycle license, and pay bills, and generally take care of odds and ends, then i'm off to takayama, the missionary vacaction spot on the ocean, for a pastoral retreat. my plan for the summer was to be up there the following week with various members of my family, so after the retreat ends, i've chosen to stay there, bumming around with other families, until my own comes up there and we start our family vacation proper. there'll be very little to no internet up there, so as much as it'll break my heart and yours, blogging might be difficult, to say the least. after that, i go back to my apartment and my church and my ministry, and begin- can it be? - my third year of youth pastoring. crazy.