Mt. Fuji!

Waiting at the bus station in Shinjuku - the bus ride to the 5th station took about 2 and a half hours..

We arrived at the 5th station about 7pm - just in time to see the beautiful sunset! We started on our hike at about 7:30pm - thinking that would give us enough time to slowly get to the top for the sunrise. (Turns out it was more than plenty)

We reached the 8th station at about midnight/1am.. we ended up stopping at each station for about a half hour to an hour because we didn't want to wait the longest time at the top (where it's colder and there is less wind cover)

Made friends with these two dudes from Australia on holiday in Japan at the 8th station and ended up hanging out with them at the top. We reached the peak at about 2am... the sunrise was at 4am.. Luckily the wind wasn't too strong and it wasn't too cold.

At the top there are shops selling hot coffee, gifts, keychains, postcards, etc. There are also vending machines! (everything is wickedly overpriced though)

Made it to the peak! without any sleep, and a borrowed snazzy looking windbreaker!

Waiting for the sun to rise.... took forever..

The crowds were incredible! All up the mountain at night (starting from around midnight) you could see a trail of hikers headlamps... couldn't get a clear picture with a camera so I might have to search the internet for you!

Pretty neat being above the clouds - climbing at night, you can't really tell how high you are or how much farther you've got left to go on the trail, but then seeing what you hiked the next morning was pretty cool. 

The crater at the top of Mt. Fuji

Once the sun had risen far enough above the clouds, everyone at the top gave three 'bonzai!' cheers.

The trek back down was difficult.. walking straight down on volcanic rock is not the easiest thing. Didn't help that we managed to take the wrong fork in the path so we ended up at a 5th station on the other side of the mountain... oops. There was a man who offered to drive us to the 5th station we needed to be at (don't think he realized just how far away it was... about 30-40minutes) Bless his heart, he drove us down the mountain and back up it so we could get to the bus stop.  We made it in plenty of time even with this mishap - took about 3 hours to slide down the wrong side of the mountain and we started down at 5:30am (our bus was booked for noon)

All in all good day! Hiking up, down, and around Mt Fuji was definitely worth it - you're just absolutely knackered the day after. (the recommended way of hiking it is to rest for a few hours sleep at a mountain hut  instead of pulling an all-nighter like we did... but.. a stay in a rest costs 5,000yen ($70).