LINDA'S CORNER - Always Remember Your Sweater

...and that was the day the four lads climbed Mt. Fuji.
We started our day with a lovely breakfast at Denny's. Yes, there is a Denny's in Tokyo. I'm not sure I've even been to a Denny's in the states so I didn't think my first time eating at this little breakfast diner joint would be in Asia. But this is not your typical American Denny's. In Tokyo, they serve rice with your eggs, salad with your pancakes, and beer with your coffee. yummmmmmmmm. The hash browns were pretty good to boot! Oh, and 50% of the customers at Denny's were...white. heh.
So after that we got on the train which we took to another train which we took to a bus that took us to another smaller bus that took us thousands of feet up the biggest mountain in Japan. Mount Fuji is beautiful. The view was incredible. I kept reminding myself of my surroundings and finding it pretty hard to believe. Laura took a million pictures--"Look at the tree! Look at the mountain" (to be said in a Long Island accent) and Evan looked longingly towards the top of the mountain, wishing he could run up the trails "If Bill were here, he'd run down to the bottom". Many people passed us with friendly smiles, all of them heading for the top I suppose. I forgot to bring a sweater and after letting out my usual "I'm cooooold" whine, resorted to buying a silly I LOVE MT FUJI sweater at the gift store. Now my memory of this beautiful place will be in the form of some photos capturing me looking like a dufus in a silly tourist shirt. oh well!
After we were totally bored with Mount....what was is called? We hopped back on the small bus to the larger bus to the train to Shinjuku. We had dinner at a traditional Japanese restaurant that was filled with business people. Our waiter spoke a little English, but apparantly not enough to understand our orders. The food took forrrever to come out and mine was completely forgotten. The waiter didn't understand my vegetarian request, and so I asked him to bring out his choice. After waiting another 10 minutes, I was brought a plate the size of a coffee dish with a couple of vegetables on it. My heart sunk. I was so very hungry and this was all I was getting. It's not easy being veg in Japan. But luckily I was brought a bowl of rice shortly after we asked for the check and all was well. The language barrier can be frustrating sometimes, but I think we are getting better and better as the days go by.
After dinner we tried finding a few music venues that we read about in Laura's Tokyo guide but failed to find any. We walked around a bit which was fun anyways because Shinjuku is quite alive at night. Most of the streets are bright with neon signs and flashing lights from the bottom of buildings all the way to the top. After looking around a bit, we opted for karaoke and sang away to the most awesomely terrible American music we could think of. If I were standing outside I would have thought Axl Rose were in that room, with the way Buzon was hitting all the crazy high notes of Paradise City! Subway lines stop running at midnight, so we left the karaoke place at 11 and headed back to the hostel. I think this is the latest we've gone to bed since we've been here, so maybe I'll actually be able to sleep past 6:30! Tomorrow is our last day in Tokyo, so we'll see what happens!!