Picnic, the real post

So Aaron said I would post about our picnic....so here it goes:

The local people where we live love to picnic.  It's one of their favorite past times.  I can (and did) get behind that.  So when a friend from out of town came to visit, we decided to treat her to an authentic experience.

Aaron already included a few of the pictures from our picnic, so here are a few more you didn't get to see.

this is what a picnic looks like y'all.

guy in the front is filming a hip hop video.  guy on the left is doing the classic "girl at a ____" pose.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDpX1X4uBO0 for the reference

Pretty much our local friends don't like pictures where everyone is smiling -  so this picture and the picture in an earlier post where Aaron is looking awfully girly, are what happened.  Also, Aaron's pose is a classic Chinese pose.

Hiking with Bak

A few days ago, I had a chance to go hiking with Justin again and he brought one of his students named Bak. We climbed a 17,700 foot peak called Zemala Mountain and the views were incredible.

Me and Bak

A panorama at a little waterfall, about an hour into our hike.

Incredible.

Waterfall as the sun rises.

It took us about 3 hours to summit, but we all felt surprisingly good (for having climbed to over 3 miles above sea level).

Smiles at the summit.

Summit panorama.

Justin on the summit.

Clouds literally close enough to touch.

After we summited, we hiked down to an alpine lake at 17,000 feet and Justin and I went for a little dip. And it was cold.

Panorama with the lake below

Beginning the hike down

After swimming roughly 200 meters across the pond and back (just to see if we could), we finished out descent and made it back to town in time to have chicken and waffles with Stacy. Made by Stacy.

On the far side of the lake and cold.

Ready for the final hike down.

Pretty much the perfect day.

Picnic with Friends (not the real post)

As I mentioned in the title, a) we went on a picnic with friends, and b) this is not the real post - Stacy will most certainly post a much more thorough post. This is something more akin to the funny trailer to get you interested in the movie.

Yeah, I posted this picture before, but in case you didn't notice, it was BEAUTIFUL

Speaking of beautiful: my lady

Dangerously delicious

Being a little fancy

Charcoal Chimney Follow-Up: A Happy Report

So, I tried the charcoal chimney again on a picnic with some friends. And whaddya know - it worked. All it took was patience and constant attention. Preparation for having kids one day, I suppose...

Setting everything up. Oh, did I mention the picnic spot was GORGEOUS?

Work it for papi, charcoal chimney...

How about them apples!

The Climb Up Mt. Fuji

Aaron had never even thought about climbing Mt. Fuji until I surprised him saying that on our way back to China, we were going to stop in Japan to climb it.

Most tourists start the climb up Mt. Fuji more than half way to the top.  There are 10 stations on Mt. Fuji (each station has resting areas and hostels to stay in), and most people start from station 5.

I should have known what I was getting into when I told Aaron we were hiking Fuji....Aaron doesn't consider starting halfway up actually climbing Mt. Fuji. So we started from before station 1, in the town closest to Mt. Fuji.

A non-snow capped Mt. Fuji from the nearest town

The start of the trail for us began at a Buddhist temple

He's ready to go.

We left the town around 10:15, and made it to station 8 where we spent the night (just a few hours) by 7:30pm.  Then we got up at 2:30 to make the last little hike up to the very top to watch the sunrise.

We got to the top around 3:30am and the sun was starting to rise.  We still had about an hour left from this picture.

The line of people hiking up Fuji
all of those lights are the head lamps of the people climbing the volcano

They play the Japanese National Anthem when the sunrises

trying to get a picture with the sunrise in the background

the crater of the volcano behind us

It was a hard hike for me.  We climbed from around 2,000ft to 12,388ft at the summit.  But it was worth it in the end.  And now I completely understand the popular saying about Mt. Fuji: 

"He who climbs Mout Fuji once is a wise man; he who climbs it twice is a fool."

Whoever said that must have started from where we started.

Nihom - Tokyo City and the Tokyo Dome

We spent two days in Tokyo, and two days getting to Mt. Fuji, hiking it, then coming back to Tokyo.  It was a lot of fun to be in Japan, but Aaron left pretty much convinced he never wanted to go back to Tokyo.  So I'm glad we went at least this one time :)

the city from a viewing tower

The world's busiest fish market was closed the day we went....so we took a picture and called it a day.

Yakitori under the train tracks.

Lonely Planet Tokyo told us that there were a lot of yakitori (meat grilled on a stick, like a kabob) stalls under this one train station - so we went there hoping to find a lot of places to choose from....after an hour or so of walking, we finally stumbled upon one.  Lonely Planet also told us that yakitori was cheap.  Double lies.  It was delicious when we finally ate it, a few hours after normal lunch.

Ask this guy what he thinks of Tokyo and he'll tell you hot.
And confusing.  And that we're never going again.

A must see in Tokyo:  Baseball in the Tokyo Dome

In our seats ready for the game.  

In Japan, they love baseball.  When you go to a baseball game, it's like going to a college sporting event in the states.  Each baseball team has it's own cheering section, complete with a band.  When their team is up to bat, the band plays, and the crowd cheers the whole time.  It went crazy in the dome when someone hit a home run for the home team.  This was definitely one of my favorite things we did and the tickets were only $10!  Cheap date.

Take me out the ball game, take me out the crowd,
Buy me some peanuts and sushi?

Iced Coffee from Krispy Kreme before we head back to China.  Yes, please.

Crazy Doughnut Eyes picture in another Asian City.  Yes, please.

More Faves

Here are a few more favorites:

It would appear that Stacy and I are being blinded by the sun. Grandmother? No worries.

Grandmother and Davis at Stamey's? Yes please!