Last of Summer 2023

 The rest of the summer flew by with a wedding (Tammy's), birthday party with water slide (Chelseas), summer school, Jolie's birthday party, soccer camp with Gautum, night at a tree house in Brea, Yakult factory, Bradbury night out, and our Japan and Hawaii trip.  The kids did their part with work and I worked and just made sure they are all staying active.  

Our Japan trip finally happened after months and months of planning.  I think we did everything right except me not adding Ashley to Zipair until the very last minute which ended up into a very costly ticket by Hawaiian airline.  We also arrived in Honolulu on the day when Maui was indulged in flames by the heavy wind.  Luckily we were not affected (except our kayak tour got cancelled).  

The highlight of Japan was the Mt Fuji climb with my brother and Adam.  We started the morning with checking out of our airbnb and going to the ANA air hangar tour - then renting a car to drive to Hakone and made it in time to the last bus to the Fujinomiya trail (5th Station) to begin the ascend at 5PM.  Made it to the hut at 10PM and slept until 1AM/2AM and slowly got everyone up to see the sunset glow at 4:15AM.  We reached the summit by 6AM and started the descend at 7AM to the Gotemba Trail and arrived at the Gotemba 5th New Station at 12:45PM.  By then - your mind and body just want to reach the end  and basically started to question things like "are you ever going to make it out of here?"

I picked the Fujinomiya trail because it was the shortest and easiest.  (yes and no).  We also picked the Gotemba trail because it was closest to our next destination and also it was the fastest. (yes and no).  Turned out that both of these were the most challenging according to another blogger/climber.  I would love to blog more in detail of our journey to Mt Fuji either on Youtube or on my pending travel blog.  Until then, I am trying to retain as many details as I can do I can share it.

So many memories from this summer, so many favorite memories.  As much as it was a lot of work, a lot of pressure, and can be exhausting, I always look back and I never regret it.