Welcome to the Freaking club!!!!

Went hiking with Jam lady on one of the holidays Japan had a few weeks ago. It was awesome! As usual! We had to bushwhack through some pretty thick brush and scramble up this steep hill using roots to pull ourselves up and then we arrived at the top of the ridge. At the top we rested and Jam Lady (Yumi) asks me what I call this kind of hiking? "Mania" our friend (and guide) Shun chan suggests. Then I say, sure, mania is a good way of putting it. Then she says, no no no, more strong...."Freak!...Freaking!!" "This hike is freaking" "Welcome to the Freaking club!" I agree and say yes, i would say "freaking is one way of describing this mountain insanity". then she says "I have many freaking clubs!" I practically peed myself because of the way she said it. oh man, what an awesome day!
We hiked along the ridge and bushwhacked for a good 2 hours up then went up through snow for another couple hours. At the top we had a glorious lunch of mountain vegetables, eggs, sausages, beer, peanuts, Easter colored M&Ms and Rosemary bread. Then back down, I slid on my tarp down the snow. However sadly the wind took the tarp from me on my last journey :(. Also on the way down, Shun Chan said we would take the super express (i.e. some form of trail) but there actually wasn't a trail and we had to go down for 3 hours through thick brush, and it seemed like almost by accident that we eventually ended back at the car. We didn't leave without picking some nice mountain vegetables first. I'm now the newest member of the freaking club...yay!



Also, my friend Sarah came during Golden week and we did lots of fun things including driving through 12 prefectures in 2 days! I will more pictures up later!!!!