Mt. Fuji with Martine

first day
Martine and I met at around (;-) … martine) 730 at some Starbucks near Shinjuku station.
After some hot chocolate we went to the highway-bus-terminal, where we bot on the bus to Kawaguchiko, some town near a lake belwo Mt. Fuji. The day before we had booked a hostel there at the tourist information, who also helped us with the busses.
After a short walk we checked in at the hostel, a small, flat building, run by a grandpa in his 70ies-80ies. Seemed like an older english couple where the only ones at that place.
Looking for some place to have lunch at the lake, most restaurants were closed, as we were out of season. After some japanese lunch we had a nice walk around a part of the lake and across a bridge. As it had stopped raining right when we went out for lunch, and the cloud had risen, we had an really interesting view over the lake. With the coulds hanging in he hills around it’s been a really interesting athmosphere!
To some japanese ppl we must have looked like aliens, as they were greating us as they’d never seen redheaded girl and a tall man before!
In the evening the friendly old man running the hostel, helped us heating the burritos we’d bought before for dinner. With a bottle of Sake (I think it was, as we couldnt read the label, but it was standing beween other sake bottles) we had a nice movie on the notebook.
second day
Getting awake with loud classical music at the floor and some announcement throu some really loud loudspeaker a really nice day started. The clouds had disappeared, and the sun was shining from a blue sky!
Together with the english couple we had a kinda mixed japanese/western breakfast, wich gave us the power we’d need later that day! Leaving my bags in some locker at the station, we got on the bus to 5th station on Mt. Fuji, arriving about one hour later.
When we got to the 5th station, there where clouds all around us. But jut this mad a really amazing atmosphere!!! getinng a walk up the Fuji in these foggy forests was just amazing, sometimes supenly sun was shinig, as some free spot in the clouds opened. hiking further up the mountain, trees got few and disappeared. as Martine really loves hiking in mountains (as there are so few in Holland 😉 ) she made me climbing up to 7th station with her! she ‘s in a really good condition, unlike me ;-)… but i made it. arriving there, getting really cold, having some snowballing, the clouds opened just for us and gave us an amazing view on the top of Mt. Fuji, the sun right above it! (there are quite few fotos in the gallery, as i took most pics with the good old analog cam). After a shorter walk back down to 5th, we had some hot coffe waring us, waiting for the bus back to Kawaguchiko. Back there we had dinner in some nice japanese restaurant with an beatuiful view on Mt. Fiju with sunset right aside it. After another bustrip back to Tokyo, we divided and i went to my new hostel.

Online again …

some relaxed days with fred-frencho
*smile
yesterday we went to some handcrafts-market (really impresive .. they got a REALLY big choice here … you can get everything… Obi is nothing!).
afterwards we had lunch in some nice small japanese lunch-bar in yoyogi.
in the afternoon we walked to some nearby park with an ols shrine in it. after we had a look at the youthhostel there we managed to get back to ours at around 1900 with hurting feets… we really walked a lot that day.
to relax a bit before going to bed, we watched some movie on the notebook.

this morning i first answered some e-mails from Martine, trying to set up some meeting. (it’s really hard without mobilephones, i can remember how thing were working before mobile-communication), afterwards we walked to downtown Tokyo, passing a beautiful park and the emperors palace.
after a visit in a BIG bookstore (having a look at some nice photoalbums with fred (he studied design)) we split up, with me travelling to Shinjuku, where i set up the meeting with Martine. Right around the corner there’s a beatiful hotspot, with some trees and banks to hang out and relax. (see pic below)

The first few days

Stuggi-London
met Rob & Oli, guys from Karlsruhe, doing the same round the world ticket but other direction (starting in LA)
London-Tokyo
got to know Martine, a girl from Holland, who was sitting aside me. this way the flight didn’t take too long but as things startet out so nice als already guesse there was something to come. (Murphies Law!)
arriving in Tokyo me and some others from Stuggi realised the our baggage had stayed in Heathrow 😉 … so i made it to the hostel without any heavy backpack.
the nice thing about is that my bag arrived that evening without hassle, and i had nothing to carry 😉
Tokyo
The first day in Tokyo i slept from 1700 till 500 in the morning, getting awake with a amazing beatiful sunrise over Tokyo in front of my window on the 18th floor!
video1
video2
The first day i managed to buy some LonelyPlanet on Tokyo&area and a power adaptor for the notebook.
it’s been really funny to read the LP on Germany, especielly the part regarding Stuggi. They even had the “Palast der Republik” as a tip in there!!!
today i tried to buy some mobile-phone, but i realised that those thing cost nearly double the price they cost in good old europe! as do MP3 USB sticks! 🙁 ill have a look when im in oz … maybe the prices there are better … else i need some carepacket from germany.
searching for WLAN
in the afternoon i was walking the hotel-district of Shinjuku, looking for some free WLAN hotspots. i found some outside, but as this was not tooo comfortable, im now sitting in some cafe below the hilton tokyo, having a hot chocolate with free internet.

The journey starts!!!

W-LAN at Stuttgart Airport!
Niceee! I got W-LAN access at the airport. Just typing a few words, letting the world (löl) know i made it at least to the airport.
Hope my luck will ast further 😉 …

Cya m8s, read you soon.

A really relaxed 4th semester

Summertime … weather is fine!
My 4th semester is starting with a really nice summer! Most of the time its quite warm/hot, really nice to hang out at the university between the lectures.
As theres no university thursdays and fridays, the weekends got quite long! 3 days university and 4 days weekend! But after this quite stressing 3rd semester we really needed this!
While learning for the last test, i got the idea to stop studying for a year, and to travel through Austrlia! I’m really looking forward to getting my backpack stuffed, travelling around, seeing new places and meeting new ppl.
As my father gave me the tip about some information-day for students at the Australian Embassy in Berlin, i spent a few days there. Just arriving at the youth-hostel, i met a nice guy (also named Tim) from Australia. Getting into dialogue we decided to pass the afternoon in Berlin together.
We had a look at the Reichstag, the Brandenburger Tor and Checkpoint Charly. In between we had some nice talks and (of course) some cold beers. We walked the bars till 1:00 (i had to get to bed a little earlier, as the info-day started at 10:00).
The day at the embassy was really useful! 3 of the 6 universities, represented there, were offering aeronautics. Might be interesting to have a look at them when travelling there!

What happend since december 2002

Dec/jan i moved to my new room. My dad really helped much, and we also had kinda fun, painting walls and constructing tables out of what we had in the garage.
Then i had to finish some construction for university till the end of semester(the flaps-mechanism for a small aircraft). Afterwards i had 1-2 Weeks to relax before the learning for the examinations began.
In between i manged to go snowboading to Engelberg (CH) with some firends! Haven’t been on board for about 2 years, but all went fine … i didn’t forget how to do it!
The only bad thing about this trip is, that Sergio (Espace ’87) lost it’s exhaust right in front of Olli’s door! 😉 So the trip back was quite loud!
Right now, I passed the first two tests. TM exam should be OK, but with maths3 i’m quite unhappy. Hope ET, TD and FGK will work out better!

Sergio, Europe and InfCon

Sergio (the Renault Espace ’87) survived the trip throu southern Europe, the holidays are over and InfCon lays behind me.
The trip with Kathi, Aiko and Sergio was a really interesting “on-the-road-holiday”. The car did it’s Job and even more, we had a funny time camping in the wilderness or at some campground and we even saw some cultural stuff like the Guggenheimuseum in Bilbao. Our way took us across the Alps to Italy down to the mediterrean sea, where we followed the coast throu France till Spain (Alfaz del Pi), there we visited my Parents for 3 days. After that we went throu Madrid driving further NW to Santander, from where we followed the atlanic coast till Bordeaux. As the weather got bad around there we took a hard daytrip of about 1200km directly back home.