MOSQUITO in the house

We got back from skiing at Fuji yesterday, and right after bringing everything back in the house, William starts yelling, "Caw! Caw!"

Even though it was a good impression of a crow, I couldn't quite figure it out, until I remembered: 'Ka' is mosquito in Japanese.

Yep, the bugger got William. He was a bruiser, too. Big! I thought it was a fly as I chased him from room to room. We have dark (black/tan) rugs, so I couldn't see him very well, until he got near our cream colored walls. I knew the victory of vengeance when I had to scrub the blood/black gunk from the wall.

So, I guess mosquito season starts now.

Tim is preparing a great video and upload of what we did up at the mountain. Merely 1:45 away, or 2:15 with a bit of rush hour, is Yeti, a small (2 chair lift) ski slope. BTW, it costs ¥3,000 each way in tolls, with an additional ¥1500 in toll and parking. We stayed at Camp Fuji. Camp Fuji is a Marine base across from a Japanese base on the shoulder of Mt. Fuji.

The view from our 'dorm/hotel type' room was phenomenal. We mentioned to the young man checking us in how he must love waking up every morning and seeing such a beautiful site, which he promptly replied, "Yeah, it's not so special when you know you have to run up it." I decided at that point to just enjoy the view, and not blemish it with any physical activity.

William was excited to be out of the car and showed it by op-checking the bed for spring load rebound. The place had been shut down for a few months, so it was freezing. The bed wasn't my king-sized one. But the view was worth it. 30 people came at the same time, 12 rooms, 8 cars. We had potlucks for 2 nights. I told Tim it was like a church social with booze. But the people drinking weren't the ones making the noise!

The kids saw the hallway as their personal race track, and William is a runner. One night, the teenaged girls were running and screaming. 10% of the population was teenaged boys. Yep, for anyone who has ever chaperoned a teenager school trip, you know that we erred by not bringing our earplugs.

With the bed situation, I got little sleep. I kept waking up at midnight, and finally getting back to sleep at 5, with William waking at 5:30 each morning, except Sunday. That was when first reveille was at 6. Now you know why the per night charge was so low... whilst they don't provide a phone line with a personal wake up call in each room, the US Marine Corps bugler provides a free wake up call on loudspeaker each morning at 5:30, 6:00, and 6:30.