I forgot to update!

Hello everyone. I'm still alive! I haven't updated in a long time, so I'll give you the highlights.

In July, I climbed Mount Fuji! It's a whopping 3776 metres tall, and according to an Australian I know, you start climbing Mount Fuji at the altitude where you finish climbing Mount Kosciuszko! And, another thing that surprised me was, even though I left my mobile phone at the base camp, one of the people selling food at the top was using their mobile phone...at the top!
This is a picture from the top of Mount Fuji. It's high up, needless to say! We arrived at the top just in time for sunrise.
This is the crater in the middle. It's bigger than it looks; I heard someone say that it takes an hour to go around, so, naturally after our 6-hour climb, not many people felt like trying!
This was unexpected; there is a beach umbrella, of all things, at the highest point in Japan. It is summer, after all. There's also vending machine where you can buy a small bottle of Coke for 6 Aussie dollars...The slogan should be, "NOT always Coca-Cola."...
There is this big building on the summit, where I think you can pay to stay the night, but you can also buy hot food like noodles. According to some of the people that were with me that bought some, the food wasn't that good especially since it was expensive, but after this climbing experience, I've learned that all food tastes better when on a high mountain...

This is me with a friend from church (who is also skillfully holding the camera). I didn't take a beanie with me (stupid!), but an Australian friend from church lent me her beanie, as you can see. Isn't it beautiful?

Next is my first ever surfing experience.

After this picture was taken, I stood up a bit higher, before burying the nose of the board in the sand. I didn't even think I'd be able to stand up, but the whole lot of us were getting beginner's lessons from Christian Surfers Japan.
That's me in the front looking bored. (I was listening, I swear!) After the surfing, we went to this beach-house, veranda thingy and had a great barbeque lunch. Despite the fact that heaps of the people were Japanese, I felt like I was back in Australia. That did me a lot of good. The first thing I want to do when I get home is have a barbeque! (Some guys were playing cricket earlier, in the background of the photo. I should have gone and played with them! It's so rare for me to see a backyard, or anything that looks like one. In public parks, there's no grass...)
In this photo, we're listening to someone's testimony. (Actually he's the same guy that taught me to surf that day!)
The man with the red sunnies on the far left of the screen is our pastor, and the woman standing behind him is his wife.

Anyway, I'll have lots of new photos on the way: This coming week I'm playing drums on a Youth Alive tour! We're going to 3 cities in Japan...