なんだか連日続く富士山エントリーに自ら飽きてきましたが、富士山7合目（2700m）から8合目（3020m）の登山もまさにそんな感じ。登っても登っても同じ景色、頂上は遥か遠く。でも後ろを振り返れば
こんな高い所まで来ちゃったんだ！という驚き。ちなみにこの辺りを登っていて頭の中をぐるぐるした歌は「
およげ！たいやきくん」とゴダイゴの「ガンダーラ」。暗い選曲はナゼだろう。空腹感はないけれどエネルギーが必要なので山小屋に到着するたびにチョロチョロッと栄養補給。酸素が薄いかも、と思い始めたので酸素缶を吸ってみました。無味無臭なので吸ってるんだかなんだかよくわからず、元気になったかどうかもわからず。8合目（3020m）に到着したのは17:30頃で、すいぶん
暗くなって来ました。「上に行けば行くほど混んでるからココで泊まってけ」という押し売りを断って、泊まろうと思っていた富士山ホテル（3400m）への到着したのは19:30。登り始めてから5時間20分経過してました。
I'm getting a little bit bored with writing Mt Fuji entries, and I felt the same during our climb from the 7th (2700m) to the 8th (3020m) station. Although we climbed for hours, the scenery didn't change and the summit was still so far away. But when I looked down, I could see
how far we had climbed. There were two songs repeating in my head. One was a 4.54 million sales kid song from the 70's,
Swim! Taiyaki kun (
Taiyaki is a fish-shaped sweet), and the other was
Gandhara by Godaigo (the ending theme of 'Saiyuuki', a Japanese TV series known as '
MONKEY', also from the 70s). Both songs are not very uplifting... I wasn't hungry but it's important to take energy, so I had a break at each of the mountain huts. I felt that there was less and less oxgen, so I opened my oxygen spray can and breathed extra oxygen. But it has no taste and no smell, so I don't know if I was actually breathing pure oxgen! At 17:30, we reached the 8th station (3020m). It was
getting dark. At 19:30 we finally arrived at the hut called 'Fujisan Hotel' (which is not really a hotel). It had been 5 hours and 20 minutes from the starting point.
