Fuji-san - Japan

Here we have Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan, as seen from a small village called Oshino. One thing that my study abroad advisor told me that really stuck with me was, "Studying is important, but also try to take classes that you can only take in Japan." Japanese Folklore was one of those classes. One weekend, we went on a field trip all the way to Mount Fuji. We had to take a two-hour train ride by ourselves, but after we arrived, our professor had readied three rental cars for us, and he was paying for the rest of the trip. We got to go many places including a local Shinto shrine, the village of Oshino, the Narusawa Ice Caves, Aokigahara, and also Mount Fuji. Mount Fuji was still closed at this point, so we only got to go up halfway, but it was still quite the experience. I've studied a lot about Japanese culture, and I've met many Japanese people prior to my year abroad in Japan, so nothing really surprised me. But it wasn't until the very moment that I took this photo that I finally got a clear look at Mount Fuji with my own eyes; that I finally thought, "Wow, I'm really in Japan."