The Proposal

So I realized that I haven't shared my proposal story yet, and it's a good one (in my opinion!), so prepare yourself...

Let me set the scene. It was 2008, and D and I were just coming off a year of living in Japan. We spent the year teaching English, and it was a year of many firsts. First time living away from home, first time living together. It was amazing. So, our time in Japan was coming to an end, and we packed up our apartment and decided to spend our last week in Tokyo before heading home.

View of Tokyo from Odaiba

The first thing we wanted to do in Tokyo was to climb Mt Fuji. It was something we had been planning all year, and although we hadn't necessarily 'trained' for it, we had been mentally preparing for the long hike since deciding to attempt the climb. (Seriously... climbing Fuji is pretty difficult, and every Japanese person we told said we were crazy, and we had friends who had tried and failed many times. Yeah... intimidating). So we prepared ourselves, bought climbing supplies, and bought bus tickets, and Operation:Fuji was ON!

Getting ready to climb. How sexy are we?

So we climbed. And climbed and climbed. Based on advice, we timed our climb to start at night to get to the summit for sunrise. The climb itself is around 8 hours, so we started at 8 PM to give ourselves lots of time. Little did I know, the whole time D has something very special in his backpack! We probably picked one of the worst times to climb, but we were determined to make it to the top. It was pouring rain the whole time, and totally miserable (hence our rain coats). Even though it was August, it was freezing, but as we started hiking, it was hot so we were sweating, but it was cold because it was raining. So yuck!

Hours and hours and hours later, we were making progress. We had reached the summit, and even though the sun had already risen (it took us a while to get there) it was still cloudy so we couldn't really tell what was happening. Suddenly, the clouds started to part and blue sky peeked through. We did it!


By this point, it had taken us 10 hours to climb the mountain. We had already been up since the previous morning when we traveled from Tokyo to Fuji, so we were going on 24 hours. I was sweaty, tired, hungry, cold, and a little bit sick from the altitude, so I didn't want to do anything except sit in the little huts they have at the top and eat some miso soup. Not a happy camper. Of course, D had other plans. He went out to explore to summit (I later found out he was 'scoping' locations) and came back and tried to get me out of the hut. I was so out of it, I told him to go ahead and enjoy it without me, I was too tired, I promised I wouldn't be upset that I missed it, etc. He finally convinced me to get up and go with him, so I did.

We walked to the edge of the mountaintop and just enjoyed the view. It was amazing! We took a ton of pictures, and enjoyed the warmth of the sun that was finally starting to shine through. We were above the clouds but below another level of clouds, which was so weird. But still amazing. While we were enjoying the view, D started acting all lovey dovey and a bit out of the ordinary, but I was so out of it myself, I didn't really think anything was up. By this point, he had put the ringbox in his pocket, and was ready to go. Finally, he took my hands, got down on one knee, and said some of the most sweetest things. Of course, I can't remember. But of course, I said yes! And believe it or not, I didn't even cry... and I am a BIG crier. I think it was because I was so tired and not feeling great, and it didn't really hit me what was actually happening.

So happy!

I think it was such a perfect way to propose and it's definitely a great story that we will always have. It was a great way to cap off our year in Japan, and I definitely earned that ring! After a 10 hour hike, in the pouring rain, through sweat, tears, and just overall yuckiness, I deserved that ring! I wonder if I had known he had that ring in his backpack if it would have made the climb easier? Not sure...

And best ever, we kept the engagement a secret because we were going home in a few days, so we didn't tell anyone. When we finally got home, we had a HUGE entourage of people waiting at the airport - all of our parents, my grandparents, an aunt, some brothers and sisters. Seriously, ridiculous. So we came out of the doors, and everyone started cheering (well, not really cheering, but you know...), and then they stopped, so we were kind of awkwardly standing there, and I just blurted out 'We're engaged!' It was such a funny way to tell a big chunk of our families, and a great memory!

Anyways, if you made it through this marathon post, thank you. It was kind of a doozy! Tell me your proposal story, I love them all.