Day 6 - Lake Kawaguchiko and Mt Fuji

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Early start to catch the Fuji Excursion train to Kawaghchiko. We managed to get our 3 days supplies into my big bag and 3 back-packs, after forwarding our other two bags to Kyoto. We left the hotel at 7:20 and reached Platform 9 at Shinjuku for the Fuji Excursion train with 30 minutes to spare. We departed on schedule at 8:30. The train is very comfortable, and the seats are7 wide enough, with the arm-rest up, for Oscar to sit between Krissy and Daisy. Oscar is young enough for a free ride, but no seat. You can take this train without a reserved seat but there is a risk you have to stand for the entire journey. About 45 minutes out, the terrain gets hilly and bushy and it feels like you've left Tokyo.

We arrived in Kawaguchiko at 10:30 and we started walking to Budget Rentals to pick-up our hire car. It was then that Krissy realised she had left her International drivers licence in her luggage sent to Kyoto. She was sure they wouldn't give us a car because it seems the Japanese play things strictly to the rules. I said we still have to try as it would make things very hard here without a car. We were in luck, as we had a young man who was working on his own, and he bent the rules for us. We said we could send him a photo of the licence asap.

By then it was already 11:10, so we decided to try another one of Krissy's friend's recommendations, The Park at Lake Yamanaka. It has a great view of Mt Fuji with the lake in front. At this time however, it was quite cloudy, so was somewhat obscured but still impressive for its sheer size.

There was queue and took about 30 minutes to get a table. We had a sausages, egg, salad on pancakes and their speciality which is described as a souffle pancake and it was worth waiting for.

Next was a visit to Oshino Hakkai which is old village built around eight crystal clear springs (ponds). A beautiful spot and by this time, the sun came out and the clouds gradually cleared away giving us superb views of Fuji.

The next planned stop was the Fuji ropeway but we didn’t realise it closed at 4pm and that was in 10 minutes. Krissy found out The Music Forest was open until 5.30pm, so we decided to visit there as we would have an hour ti look around. This museum looks amazing, as all the buildings look like 15th century French biildings. They have collected antique music making machines from all over the world and they demonstrations and shows. We were too late for all that but we got discounted night view tickets and still enjoyed looking around such an interesting collection of buildings and machines.

It was now 6pm and we originally planned to go to the Churieto Pagoda tomorrow morning but the weather forecast is cloudy so Krissy and I decided to give it a go. We thought we'd be able to drive up but we were blocked and had to park 100m away. Daisy knew her knees weren't up to walking up 398 steps, so she looked Oscar while Krissy and I went up.

It was then my camera battery ran out, but no wirries as I carry a spare. This time however, to my disappointment, my spare was alsi dead. Sonething must gone wrong when I charged it the night before. I just had to use my phone this time. The climb up was pretty tough but I made it. Still lots of people on the viewing platform but much better than during the day I imagine. It's funny because because everyone is basically getting the same photo or similar to all the ones you see in travel magazines. It's really one of those ticking the boxes activities. That's probably why I wasn't terribly disappointed I didn’t get shots with my "good" camera.

After that it was dark and we had no success finding a good restaurant without a long wait, so we just got some instant noodles again and tuna and fruit to eat at Akaisha Ryokan.

This is our first stay at a ryokan. We are all in the one room. There was a low table we were able to use to have our food. While Daisy prepared the noodles I went for a 10 minute walk to a Lawson store to withdraw more cash as we need cash to pay the ryokan.

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Comments

[Graeme Sandstrom]

Day 6
Oh my goodness, such beautiful shots Ray. What amazing places! So I imagine that you and Daisy are doing the driving until she gets her licence? How do you find the driving over there? I know that they also drive on our side of the road. Looks like a great holiday.