The final photo shows the famous view of Mt Fuji across the lake, so if anyone can photoshop it in for us and email it back we will be grateful!
Seeing Mt Fuji is of course high on our list of things to do in Japan. But its not so easy, as we have discovered.
Actually I have seen it already, from the window of our 747 as we approached the Tokyo area (aircraft have a rather wonderful GPS system which they display when they are not showing those ludicrous films they select so you can see where you are etc). Gazing out across the coastline in the early dawn light I saw Mt Fuji rising snowy above the low clouds, a rather magnificent view but a fleeting and distant one.
And on our first day of sightseeing in Tokyo, which was clear and bright, Junko announced that she had seen Fuji clearly from her third floor bedroom window early that morning (at all of 100km distant), only for it to rapidly disappear.
So on Friday we set off for Shinjuku station to catch a train to the Hakone National Park below Fuji. You buy a Free Pass ticket for about 35 pounds which takes you there and back and allows you to ride an amazing array of trains, mountain railways, buses, cable cars, funiculars and even a fake galleon to cruise the lake (which provides one of the most famous Fuji views).
As we approached the Park however the weather became ever more cloudy and by the evening there was a distinct feeling of rain in the hills. No matter, we had a wonderful journey there ending on a bus which announced every stop in English, even adding the name of our Ryokan, or traditional Japanese Guest House, at our stop. It was a great friendly place, lovely traditional room, no en-suites but with both an indoor and outdoor Onsen, a bath fed by natural hot springs and with water heavy with sulphur and minerals in which you gently broil yourself pink. You book a private half hour session so you can be outdoors and naked!
A group of Australians/Canadians/Swiss arrived a little later, travelliing around the country as Intrepid Tours, and we spent the evening in the sitting area chatting and playing Chinese Poker.
We began the next day with another go in the Onsen before breakfast, out in the now heavy rain! And then set off to explore the area by every mode of transport on offer and of course realising that a view of Fuji was absolutely out of the question, with the rain and clouds thickening by the hour. But it was great fun, such an amazingly beautiful, wet and green area, even passing in a cable car over one valley thick with sulphur mining (by the look of it). And the transport system has to be seen to be believed, full of course of elderly Japanese and others pouring into the area despite the rain.
Brian
Actually I have seen it already, from the window of our 747 as we approached the Tokyo area (aircraft have a rather wonderful GPS system which they display when they are not showing those ludicrous films they select so you can see where you are etc). Gazing out across the coastline in the early dawn light I saw Mt Fuji rising snowy above the low clouds, a rather magnificent view but a fleeting and distant one.
And on our first day of sightseeing in Tokyo, which was clear and bright, Junko announced that she had seen Fuji clearly from her third floor bedroom window early that morning (at all of 100km distant), only for it to rapidly disappear.
So on Friday we set off for Shinjuku station to catch a train to the Hakone National Park below Fuji. You buy a Free Pass ticket for about 35 pounds which takes you there and back and allows you to ride an amazing array of trains, mountain railways, buses, cable cars, funiculars and even a fake galleon to cruise the lake (which provides one of the most famous Fuji views).
As we approached the Park however the weather became ever more cloudy and by the evening there was a distinct feeling of rain in the hills. No matter, we had a wonderful journey there ending on a bus which announced every stop in English, even adding the name of our Ryokan, or traditional Japanese Guest House, at our stop. It was a great friendly place, lovely traditional room, no en-suites but with both an indoor and outdoor Onsen, a bath fed by natural hot springs and with water heavy with sulphur and minerals in which you gently broil yourself pink. You book a private half hour session so you can be outdoors and naked!
A group of Australians/Canadians/Swiss arrived a little later, travelliing around the country as Intrepid Tours, and we spent the evening in the sitting area chatting and playing Chinese Poker.
We began the next day with another go in the Onsen before breakfast, out in the now heavy rain! And then set off to explore the area by every mode of transport on offer and of course realising that a view of Fuji was absolutely out of the question, with the rain and clouds thickening by the hour. But it was great fun, such an amazingly beautiful, wet and green area, even passing in a cable car over one valley thick with sulphur mining (by the look of it). And the transport system has to be seen to be believed, full of course of elderly Japanese and others pouring into the area despite the rain.
Brian
ps Success! Mt Fuji clearly visible from Junko`s bedroom window this very sunny Sunday morning.
1 comment:
That meal sounds wonderful, I hope you can replicate some of the meals you have sampled on your travels because we will be expecting samples – how would it go down on the WI market stall?!!!
XX Cath
Post a Comment