Posted on June 18, 2008 - by trisnadi
Japan Day 2 – Mount Fuji Tour
The itenary for our second day in Japan was the Mount Fuji tour. We woke up feeling a lot better and quickly got ready. We had to be at the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka by 8am to be picked up by the tour bus. We started the day with breakfast – bread at the hotel which we bought last night and coffee from Starbucks on the way to the meeting point. The girl at Starbucks was very nice, taught me a bit of Japanese language 
But hey, everyone in Japan seems nice.
So we walked to Akasaka Grand Prince hotel which was only a few minutes away and waited to be picked up by the tour bus. On the way there, we stopped to take a photo near a cherry blossom tree and I saw a big ING billboard near our hotel. Geez…it seems like I can’t escape from work! Anyway, the tour leader didn’t look very Japanese! But it turned out he wasn’t our guide for the day. The weather forecast for that day was showers, but it didn’t rain. We were also notified later on by the tour guide that we’re able to drive to Station 4 (2200m above sea level) on Mount Fuji, whereas previously only Station 1 was open due to the bad weather. So from the Sunrise Tour terminal, we headed off to Mount Fuji on a long drive, passing through a tunnel (see picture) and arrived at the Mount Fuji Information Center. I got excited with the sight of Hello Kitty goodies at the souvenier shop (tourist trap?). Then we went to the 4th Station on Mount Fuji. As we ascended, we could see patches snow on the side of the road. We got off the bus at the 4th Station and it was freezing outside – winter wonderland. There were plenty of snow and the corn cobs on sale looked like a yummy relief from the cold. We spent around 1/2 hour there and then went to a nearby hotel for lunch. We sat on one table with 2 Sydney couples and 2 other people from the US. After that we travelled to Lake Ashi and I enjoyed the view along the way. The souvenir shop at Lake Ashi was very inviting. We wanted to stay and browse but only had 9 minutes to spare, so it was a mad rush trying to decide what to buy (Hello Kitty was on top of the list). We went on a ferry to the other side of the lake, browsed through more souvenier shops (which we didn’t mind doing) and then rode on a cable car to the top of the hill and back again. Towards the end of the tour, we went to Hakone and boarded a shinkansen back to Tokyo station. Those trains are amazingly fast! Their normal speed is around 300 km/h, but apparently they slow down (210 km/h) as they pass through a station. Even then it was difficult for us to take a good snapshot of it. In the evening we met up with Kim/Dwina for dinner. They took the same tour as us, but travelled with a different group. We were planning to have dinner at Yabu Soba but they were closing as we arrived at the restaurant. A quick look at our Lonely Planet book revealed that there’s another good restaurant nearby called Marugo and it’s famous for their tonkatsu. The restaurant is located near Akihabara and took us a while to look for the restaurant because we’re not familiar with Japanese street address system. We actually walked past the restaurant a couple of times when circling the block but because the shop doesn’t have a very visible number and the shop name is written in kanji, we weren’t too sure. We decided to bite the bullet and walk in and fortunately it is the right shop. Finally we could enjoy a good dinner meal.
Photos
