Toyko, Japan - March 8

21 degrees, sunny and glorious

Last night we hooked up with a few people we have met along the the trip and decided to try to get on the same bus today. Wow, did a bus full of happy, polite people make all the difference to the day. Of course the sun probably made a bit of a difference.

Today was all about Fuji-san - or Mount

Fuji. 

reading my fortune

The drive to Mount Fuji was about 2 hours from the hotel along a very good and not too busy highway. We made a pit stop part way there. This was more like a small shopping mall than a gas station-I don't even remember seeing gas. The washrooms themselves were an attraction as there were so many of them that here was an 'availability' board for which stall was available - not really necessary, but interesting. 

tying my fortune

There was a Starbucks, but out guide told us about high-tech vending machines that we decided to get coffees from. This machine talked to us (in Japanese) and showed a video of what was going on while a timer counted down to completion. Then a door opened and ta-da...coffee that tasted great.

A few moments later down the highway a bit I caught my first glimpse of Fuji-san. It was quite something. We were in the midst of a lot of smallish bare mountains, but then all of a sudden there it was...clearly the biggest and snow covered. The road suddenly became a whole lot more interesting...very much reminded me of the drive to the Rocky Mountains. In fact, when we got off of the bus for the pit stop the air smelled just like it would getting out of a car in the Rockies. We got up as far as about 2100 metres

It was amazing that the day was as clear as it was considering how awful it was yesterday. Today we were about to see the whole of the mountain through crystal clear air.

Japanese toilet instructions

We rode a cable car to a lookout point where I bought a fortune. Apparently I'm 'moderately' lucky. After you read your fortune you tied to a wire.

Lunch was a Japanese buffet - every single thing I ate was delicious!!

Finally we took a short cruise down a lake which paled in comparison to the rest of the day.

selfie

On the way back to Tokyo we made another pit stop. This one was about 4 times the size of where we stopped in the morning, but we had half the time. I think our bus beer days are over...doesn't seem to be a Japanese thing.   

magic

music class

Our guides today were fantastic. We had 3 – seemed because people don’t follow instructions (not me of course!!) and get on a bus other than the one they were assigned…Therefore, there was a packed bus (ours) and an empty one. So the guide from the empty bus joined ours – why they didn’t spread people out is beyond me. In the end they made the trip for us. At one point one guide taught us the Mount Fuji song that we all sung) and at another the other guide did magic tricks. We learned numbers and some Japanese symbols. Seem that in Japan some guides like to fill empty time. Most of the time they are giving info, but during some down times they tell jokes, sing or do magic!

Karen - you are right...being in Asia for New Year was pretty special!