Mt. Fuji

We left for a Japanese Mt. Fuji tour because it was less than half the cost of the English tour and had more things to see.  Luckily Miki joined us so we weren't completely left in the dark.  We found and boarded the bus by ourselves near Ueno Park and picked up Miki and the rest of the tour about an hour later.  It was a long bus ride to Mt. Fuji and we stopped at a rest room that had detailed pictures of how to use a western toiled.  The most memorable photo illustrated that it was incorrect to stand on top of the toilet seat and squat.

On the drive up the mountain, there are some kind of bumps in the road that play a traditional Mt. Fuji song when you drive over it.  The song is not very clear, but it does sound like low humming.  There are ten "stops" on Mt. Fuji that people can rest at and view the scenery.  They are indicative of the high you have reached on the mountain.  The first five you can drive to, so we went all the way up to the fifth stop.  It is very high and the roads twist and turn, and are kind of scary to drive in a huge bus.  Sometimes it seemed like we were a foot away from going over the edge at the side of the road.  We drove up higher than the clouds, as Mt. Fuji's peak is usually shrouded in fog/clouds.  It is very rare to see Mt. Fuji unobstructed.  At the fifth stop there are a couple of gift shops and eating places.  Miki waited in a long line up so we could get fresh melon bread shaped in Mt. Fuji, which is incredibly popular.  The stop was very cold an foggy.  Most of the time all we could see was fog.  We couldn't see the cities and towns below, and couldn't see the peak above us either.  The weather changes very quickly on the mountain however, and one second it will be foggy with nothing to see, the next it is sunny.  So we did catch a couple seconds of a glimpse of the peak and out overlooking the land below.  It was very hard to capture this on film however because it happened so quickly!

After we went to a very famous jewellery store.  The outside was landscaped with semi-precious stones.  Everyone oooed and awwed at the design, but we thought it was a tad gaudy and tacky, very Vegas/70's.  We didn't buy anything, but many of the other tour guests did.  We waited at that place for an hour (longer than we were at Mt. Fuji!) and left to go to a nearby lake.  We can look over the lake and see the mountain and a large lavender field (although they weren't in bloom).  We had lavender soft serve ice cream which was very delicious!

After we went to a winery, and toured how and where they made wine and stored it.  Greg and Miki sampled many wine, and we bought a few for my parents and a really yummy peach wine for us!