Mt Fuji was our destination today, and we were very excited. We slid out of bed at 7am, still feeling tired from the soccer last night.
Whilst heading down for breakfast, we ran into Scott in the foyer, so decided to have some breakfast with him. But it didn’t take long to realise we were running late, so it was a rushed breakfast.
This Mt Fuji tour was a 7-hour trip to Mt Fuji and some of the surrounding areas, so unfortunately it meant plenty of time on a bus again, which was less than ideal after the experience yesterday.
We walked to Shinjuki Station as a group, then after a bit of waiting, boarded the bus and headed to our first stop which was about 2.5 hours away.
Everyone was tired. We felt bad for the poor tour guide who was speaking to us when half of us were asleep in our seats.
Luckily for us it was a lovely day with little to no clouds or fog, so we would get good views of Mt Fuji throughout our bus trip. The tour guide was very informative, even repeating things several times so we’d understand.
The first stop was the base of Mt Fuji at one of the stations. For some reason unbeknown to us, we were only given 30-minutes to explore, so we didn’t get long.
We checked out a souvenir shop and also went for a walk with Scott along one of the paths, before we had to turn around and comeback due to running out of time.
It was then back onto the bus and off to our next stop; lunch. We were all given a lovely little Japanese lunch, then headed off to our next stop at Lake Ashie.
Along the bus trip we had an epic view of Mt Fuji at one of the little stops, plus our tour guide taught us a Mt Fuji song, before we arrived at Lake Ashie for our ferry trip.
We caught a little ferry to Mt Hakone, where we then caught a cable car to the top. This gave us amazing 360 degree views of the area of what was some of the best scenery we had ever seen.
The next half hour was spent walking around at the top, checking out a temple in the middle of nowhere and also nearly getting blown away with what felt like cyclone winds.
Our Mt Fuji tour was now up. Despite the tour originally saying we’d get the bullet train back to Shinjuku, there must have been a mix up, meaning we had to get back on that damn bus for another tour hours.
To say everyone was annoyed was an understatement.
Mt Fuji Photos
When we got back, we all went our separate ways and agreed to catch up again at 7:30pm. We went back to our room for a rest, with Linda having a sleep.
The only people to show up at 7:30pm were Cam, Scott and Dean. So, we decided to go to a pizza restaurant for tea, then caught the train to the Shibuya Crossing; the busiest intersection in the world.
Unfortunately, we didn’t really get the full effect, as it was belting down rain and there weren’t that many people there.
We grabbed a coffee at Starbucks and listened to some music in the music shop downstairs, with everyone taking a liking to some pop band called Black Pink.
Scott told us he knew of an Irish Pub about a 15-minute walk away, so we agreed to walk there. Turns out it was actually an hour away and we finally rocked up drenched from the pouring rain.
We spent the next hour or so here having a Guinness and talking crap with the owner, who actually have us good advice for our UK & Ireland trip next year.
Then it was time to call it a night. We said goodbye to Dean, then went to Hungry Jacks with Cam and Scott, before finally hitting bed at 2am.
Mt Hakone Photos
More Photos from Day Four
