Japan Trip: Mt. Fuji and Hakone

For the fourth day of our trip to Japan, we headed over to Mt. Fuji and Hakone at the Kanagawa Prefecture, both several kilometers outside Tokyo. Unlike our city tour where it was just my family and I accompanied by a tour guide, this time we were part of a large group--three buses (all from the same tour company) full of tourists from several countries, in fact. Our bus, though, had mostly Filipino passengers, with a few other nationalities mixed in. The other buses had several Filipino passengers as well.

Since our hotel is at the northern part of Tokyo and is quite far from where the other tourists on our bus were staying, we were picked up from our hotel at 7:20 AM, and the next 60-90 minutes were spent going to different hotels around Tokyo to pick up all the other tourists. We were then brought to a drop-off point somewhere in Tokyo, where we boarded another bus that would actually take us to Mt. Fuji and Hakone. Our first stop, Mt. Fuji, is more than an hour away from Tokyo by car.

Here are some photos I took along the way:

The streets of Ginza were empty on Easter Sunday. The long drive around Tokyo really helped me appreciate how beautiful this city is!

Ginza is a primary shopping district in Tokyo with large boutiques and department stores. This Gap store was just one of the many multi-level standalone stores that I saw in Ginza.

Since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami which resulted in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, some Japanese have begun protesting against nuclear energy. This photo was taken in a part of Tokyo where several government offices are located.

Instead of travelling on the expressway throughout the journey, the drivers of the three buses decided to take a detour to avoid a massive traffic jam caused by a major car accident. This made the trip a bit longer than it should have been, but at least we were able to get a glimpse of the smaller towns outside Tokyo, such as this one.

We made a quick stopover at a rest-stop at one point. We were given fifteen minutes to go to the bathroom, buy some snacks, or just stretch our legs. I got this pack of chocolate-covered wafers (?) at the supermarket, and this small bottle of milk tea from one of the vending machines. This brand of milk tea is actually available here in the Philippines--I was able to buy a (larger) bottle of it at the international food section of the supermarket at SM Aura Premier for P99.

After the stopover, we passed through several more towns and cities including Hamamatsu, the birthplace of famous car brands such as Honda and Suzuki. As we moved closer to Mt. Fuji, however, we began to see less houses and more trees and, as we moved higher up the mountain--snow!

As we moved further up the mountain, the patches of snow on the side of the road grew larger.

There are a total of 10 "stations" for tourists on Mt. Fuji. Regular tourists (those who arrive on tour buses in large groups) are normally allowed to go up to the 5th station, while mountaineers are allowed to go up all the way to the 10th station. However, on the day we were there, we were only allowed to go up to the 2nd station because of poor visibility and heavy snowfall. We never even got to see Mt. Fuji (and its perfect, snow-covered cone) at all! Thick fog and less-than-pleasant weather accompanied us for the rest of the day. Bummer.

My first encounter with snow--and I was totally unprepared for it! See how underdressed I am? It was freezing and it felt like my fingers were going to fall off!

Before moving on to the next part of the tour, we first had lunch (a set grilled chicken meal) at the (rather empty) Hakone Lake Hotel, after a 30-minute drive from Mt. Fuji. Earlier on in the day, our tour guide, Kumiko, went around the bus asking each of the passengers whether we wanted the set meal or not. Those who weren't really interested in the set meal were dropped off at a restaurant near the pier at Lake Ashi, which was actually where we were headed to after lunch.

The staff at the hotel were well-prepared to handle three busloads of hungry tourists--when we got to the hotel, all we had to do was to tell them our bus number (in our case, we were on bus #3) and our last name and we were immediately directed to our pre-assigned table. It was very organized.

Our set meal--grilled chicken, shrimp and pasta with potato wedges and vegetables on the side. The meal also included two bread rolls, soup, and one slice of fruit and a small cake for dessert. That's A LOT, isn't it? I was actually pretty satisfied with the meal, and I was able to finish off everything except for the shrimp.

The next part of the tour--a cruise across Lake Ashinoko (or Lake Ashi) on board these pirate ships!

On a clear day, passengers on the ships are supposed to get a nice view of Mt. Fuji, as well as the beautiful temples along the shore. Unfortunately, all this fog prevented us from seeing anything. Ugh, another epic fail.

Sailing across the lake on a pirate ship in near-freezing temperatures was still quite an experience, though. It was the coldest I've ever been in my life!

This guy's lucky he never feels cold. Pfft.

Our next stop was the Hakone Ropeway for an 8-minute ride on a Sky Gondola/cable car that would take us up a mountain. Again, on a clear day the ride would have given us a great view of Mt. Fuji, but...yeah. Fog. 

Behold--the lovely "view" from the cable car. Epic fail? Pretty much, yeah.

It was so cold that I had to get a cup of coffee to warm myself up. As I was getting the sugar and creamer, I saw this. That's Engrish for you, folks.

We were able to fulfill our tourist duties here, by buying some souvenirs and some Japanese snacks such as black kuro-tamago eggs from the Owakudani Valley in Hakone, which, according to legend, will add seven years to one's life when eaten.

Before finally heading back to Tokyo, we first stopped at a train station where several passengers of the three buses got off to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Tokyo. Those who chose not to take the train (my family included) still had to get off the bus anyway and board one of the two remaining buses (one bus was heading straight to the tour company's garage) depending on where our hotels were located. Again, just like on the bus we were on earlier, the passengers were mostly Filipinos (including this rather lively Cebuano family who were chatting among themselves non-stop throughout the nearly two-hour ride back to Tokyo), although there was also a group of Australians and a solo female traveler from somewhere else. 

A small token of appreciation from the company that owns the pirate ships. This was distributed to us while we were on our way to the train station.

We were the last ones to be dropped off (as expected), so we reached our hotel at past 8 pm. I didn't mind though--at least I got to see the different parts of Tokyo all lit up at night! Too bad I wasn't really able to take decent photos. 

Up next : Food Photos!