Fuji Port Hotel

... weird, but once you crack them they just look a regular old hard boiled egg. They give you some salt but no pepper!
After that we took a cruise on Lake Ashi which is a lake made by a volcanic eruption thousands of years ago. It was a little rough on the lake due to a windy day so we rode in the enlosed part of the boat.
Lunch was at a local restaurant and we tried some interesting foods ...

... had baths with views of Mount Fuji- oh yea, we managed to get one of the 100/365 days when you can get a clear view of the Fuje- but it also had a proper outdoor bit with a bubbly spa pool, hot lake pool, ceramic bathtub pool and bamboo bath pool- spoilt for choice really and absolutely gorgeous after a long day hiking! We also got their taster dinner one ...

... to miejsce gdzie można przekonać się, że wulkan wciąż tętni życiem. Właśnie stąd wypływają gorące źródła. Odór jest niesamowity, w powietrzu wyraźnie czuć zapach siarki. U ujścia źródeł, w scenerii spowitej parującym gorącym powietrzem wydobywającym się gór wulkanicznych, można skosztować gotowanego jajka. Okazuje się, że jest to ogromna ...

... its way up the mountain. The next 200m were the worst. Slow, cold, wet, pathetic, shivering, and blue-lipped we started talking about abandoning ship and set an abandonment time of 6:30am if we hadn’t reached the top (it was 6:00am and we were supposed to have been able to easily reach the summit an hour earlier – and would have if not for the crush of humanity). Then just when things seemed bleakest, we passed the 200m sign and things started ...

... was time to head back to the bus. I was hoping to get some cool shots of the mountain but by this time it was gray and raining so I didn't.

After that we headed back down the mountain to the cave. Which wasn't much of anything except that it was COOOOOOLD. The average temp is 37 degrees Fahrenheit.

Once we were ...

... to the thick mist (which is apparently very common) we couldn’t see a thing and had to settle with the picture-perfect postcard we were given on arrival. Our trip finished with a boat ride across the huge lake which was really beautiful. We caught a bus back to Hakone train station, collected our backpacks from the storage lockers we’d hired for the day and boarded the Shinkansen to the small mountain town of Takayama, where we would be spending the next few days.

Going the summit of Mt. Fuji:

Here is the itinerary of how we did it.

7 am : Took a train from "fujiyoshida" to "kawaguchiko" station to pick up a rental car
10am: Had a breakfast at skylark, a local family restaurant near the hotel.
11am: Fredrik drove on the fuji Subaru line (a 18 mile long toll (2,300 yen) road) to the fuji 5th station.
12:00pm: Arriving the 5th station, stayed there for 1 hr for ...

... prepared. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt while and brought a outer shell and workout pants for when it got colder. I had an old trusty pair of running shoes instead of boots which was fine. Whatever you do, wear shoes that are expendable Mount Fuji is a huge pile of crumbling lava rock, and when you walk/slide down your footwear will pay a price. My old running shoes may need to be replaced when I get back home now. I debated buying a headlamp but ...

Yet another brief visit and a very quick blog just for the record. Our much anticipated visit to the famous Mt Fuji turned out to be quite a disappointment as dense clouds ruined any hope we had of witnessing the great views of Japan's largest mountain. We took a long winded combination of Shinkansen and other private trains all the way from Nagoya back to Tokyo and then out to the Mt Fuji Five Lakes town of Lake ...

... the watermelon fanta that Dee discovered via Toshi! No internet access at Inn, hence updating ...