Hotel 24 Showadori Fuji

... taro root and soba noodles. It actually was all pretty good.
A shinkansen (bullet train) took us back to Tokyo. By this time I was just out of it, seeing as I still had not been able to sleep. Thankfully last night I got a full nights sleep so feel much better.
A reception and dinner last night wrapped it up at the hotel.
All the Japanese are so nice and polite. We are having a wonderful time!

So yea! To summarize:
Walked about 10.2km downhill (which isn't so easy on rocky surface n stuff) from Station 5 of Mount Fuji to the bottom. Took about 5/6 hours but YAY! I used my hiking boots again (count so far: 3 times!) and it didn't feel too bad so I'm pretty glad, good chance to work off all the pocky!

Stayed in an epic Hotel Ohike which not ...

... 261; własne niewielkie onseny, które mogą być wykorzystane prywatnie (co jest praktycznie niemożliwe w dużych hotelach). Właśnie z takiego tradycyjnego zajazdu - ryokana skorzystaliśmy. Dzięki temu mogliśmy zakosztować kąpieli pod gwiazdami bez towarzystwa innych ludzi.

Właściciele polecili nam jedną z pobliskich knajpek. Różniła się nieco od tych, do których na co dzień chodzimy w ...

... We made decent time until we turned onto the mountain road to the station – red lights as far as the eye could see. The car park at the station was full and it took about 20 minutes to get the buses maneuvered around the line of cars and up to the station. We stepped off the buses around 10:15pm amid a throng of people with the same goal as us – climb overnight to reach the top at dawn.

Some background – there are a number of ...

... ended up being a small village off a main road with various ponds in it. The ponds were:
1) Waku-ike - "Waku" means gush and is supposed to be the most beautiful pond.
2) Nigori-ike - which means muddy pond, but it was actually pretty clear
3) Kagami-ike - means mirror, apparently on a good day you can see a ...

... 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.

... way and had some mountain beers. We also were surrounded by some very disturbing models of a rabbit and a beaver frolicking in, shall we say, strange ways. The best part of the viewing platform though, apart from arguably the outstanding view, was the hot food vending machine that produced magical hot noodles after just 90 seconds of waiting, just like something out of Back To The Future 2. So good I used it twice! We then walked up the remainder of Tenjo in ...

... sunrise), walked around the stores.
6am: Began descending.
9 am: Arrived to the 5th station, left immediately. May drove back.
10am: Checked out the hotel and went to the “Jonathan”, another local family restaurant for a breakfast. Torrential rain outside put us down, we kind of gave up on some of sightseeing we could have done there.
11am-13pm: Spa and rest.
13:15pm: May drove to Kawaguchiko ...

... mmm! Tasty! But! Not so tasty as the dish that came down while I was still chewing. It looked like sashimi, but was really dark. I'd never seen it before. "Nan desu ka?" "Shinzo...bo-bom bo-bom bo-bom" he said, as he pointed to his heart... "Ah!...dare no shinzo" (who's heart?) "Akioshi" he said...indicating a teacher who was mysteriously absent. "Ah! Itadakimasu!" (let's eat!) I said, and downed a slim slice. Later I would find out that the heart ...

... shops or the temple, and since the post office from the top was closed when I went, take second best and send a postcard from halfway up the mountain. The bus didn't end up leaving until 1pm, so theres also time to try and rest at one of the free beds or grab a meal. From there we headed to the onsen and then back to Nagoya, arriving about 8-9pm. What to keep in Mind - The main point to keep in mind if you intend to climb Mt Fuji, it is a long climb ...