Fuji Sightseeing

  Fuji, Chubu, Japan
Sunday, June 28, 2009

Today was the Fuji Sightseeing Tour that was being put on by the Navy. We got up early and met up with the bus that was going to take us on the tour. We had a very nice tour guide named Mickey, yep like the Mouse. Chrystal & I proceeded to breakout in the Mickey Mouse show theme. Then when we couldn't remember part of it we switched to the Sesame Street theme. Hey... it was early for us! :-)

Once we got going we got our tour itinerary for the day:
First stop was the Fuji Peace Park
Next was the Oshino Haikkai (8 ponds of Fuji)

Next was the Sengen Shrine
Then was to be lunch at Lake Kawaguchi
Lastly was to go see the Fuji Lava Cave

On the way to the Peace Park we started getting glimpses of Fuji, and with my amazing skillz of taking pictures of mountains from a bus that I developed while in Switzerland with the MRD's I think I actually got a couple cool shots from the bus. lol Mickey also tried to give us quizzes on the bus. It was a little difficult because she wasn't all that great with the mike, half the time I couldn't hear her...let alone understand her! Chrystal however did get a question right and the prize was some pureral (sp?!) jelly. It was like a really soft grape Now & Later. Pretty tasty actually, the guys in the seats in front of us thought it smelled bad but it definitely tasted way better than it smelled!

Fuji Peace Park was nice and peaceful (of course....) we walked up through a shrine and various statues and got to the Peace building which looked more Indian than Japanese and had 4 Buddha's set in the outside of the building. Each one was in a different position. On the way up to the shrine there were various lion type animals that looked like they were symbols of various Asian countries. On the way up to the shrine there were two gongs.... one small one and HUGE one. Chrystal tried to ring both of course, but the big one was tethered so it couldn't reach. Chrystal however was successful with the smaller gong. :-) There was also a side path that had a lot of statues lining it. Chrystal & I weren't entirely sure what they were but it was definitely creepy down there and then to get out of we had to climb a ka-jillion stairs. Ok maybe not that many but it was A LOT!

After that we headed to the 8 ponds which 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 reflection of Mt. Fuji
4) Syobu-ike - is the Iris pond, unfortunately we missed seeing the Iris' blooming
5) Choshi-ike - this name came from a local legend where a bride who broke wind at her own wedding threw herself with embarrassment into this pond as holding "choshi", cup for Nihonsyu. I'm not entirely sure what the last part of that means....but I thought Amanda could appreciate the first part. :-)
6) Sokonuke-ike - "Sokonuke" means no bottom, and this pond is supposed to be shallow. It wasn't very shallow but the fish looked like they disappeared when they went down.
7) Okama-ike - the bottom of the pond looked like it was boiling
8) Degucji-ike - "Deguchi" means exit.... you can guess where this one was located. :-)
The tour guide led us through this one, Chrystal and I decided that would be best since we didn't have a map and no idea where to go. After we were done we wandered the streets for a little bit. I picked up a souvenir and Chrystal and I shared a rice cake that had been dipped in soy sauce and then grilled. It was pretty tasty although not what we were initially expecting.

After that we went to the Sengen Shrine which was very peaceful. On the way in Mickey told us that deer were very important and brought the message of God. However we all thought she had said beer and not deer! Needless to say most everyone was very excited at the thought beer brought the message of God. lol

The next stop was supposed to be the Lake but it turned out that the parking lot was full. So instead we headed up Mt. Fuji! So according to the tour guide we can now say that we've "climbed" Mt. Fuji. We stopped at the 5th station for lunch and by this time it was starting to pour and it was COLD up there! We had lunch at a restaurant where we picked out the dish from a case and then got a ticket from a vending machine. Which we then took to the counter and had to wait till they called our number. After that we wandered the shops until it 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 done we headed to the Fuji visitor center for a bit and then on back to the base. Which ended up being a 3 hour long bus ride due to traffic. There was a screaming kid on the bus and so they played Madagascar 2 & Lilo & Stitch on the bus but nothing could quiet the kid. But overall I would say it was a really cool day!