Kawaguchiko – Where in the World is Fuji-san?
Last Monday was Respect for the Aged Day in Japan which meant a day off work for Mike and I – and our first long weekend! We took forever to decide where we wanted to go for a holiday (or even if we wanted to get out of the city since there’s so much for us to do here), but eventually on Friday afternoon I found a ryokan-hotel with a room available within training/bussing distance from Tokyo.
Kawaguchiko is in the Fuji 5 Lakes Area, about 2 hours by bus from Shinjuku. It’s sposed to be a prime viewing spot for Mt Fuji – except for when it’s cloudy. Do you think we managed a clear day in the 3 days we spent there? No way, José! In fact on Monday it rained so hard we brought our departure forward by 3 hours!
Most of the tourist attractions in Kawaguchiko revolve around various photo-taking opportunities with Fuji-san: pictures looking over the lake, pictures with autumn leaves in the foreground, pictures with a Showa village in the foreground …. Well, folks we got all the scenery except Mt Fuji. It was just a teeny bit disappointing. However, we did have a good look around the Showa village which was interesting and very pretty as well as a few other things.
More disappointing than the lack of Mt Fuji was actually the ryokan hotel we stayed in – Ashiwada Hotel. I’d heard before that Japanese hotels are often disappointing but that the food usually makes up for it. You pay per person, per night and then you pay for meals on top of that. Great. At least the “private bath” they promised was there, although it was more of a dinky little cubby with one 40 watt light that smelt a bit like cat’s wees. Mmmmmm. Our first experience sleeping on a futon and hanging out in yukata was pretty cool though, and we slept pretty soundly after all the walking we did on Saturday and Sunday.
All in all, I spose it wasn’t actually that dire, but it certainly wasn’t worth the money and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else. The buffet dinner was pretty lame and the “room service” we had to order the night before (because we checked in at 3pm and it was too late to book for the buffet dinner at 6pm?!) cost half as much and was much nicer food. Breakfast was marginally better (with more choice) but I still don’t understand how they were bringing out “fresh” food that was already lukewarm (and hard in the case of the pancakes).
On a positive note, it was lovely to get away from the city and go walking round the lakes, relax on real grass, see something different and try the local food – hoto noodles. Another highlight was trying out a pitching machine and hitting a 105km/hr baseball! We also had a go at a pitching challenge – try to hit 9/9 different targets with 12 balls. Mike and I managed to knock out 2 each. We were a little more successful with the batting!
As for Fuji-san, I guess we’ll have to wait till we get to Hakone to try taking pictures again. There’s another long weekend coming up in October, hopefully my trip-planning is a bit more successful.
Kawaguchiko is in the Fuji 5 Lakes Area, about 2 hours by bus from Shinjuku. It’s sposed to be a prime viewing spot for Mt Fuji – except for when it’s cloudy. Do you think we managed a clear day in the 3 days we spent there? No way, José! In fact on Monday it rained so hard we brought our departure forward by 3 hours!
Most of the tourist attractions in Kawaguchiko revolve around various photo-taking opportunities with Fuji-san: pictures looking over the lake, pictures with autumn leaves in the foreground, pictures with a Showa village in the foreground …. Well, folks we got all the scenery except Mt Fuji. It was just a teeny bit disappointing. However, we did have a good look around the Showa village which was interesting and very pretty as well as a few other things.
More disappointing than the lack of Mt Fuji was actually the ryokan hotel we stayed in – Ashiwada Hotel. I’d heard before that Japanese hotels are often disappointing but that the food usually makes up for it. You pay per person, per night and then you pay for meals on top of that. Great. At least the “private bath” they promised was there, although it was more of a dinky little cubby with one 40 watt light that smelt a bit like cat’s wees. Mmmmmm. Our first experience sleeping on a futon and hanging out in yukata was pretty cool though, and we slept pretty soundly after all the walking we did on Saturday and Sunday.All in all, I spose it wasn’t actually that dire, but it certainly wasn’t worth the money and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else. The buffet dinner was pretty lame and the “room service” we had to order the night before (because we checked in at 3pm and it was too late to book for the buffet dinner at 6pm?!) cost half as much and was much nicer food. Breakfast was marginally better (with more choice) but I still don’t understand how they were bringing out “fresh” food that was already lukewarm (and hard in the case of the pancakes).
On a positive note, it was lovely to get away from the city and go walking round the lakes, relax on real grass, see something different and try the local food – hoto noodles. Another highlight was trying out a pitching machine and hitting a 105km/hr baseball! We also had a go at a pitching challenge – try to hit 9/9 different targets with 12 balls. Mike and I managed to knock out 2 each. We were a little more successful with the batting!As for Fuji-san, I guess we’ll have to wait till we get to Hakone to try taking pictures again. There’s another long weekend coming up in October, hopefully my trip-planning is a bit more successful.
For more photos from our holiday weekend click here.
posted by Sarah and Mike at 5:44 pm
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Have a look at my flower arranging skills - they're outstanding. (mine's the pink one)
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