Soooooo, where did we leave off. Oh Yeah, the Shrine. Now like, I said in the last part, because we did go during Golden Week, and tourist season, it was pretty busy at the 5th Station. I'm pretty sure I am in the background and have accidentally ruined and walked in front of hundreds of family photos. Again, My bad. So it's a shame that I could take some truly pristine, people free photos that truly capture the architecture and spirit of the structures and nature itself. But here are few photos I managed to take that I don't think look horrible.
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| This lady decided to scurry across, right in front of the picture T_T |
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| On the road to the Shrine, well technically, it's a bridge. |
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| My Mum in front of the Shrine. Such a wonder, and the temple is pretty too I guess. |
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| The View of the Summit from the temple. |
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| I don't remember the exact name for these plaques, but you pay 500Y to write your wish/prayer for the world and/or for yourself. Now I'm not a religious person by any means but it was cool to experience a different culture and belief. I might have even written one myself but you have to wait for that post. |
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| Such detail. |
Our time at the 5th station was pretty limited so we took in what we could at the temple and rushed back to hopefully get our little free bell souvenir. I forgot to take a photo of it but it was pretty much a bell attached to a mobile accessory strap, and it's said the bell ringing wards off evil spirits.....CUTE!
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| Here is the cute little village stores at the 5th Station. |
Now in the building in the photo above, the one with the red roof, this is the main, not completely overpriced souvenir and various foods store. From corn on a cob, to buttered potato spud, and soft cream ice cream and hot buns, it looked all delicious but I had to remember we had lunch provided on this day tour. Now I didn't mention this earlier...because I forgot to -_-. But just before you reach the ascending road to Mt Fuji, there is a theme park close by (Fujikyu), with the most insane roller coasters and rides I've ever seen and probably not want to go on. It's a shame I didn't get a photo but thank goodness for google because I managed to find it. IT. WAS. THIS.
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| Tekkotsu Bancho, it is 50 meters tall and the swings attached to it spin up and down the tower.....I am getting sweaty looking at it. |
Plus not to mention the roller coaster tracks look like this....
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| At least if you die, you do it in style with Mt Fuji as a backdrop. #Nope |
The point of this is that thankfully it wasn't apart of the tour but in some respect it was as we were having our bento lunch there, at the resort hotel restaurant.
Voila
Was an interesting lunch, some things weren't to taste for westerners but it was a fabulous experience. Mum and I then decided to wonder around the place a bit and grab some matcha ice creams to eat while we wait for the bus boarding.
We were off on our journey again to Hakone and to Lake Ashi, We passed many interesting little towns and it was so fascinating to see what most would consider normal everyday life. Much like these little boxy cars that everyone in smaller towns seem to favour. In Tokyo, it was much more flashy Porche and BMWs but one other thing Mum and I noticed, is that all the cars were 'as new' condition, none were dirty all looked like they were made within the last couple of years (except for the taxi's which were a 70's car shape).
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| Example of a Tiny boxy car. |
Anyway, the drive is wonderful, especially when you see rice patty fields mixed into what would be a town. But finally we arrived at Lake Ashi for our little Lake cruise to Mt. Komagatake, here is a little village with food places, an aquarium, gift shop and a cable lift up to the mountain.
Now here is where is gets....frosty. Some of us could already tell that once we reach up the mountain, there might not be much of a view, but yet it was a cool experience. We got in line and squished into the cable car carriage. I think we got about 30 people into the carriage (many people were worried we would collapse into the abyss). Once we finally got going up the cableway the view of the Lake was magnificent and soon we got to a point where it looked like this in the compartment.
We could see absolutely nothing. The glowy whiteness around us (and the annoying guy next to me biting his nails into nothing, which was gross) was all we could see. It was quite the experience. It felt like we had all died and this was where we were going into the afterlife.
Then terminal was coming up and everyone had a bit of a heart attack when we thought the carriage was just going to smash into the base of the concrete structure, but it turns out it slowly lifts up to the platform. We had made it and it wasn't the afterlife....Maybe.
I say maybe because it sure looked like we had. We were essentially in a cloud. Which was awesome and I had much preferred to the view. Because how often do you get to stand on a Mt surrounded by fog from a dreamland? not often.
And it was incredible! I took the opportunity to take some cool shots and attempt to find the shrine that was supposedly up here. With that everyone set out onto the path with little visibility. Mum stayed behind because the path was really rocky and hard on the ankles.
Cue pics, now..
BAM!
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| The cableway station up the Mountain. |
and BLAM!
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| The cableway terminal |
Following this path, I set off to try and find the shrine. It was a pretty long walk taking into account as well that the rocks were not the easiest to walk on. Throughout the walk, there were these signs, and seeing as everyone that was walking in the same direction as me couldn't read japanese, we had no clue where we were going.
We actually ended up doing a big loop and ending up right back where we started...here
Yup, we walked all the way around, only to not reach the shrine, but to end up back where we started T_T
Once I got back the terminal I looked back over to the pathways and the bastard of clouds decided to give the big middle finger at as all as the shrine ended up being up the stairs to the left to go further up the mountain. I was dead.
Seriously! Anyway. I didn't end up trying to go up to the shrine as I didn't want to get stuck with a bunch of tourists on the way down again. Thankfully we made it back to cable carriage and only a few people wanted to go back at this time. It was a comfortable ride with this carriage having some seats.
Finally making it back down, we were able to have a bit of a look around the village and look in the gift shop. I got a little Kiki's Delivery Service hand towel, with little Gigi on it and it's so adorable. And very useful as most japanese public toilets don't have hand towels or hand dryers so it's very helpful to dry your hands.
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| Map of the little village on Lake Ashi |
After getting lost in the cuteness of Studio Ghibli merchandise and trying to talk myself out of buying a huge totoro, it was time to meet back at the bus for the drive back to Tokyo. Everyone was so tired and exhausted. But the drive went smoothly and in good timing too. We were dropped off at Shinjuku Station, and from here we had to make our way back to the hotel. But seeing as it was our first time to Shinjuku we weren't sure if we should stick around and grab dinner or to go back to Shibuya and eat there. Mum didn't like the headache of figuring out what to eat so we ended up just getting KFC and hopping back on the train to Shibuya.
Sprawling out on the bed with KFC definitely wasn't the vision I had for a trip in Japan, but it would do. It was only our first official day in Japan and it was a great start.
Afterwards I just called home to see what's doing and watched some japanese Tv of which I understood nothing. Shower, green tea and bed time from there.
Day 3 is upon us!
xx T
CLICK HERE FOR DAY 3
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