Leaving Japan this summer left me able to take the last days of my contract off with my remaining vacation time plus as much time as I wanted after that to take a final trip in Japan before returning to the US. There were still a bunch of places that I wanted to go that I hadn't gotten around to yet, but the biggest two were Kyoto/Nara and Mount Fuji/Hakone. I thought the summer heat would be too much for Kyoto/Nara, and that makes a better and easier trip for a future visit, so I went with the goal of climbing Fuji before leaving.
The details leading up to my final departure from Japan will be for a future post, but I left Kisakata on the same 8AM train route to Tokyo that I had taken many times while I've been here. I shipped my biggest piece of luggage ahead to the airport, but still had a smaller suitcase and backpack stuffed full of my remaining clothes and other things that I needed to use in my last few days in my apartment.
After getting to Tokyo I dropped the suitcase off in storage at Tokyo Station, having to pack everything I would need for the couple days around Fuji and Hakone in the backpack. To make sure that I would have time to make the climb in the window provided by the busses, I was climbing up a shorter trail than the one I would be climbing back down towards Hakone, with the busses from each trailhead originating in different towns, meaning that I couldn't just leave things I wouldn't need on the mountain behind in my hotel room, but that I would be climbing Fuji with the whole backpack full of changes of clothes, toiletries, and normal travel things, along with the mountain specific items like rain gear, a fleece jacket, and heavy bottles of water.
One of the reasons I chose the guest house that I did in the town of Fujinomiya was that the owner drove guests up the mountain every morning earlier than the earliest bus, which would give me extra time to climb and make sure I could catch the last departing bus on the other side. But wouldn't you know, just a couple days before, they sent me an email saying that the owner was in the hospital and the drive wouldn't happen. Well, it looked like I would still have enough time for the climb, just maybe not hiking the whole loop around the top of the crater like I originally wanted to.
I arrived at Fujinomiya in the early evening to some light rain, but the guest house was close to the station, so I didn't get too wet. No one seemed to be there, the office room was empty, but with the light left on and personal goods about, so I just hung around in the entranceway for about ten minutes until the two young staff returned. They spoke great English, and recommended me a yakisoba place for dinner, which is apparently this town's specialty, and then I headed over to the supermarket afterwards to stock up on food and drinks for tomorrow's climb.
Getting up Monday morning I was out of the guest house in just a few minutes to catch the 6:30 bus up to the Fujinomiya trailhead. They had a discounted roundtrip ticket available, which I figured I couldn't use since I was returning by a different route, but they said it was fine to use that way. We got to the trailhead at about 7:45.
From the trailhead up the mountain.
From the trailhead down the mountain.
The peak from the start of the trail.
The peak was really close. It was supposed to take four hours and forty minutes to get there, but on flat ground it could have easily been done in under an hour. It's just that the trail was climbing up and switching back the entire way up. There were stations that were supposed to take about an hour between them, but at each station you could see the previous and next just a couple hundred meters up and down the mountain, literally just a stone's throw away.
You can see how close the stations are to each other.
I think these bulldozers cart gravel from the bottom of the path back to the top to prevent erosion of the mountain and trail.
I had ironically worn the Mount Chokai shirt that bought a couple weeks before, just to see if I would get any comments on it from other hikers. I did, twice, from a couple of older guys.
Getting close to the top.
I turned out to have brought more food than I ended up needing. By the time I got to the top I still had half of the nuts I had brought, and three onigiri I didn't need, even after eating all my breakfast, break, and lunch foods. I could have done with a little more to drink though. I had bought a two-liter of Pocari, plus my smaller water bottle of water, but I was more than halfway through the Pocari by the time I got to the peak. It wasn't to the extent that it would be a problem though.
The cracks in these two posts were crammed with coins, assumably for good luck.
There was only a little bit of snow left on the mountain.
You can see the whole rest of the trail and a building at the top.
Probably the hardest part of this trail.
Not far left.
I took breaks at every station, and usually a shorter break about halfway between them. In the end I still made pretty good time though, despite not really trying to and going fairly slowly pacing myself, and made it to the top by noon, in about four hours, where I ate my lunch.
The final gateways to the top.
The shrine at the peak.
The actual highest point in the background.
Just to the right of the trail I came up, the trail I'll go down.
The crater.
From there it was only a short hike to the actual peak, as opposed to just the crater rim which I had reached. Most hikers I think don't even go to the highest point, since they arrive on the more popular trail on the opposite side of the crater and don't continue around to this side. But part of the reason I had chose this path was that it was near the peak.
The short hike over to it was just as bad as any part of the rest of the hike though, partly because of my tiredness which had been building throughout the hike, so that this was the most tiring point of it, but also because the altitude sickness was starting to kick in, with a headache, and even some lightheadedness if I exerted myself a little too hard, so I took my time and finally got my photo op at the peak.
Surveying markers at the peak.
The obelisk marking the peak.
The crater view from the peak.
Looking at the time it was supposed to take to hike around the rim, the time it was supposed to take to descend, and just taking into account how tired I was, I decided not to hike the rim in the end. It turned out that I probably would have had time to, but I don't really regret it. In the end I started back down at about 1:30 to catch the 5:45 bus.
A marker at the start of the Gotemba Trail I'll go down.
The start of the trail down.
The destroyed 8th station on this trail. Probably a victim of erosion, and maybe earthquakes.
Some flowers on the mountain.
Although the path I was taking back was the longest of the four Fuji trails, it wasn't so much different in time because of the "sunabashiri" (sand run) that made up most of it. You could jog down the slope at a decent clip through the thick volcanic sand that made up the path, and I did it at a pretty good pace, half running and half sliding.
The sunabashiri.
Plants on the mountain.
The trail down was basically an hour of this.
I was trying to be careful of my knees considering how unwell they had fared during my Chokai climbs, and I was afraid here that this sand-running would be even worse for them, but although my left knee was starting to get some twinges, I think the sand was actually better for them than normal hiking would have been, because the sliding of the sand was a good cushion to weaken the force of my footfalls. In the end my knees were in much better condition after the Fuji hike than they had been after either of the Chokai ones. Of course the worst thing for them was probably the heavy pack that's unavoidable when mountain climbing.
I reached the bottom at about 4:30 with over an hour left to wait for the bus. Because this was the most unpopular trailhead, there were less shops or amenities here than the other trailheads, but there was still a decent selection of souvenirs at the one shop and I managed to find a new cell phone strap that I liked to replace the one from last year's summer vacation, as had become my custom every year.
Although I had made sure to bring and put on sunscreen before the hike, maybe I forgot to do some parts, or maybe the sweat just washed it away, but although I made sure to cover my forehead, nose, and ears, I got a pretty bad burn on the sides of my neck and the top of one of my wrists, with the neck being especially bad during the rest of the trip the next couple days as I was still walking around in the sun most of the time, but at least I made certain to liberally cover it with sunscreen every morning after that.
After the bus came we went into the city of Gotemba and I checked into my hotel near the station before heading out for a curry dinner. I was hoping to find a place as great as the one that I did in Takayama last summer, but I only managed to find a somewhat underwhelming family restaurant style place.
Although I wanted to sleep in more to recover from the hike, it's been hard lately with the sun always rising so early, so I ended up leaving Gotemba earlier than I planned to head into Hakone. In fact, I got in so early that my first destination, "Glass Forest", the Venetian Glass Museum, wasn't even open yet (it opened at 10), so I had to take another bus down the road a bit to start the day at the Botanical Gardens which opened at 9 instead.
The Botanical Gardens had eight different zones with eight different types of biomes, mostly different types of wetlands. There was also a special display of all different types of carnivorous plants when I was there.
Insect-catching pitcher plants.
Various flytraps.
There was a dove strutting around behind these dove-shaped flowers that flew away right before I snapped the shot.
Explanation that the red water is due to iron.
Signboard for the carnivorous plants.
They were selling carnivorous plants too.
After that I went back to the Glass Forest, which was now open. I expected it to mostly be a museum, but it was a whole set of grounds with craft buildings, a restaurant, a couple of museums, and a big shop, with all the grounds decorated with various glassified plants, hence the name "Glass Forest". And the place was very European and Italian themed due to being a "Venetian" glass museum, so the restaurant was Italian and the architecture and statuary was all European or European inspired.
Glass tree
Glass flowers
There were ducks too.
"Water fireworks"
A gazebo in the forested area.
An area set up like a Greek temple.
A stream below.
This whole forest area was meant to be the hydrangea garden.
These moving dolls were made to look like they drove the gearbox...
...which drove the waterwheel outside.
Glass bugs in the shop.
There was another museum in that area that I was considering going to, the Pola Museum of Art, but it turns out it was closed for the week to change the exhibits, so I headed down to the next area of Hakone, down to the lake. There's a ropeway that goes there, but due to volcanic activity under the area the ropeway passes over, it was closed for the summer, so I arrived at the lake by bus.
The pampas grass field as seen from the bus.
On this side of the lake there wasn't really anything to see; the main purpose of coming here was just to take the sightseeing cruise across the lake to the towns on the other side. There actually turned out to be two different cruise companies, one running the normal-looking sightseeing ships I had seen pictures of before, but another one that ran three "pirate ships" made up as colorful sailing ships, but with the sails permanently furled.
I ate lunch at the restaurant in the port building overlooking the docks with the pirate ships and then headed onto the ship myself. I even splurged the extra five bucks for first class. It took about half an hour to cross the lake, but unfortunately the whole time I was in Hakone it was pretty hazy, so there were no great views beyond the lake. Even in Fujinomiya and Gotemba I never had a chance to see Fuji from a distance or see anything from the top of Fuji because of the low clouds.
The view from the restaurant.
One of the other ships.
The view out the front from the first class seats inside.
The riff-raff in steerage.
The other side of the lake.
There were a few interesting-looking places on this side of the lake, but it was becoming clear that for all the interesting places in Hakone there was only going to be time to visit the most interesting of them, so I only went a couple places here. The one I wanted to go to the most was some sort of park on the side of the lake and the ropeway there to the top of the peak by the lake, but there was no good bus service over to it and between the time and the heat and my tiredness I had to forgo it.
The main attraction here though was the Tokaido Checkpoint, which controlled travel on the main Tokaido Road between Kyoto and Tokyo during the Edo period. Especially one of the main purposes of it was to prevent the unauthorized travel of women. The lords across Japan had to send their wives and children to Tokyo to ensure their loyalty. If they got rebellious, the government could use their families as ransom, so preventing the families from fleeing Tokyo was a big part of the job of the checkpoint. Since the Hakone checkpoint was at a narrow pass between the mountains and the lake it was apparently one of the more important ones since there were fewer ways to avoid it by travelling around it.
The checkpoint gate on the Kyoto side.
Some of the weapons used.
The jail.
Flowers on the hillside below the lookout.
The view from the lookout hill.
The lookout. We couldn't go in it.
After that I continued on to Hakone Shrine, where there were actually some celebrations going on, with taiko groups playing and lots of food and game stalls. I just took the time to walk over to see the shrine before coming back and catching the bus over to the next town where I was staying for the night before it got too late.
The portable shrines used in processions.
The busses ran to Gora Station, which is where the railroad line that connects to the nearest city terminated, and a cable car up the steep hillside begins. At the top of that hill where the cable car line terminates is where the ropeway starts that would take you to the lake. My inn for the night was actually near the top of that hill, and although their shuttle would come down to Gora Station, I still wanted to take the cable car, even if I couldn't take the ropeway, so I took that up to the top and called for the shuttle from there. Supposedly there was a nice view from up there, but I couldn't find it, possible because there was some heavy work going on on the station with lots of scaffolding and stuff around.
Looking down the cable car track.
Looking up the cable car track.
The inn was a fairly small place and seemed just family-run, but the
guy running it was really nice. He was especially interested when he
found out I lived in Japan, and looked on in gleeful anticipation when I
started writing an address with a postal code he didn't recognize on
the check-in form and went into the next room to tell his, I assume,
wife about it.
View from the ryokan window.
A fire is lit up on the hillside in the shape of 大 during the Bon holiday.
For my last ryokan visit in Japan I splurged on including dinner with
it, and got some sake to go along with it. Being smallish and family-run
and on the cheap side, some of the amenities were lacking, like they
wouldn't lay out your futon for you during dinner unless you
specifically asked them to, and the baths were pretty small, but I got
my money's worth and it was a good last ryokan visit.
Dinner at the inn.
The menu.
The next morning they served breakfast too of course and then the guy shuttled me back to Gora Station. On the way he asked what my plans were for the day, and I told him I was starting at the nearby Open Air Museum, and since it was so nearby he drove me directly over right up to the door of it.
This place was a big outdoor ground with all different kinds of sculptures all over, and a few buildings with more art inside, including a Picasso-specific one. There were a couple huge sculptures too that were designed for kids to play on (but unfortunately not adults), and one that was a big tower that you could climb the stairs all the way up.
This was underground and there were a few holes in the ceiling you could look up out of.
The seat in the middle with a hole above it.
One of the sculptures for the kids to play on.
For some "safety" reason the entrances to this star maze were closed off.
The structure housing the other play sculpture.
The "Fairy Chapel"
Silly me, I never took a picture of the tower from the outside, but here's the inside.
View from the top of the tower.
Description of the thing in the next picture.
The end of the path is just painted on the wall a la Wile E. Coyote.
This is outside the entrance.
After that I hiked over to the nearby Chisuji Falls, which was nice, but not super impressive, and after that I caught the bus down to the Dollhouse Museum.
Part of the stream before the falls.
Panorama of the falls.
The moss under the falls.
The Dollhouse Museum was also not super impressive, but the building it's in is a converted greenhouse, and since the focus was sort of miniatures in general there was also a big model train loop.
The model train room.
These boats were in the moat around the train.
A Japanese-style kitchen.
A German pharmacy.
A tavern.
Another Japanese-style one.
I just wanted a picture of this bookshelf.
This one was pretty awesome.
A Japanese art classroom.
This one was called the "Teddy Bear shop".
The final stop of the day before heading back to Tokyo was to go back to Gora Station and check out Gora Park. This was founded as a "Western-style" park, so it had a big fountain in the middle with a couple little restaurants flanking it, a rose garden, a couple greenhouses (with a similar carnivorous plant exhibit to the one at the Botanical Gardens), a Japanese-style section with a teahouse, and also a craft house with various types of crafts. If I was staying in Japan and had room in my luggage I would have tried my hand at the pottery wheel. Being in Gora, the whole thing was built on the slope which made it more interesting than it would have been otherwise. There's also a tree right in the middle that was planted when the garden was first founded a hundred years ago or so, and so sort of represents the park.
The monument to the opening of the park.
The view over the rose garden.
Wisteria would be hanging here in May.
The memorial tree.
The Japanese-style part of the garden.
One of the decommissioned teahouses.
In one of the greenhouses.
Pineapples!
Some giant thing.
Bananas.
Finally I was ready to head back to Tokyo. Walking through the plaza in front of Gora Station I happened to notice a shop with a big kokeshi display, and picked one out and bought my last kokeshi. Then I got on the train back down to the coast. Because of the steep incline it goes down to get there, there's three switchbacks where the train stops and reverses direction because there's just not room to wrap the track around in a curve, and the onboard announcements said it has the second steepest grade in the world.
My last kokeshi (for now).
After dropping my bags at the hotel in Tokyo, I went out looking for dinner and found an Indian place nearby. Of course I used Japanese with the South Asian looking waiter (he may have been Indian, but just as easily Nepali, who I hear there are a lot of in Japan), but he replied in perfect English and I got some Indian curry for dinner.
Last time I went to Tokyo I only got through the sights in east Tokyo that I wanted, so this time I could get through west Tokyo. I started the morning visiting the sights in Shibuya, focusing on locations from the game The World Ends with You. First was the Shibuya River, where it emerges out from under Shibuya Station, and you could see the name Shibuya Stream on signs, which is apparently what that neighborhood is called.
Next I got the Moyai sculpture, inspired by the Easter Island moai statues, but the name supposedly has some other meaning. Around the corner at Hachiko, even this early in the morning there was already a line of people waiting to take pictures of it, so rather than waste time waiting to take a picture that you can find hundreds of identical copies of online, I just took pictures of the ridiculous line instead.
The landmark 109 building.
One of the other things Shibuya is known for is Cat Street, which apparently follows the course of the old Shibuya River, and is supposed to be host to some of the hippest shops in Tokyo. On this weekday morning though it wasn't busy at all and so not that impressive, but the shops were still there and open for business.
The entrance of Cat Street.
Cat Street eventually crosses Omotesando, which is basically Tokyo's Fifth Avenue, with all the luxury brand name shops, so I also wandered down there and back before continuing down Cat Street on the other side. A little further down it intersects with Takeshita Street, which is the core street of the hip Harajuku neighborhood, and this place was packed, half with tourists who I assume just read in guides that this is one of the places you can't miss if you visit Tokyo.
Omotesando
From a pedestrian bridge.
The continuation of Cat Street.
Harajuku Street
Takeshita Street
So I ended my tour of the hip neighborhoods by taking Takeshita Street down to Harajuku Station and crossing the tracks to the huge grounds of Meiji Jingu shrine, which is the biggest shrine complex in Tokyo and the busiest shrine on New Year's when people make their first shrine visits of the year.
The entrance to Meiji Jingu.
Sake to be blessed.
Wine to be blessed. (Apparently the Meiji emperor was big into wine.)
View of the city from part of the shrine grounds.
Finally I headed to my last destination, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building, which, as opposed to Tokyo Tower or the Skytree, has a free observation deck. There was a line for the elevator, but it went quick, and the view was pretty good, although like in Hakone very hazy with the heat and humidity.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government building from afar.
From anear.
View from the observation deck.
It was just too disgustingly hot to do anything else, and I had gotten the last things I had really wanted to do out of the way, so I just went back to the hotel to chill and finish repacking my bags for the flight back to the US and had some good Chinese for dinner.
