Today is exploring day! We woke early to meet our tour in the lobby to see the famous Mt Fuji. I was excited not about being on a coach with a bunch of old people but of seeing some of Japan outside the major cities. I wasn't even sure what was included on the tour I booked! Best agent ever. After a hectic start getting tickets and showing vouchers and all the rest, we headed to the mountain. There was a cool fun park with hectic rides right near it which I would have loved to go to but we were a bit strapped for time.
There are several stations up Mt Fuji and apparently we went to no 3, but I was still surprised how far away the mountain still seemed. We got our photos and headed back down the mountain, where 6 of us (all Aussie) separated for the cave and forest exploring part. I assumed everyone else just went back to tokyo, which seemed a bit boring. I was glad I took this option. On the way to the forest, I learnt that it wasn't just any forest but the famous “Sucide Forest”. Seems I was the last one to know about this and curiously listened as the others explained how this is where especially troubled Japanese come to end it all. Wonderful.
We got funky red overalls for the forest and cave, which dropped several degrees as we got deeper. Saw some better views of the mountain than on our actual tour so had the chance for more photos. It really is a spectacularly beautiful mountain, which the Japanese are fully aware of, and apparently this clear day was one of few each week that allows for its unobscured view. In our first coach, our adorable guide Hiro-san actually sang us a traditional Japanese song about Mt Fuji which he loosely translated as “oh fujisan how wonderful you are, you can do no wrong. You are so beautiful and the best mountain in the world.” I was just thinking how much a guy in Australia would get beaten up if he tried that about koziosko…
The forest, despite its depressing history, was actually stunning. Formed over volcano lava, the root systems were largely exposed and there were 400 kinds of moss on every surface. The guide Tata (or similar) entertained us with stories, including when he found 2 dead bodies when exploring as a child in the forest. Didn't report them though, didn't want the questions… I guess that's fair. We dropped one of the Aussies outside the entrance to the cave, scared of heights. To be fair, it was cold, dark, steep and fukn icy in there. Anyone in two minds would've struggled pushing through. We got gloves at the very end, I think because he got them from another guide in the cave with a Japanese movie star filming something, but largely used our bare hands to grasp ice handles for balance. The tour really should have warned us about the ice… I was wearing my shitty fake vans that had gotten a hole just before I came to Japan and by the end, we were standing atop 12m of ice and my feet were soaked and numb. Despite that, it was quite cool and not exactly what I'd expected to experience in Japan.
The tour ended back in Shinjuku so we freshened up at the hotel then went back out to see the famous crossing at Shibuya. I'd developed this list of things to do and see in Tokyo and that was nagging on the back of my mind. After this, we were heading elsewhere and only had limited time in Tokyo at the end of the trip. Bless my bro, just following around letting me see all these things when he was probably bored shitless half the time! So we saw the crossing and Hachiko, the famous dog statue, and had some okonomiyaki for dinner. We were both buggered so went back to the hotel to get ready for Kyoto the next day!
Side note: Japan has some weird rules. You can't smoke in so many places outdoors and they have little designated areas on the streets to have a smoke, yet you can smoke in restaurants and bars. Go figure? Also, I think it's very cute (kawa’ii, I learnt in Japan) that people don't even lock their bikes up here, and if they do they just lock the bikes standing up not even on a street pole. What a nice feeling to know you can do that still.
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