This morning we left Tokyo to head out into the countryside.  Our first stop of the day was to be Mt Fuji.  Now, you’ll notice from the title that Mt Fuji was a cookie.  Yes, you read that right, a cookie.

After many hours of travel by bus we had one heck of a day!  First, we were on our way up the Subaru line up the mountain of Fuji.  We waited, patiently, in line with the other buses, only to find out that the poor weather conditions (see clouds and high changes of rain) would block us from going above the 4th station (we could only see the peak over the 5th station) AND to even get to the 4th station would take us 4 hours!!!!  Well, considering none of us were that terribly upset about skipping a 4 hour crawl up the mountain, we took some pictures in the snow and headed back down the Subaru line.

My new favorite cookies (saved the day so I got to See Mt Fuji!)

What Mt Fuji looked like on the day I went! Gorgeous right?

Darn that cookie was good!

One of the best professional shots of what Mt Fuji “SHOULD” have looked like while we were there (with all the full glory of the beautiful cherry blossoms we were seeing!)

Cool random side tangent re: the Subaru line – I didn’t know but it was named Subaru line because the drive up the mountain appears to take you straight upwards towards the Pleiades star group (a very important group in Japanese culture.) This is why the automobile symbol for Subaru is the group of stars! I never knew! 🙂

So, down the road we headed.  We were going towards Hakone National Park to do a boat cruise on the Hakone Caldera Lake.  Well, considering we missed our boat twice in two different locations, we gave up on that too!  Pretty, but we were all getting tired from all the running around!

So, now, on to something more interesting.  Some of the ladies were getting hungry so we asked to stop at a rest stop to get some food.  I certainly wasn’t expecting a fully automated kitchen!  It was amazing!  There were only a few attendants to clean away dishes and hand you your order, and a single chef, but otherwise ordering and  taking your money was completely automated!  AMAZING!  Who knew that at a rest stop they would have something so high tech!

 First you pick what you want

then you place your order in the machine

then you wait for your # to come up

And you get super yummy Udon and Tempura!

NOTE: there was also an awesome local market – um yeah, we don’t get carrots this size! I think we are being cheated!!!

Well fed and back on the bus we went.  Heading for our Ryokan.  Ryokan’s are where the travellers of the past would stay.  Samurai, merchants, lords, all of the above.  The hotel was very nice, clean, and staff very willing to help – as I’ve become accustomed while I am here.

 

The “greeting room” for all new visitors to this particular Ryokan.

A panorama picture of our room.  Cool right!  VERY comfortable and I have to admit that I LOVE not having a bunch of “stuff” around me.  It’s extremely peaceful!

Before dinner, I had about an hour to kill, so I went roaming around this peaceful town.  <3!!!  Check it out!

 

This Ryokan has a hot spring bath, as we were close to the Caldera, and of course, we had our full Japanese dinner (meaning a 3 hour event with more food than any human can really eat!).

After dinner, up to bed I went.  Sleeping on tatami mats I thoughts was going to be rough, but really it was quite nice.  The only issue that I had was being able to “roll out of bed” to my feet.  I actually had to muster the morning strength to “get up” out of a bed on the floor (versus my 4ft high mattress on risers at home [so that Thor doesn’t try to climb into bed with me! (Thor is my 150lbs Beauceron, biggest baby ever, and if I let him into bed I would be on the floor!!]).

How can you not get a good nights rest after that!!!

PS – want a good ghost story??  So, for those of you that haven’t fallen asleep with the “peace” of that last image, let me tell you a tale!

So, as you know I am on this portion of my trip with my Mother.  I adore my Mother but we have different travel habits for sure.  In each room at this Ryokan they had little slippers for that room (you changed shoes a ton!).  So, in the very small bathroom they had a pair of slippers for the floor.  Mom didn’t want to trip over them, so she put them up on a counter.  I didn’t know why they weren’t on the floor, so I moved them back.

Mom looks at me and says “I think there is a ghost in this room.”

Why mom? What’s going on?

Well, I moved these shoes and now they are back where they were.

I laughed!  “Yes Mom, there is a little old lady spirit who wants her shoes just a certain way.” (I said jokingly.)  “I moved them.” 🙂  Mom just laughed and said OK – thank goodness she didn’t go to sleep thinking there was a ghost!! 🙂

Can’t wait until tomorrows adventures!

Shauna~