I got into the town of Kawaguchiko just after dark and found my way to the guesthouse with a basic Japanese style room. It’s traditionally styled room but it’s almost completely empty with just a roll out mattress and a pillow and blanket that goes on the floor! Alrighty then. I didn’t go out for food until after 8:00 and to my surprise everything was closed. Quiet little town! 7-11 it is! The nice thing is all the convenience stores have pretty good food options, surprisingly good food options - so I had some microwaveable pork char siu, with veggies and an omelet topped over white rice, and it cost $4! And then I had a few pieces of sushi to boot. Really not a bad dinner.
I set my alarm at 5am, looked out the window, and there it was, Fuji, the big beautiful bastard! The weather had held up, right at the perfect time. I happily gathered my stuff together and headed out towards the big lake nearby to scout out some good photo spots at sunrise. Although I think my favorite photo was actually looking back at the mountain from the street just two minutes away from my guesthouse.
Once I made it to the bridge over the lake I was not alone, there were definitely a few other photographer types out there, and with good reason. I wandered around for a bit and found a few decent photo opportunities, but nothing that was really enthralling. It really was too bad most of the fall colors were finished! Oh well. It was still a great morning and it was a very pleasant walk back to town for breakfast. Then it was time to rent a bike for the day.
I had a good 20 mile circuit mapped out and thankfully the weather was just perfect, 50 and sunny. Like basically all forms of transportation in Japan, getting around by bicycle around is a very pleasurable experience. The road are immaculate, there are bike lanes everywhere, cars drive slow, and outside of the main roads, there seems to be hardly any traffic. Definitely one of the biggest surprises I’d find in Japan was just how not-crowded the streets are. In the US all these little side streets would get taken up by cars looking to the avoid the traffic jams on the main roads. So I really like using a bike to get around.
Along the way I made pit stops at a Shinto shrine in the woods, a little hobbit-like tourist town – I think I caught the tour buses because it was jammed, the old part of town, and did a hike up to a temple with views overlooking Fuji. So it was another successful tourist day, although I wouldn’t have minded another morning to go out and take more photos. But I already had my Tokyo hotel booked, so off I went.
