Snowball fights and mountain chasing.

Today we found snow! We headed to one of Japan's most well known scenic spots Mt. Fuji. After lots of research and planning we had a route in mind and managed to pull it off successfully. We got up early and negotiated the metro and then found the bus terminal we needed and had our destination questioned by the driver. I found a nice scenic spot that is less touristy and also has a Japanese pagoda at the top of the viewing platform so it makes for some lovely photographs. This was where we were heading which did mean getting off the bus on the edge of the highway while everyone else carried on to the more well known spots. When we arrived we had been delayed by an accident but the mountain was clearly in view so we were optimistic. We walked through the mountain based town and were greated by so much snow everywhere! The ascent up the hill to the pagoda began and a third of the way up we were met by an ice cream van. Of course we had to try the cherry blossom and matcha tea flavours which were as interesting as they sound! We climbed higher and the view was amazing but unfortunately the clouds had rolled in. We'd booked a bus back for much later on in the day so we spent the next 4 hours in the park in case the cloud cleared and we got a good shot of the mountain with the pagoda. We wondered to higher platforms that others were scared to go to because of the snow, a foot deep in places. We came prepared in our walking shoes to headed further up for better views and then into a pine forest near the top of the hill. After climbing for a while through the steep snow we came to a clearing of crisp white snow so of course this meant snowball fight time! I won of course even with a tactical falling on my bum at one point! We walked/skied back down the hill and after a while decided the cloud wasn't budging so headed out of the park. We had a couple of hours to kill so saw a leaflet that in a near by town you can get a 10 minute bus to a lakeside view of the mountain. We decided to do it but of course the leaflet lied! You can make it to the lake in ten minutes but it's another 30 minutes to the good viewing point around the other side. We decided to do our own walk through the town and towards a hill that looks over the mountain. There we found the best view of the mountain we'd had all day and it was mainly clear! After some photos and admiring we headed back and got the train then bus from our dodgey highway side bus stop and made it back to toyko. We completed the day with a well deserved katsu curry of course and reveled in the fact that we'd seen Mt. Fuji and managed to do it for about a third of the cost of an organised tour!Les mer