Mt Fuji

Walked to the Keio Plaza Hotel which was the pickup point for our tour. Very busy with lots of tours leaving. We transferred at the Hamamatsucho bus station. It was around a 2 hour drive to the 5th station on Mt Fuji. Our tour guide was Toshi, he was a real character! We were very lucky with the weather. Clear skies, a little bit of wind and about 15 degrees. We had 45 minutes to look around. Not really long enough, it never is on tours. Next stop was for lunch at a traditional Japanese restaurant. The food was great although some explanation of what some of it was would have helped. After lunch we set off for Lake Ashi and a short cruise to catch the Komagatake ropeway to the top of Mt. Komagatake. We caught a few glimpses of Mt Fuji and the surrounding countryside. We left Hakone and made our way to Odawara Station to catch the  Kodama Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Shinagawa station where we changed train for Shinjuku. We watched several trains pass while we were waiting for ours. They are amazing to see, I managed to film one on the Gopro. The trains were very busy even though it was around 7pm when we arrived back at Shinjuku station. We bought some dinner at the station, which they very kindly heated up for us, before heading back to the hotel.Read more