Fujinomiya Shi

Under heavy skies we got up and got on today's series of trains, heading south towards Mount Fuji. There's a few different spots you can see and interact with this icon of Japanese art and culture, and for our visit we'd chosen to head for the town of Fujinomiya, located just south-west of the mountain itself.

Here was the World Heritage Centre, and a good vantage point for viewing the mountain. Or would be, if it wasn't heavily overcast! Despite being basically underneath a 3500m mountain, we couldn't see it in the slightest. Nothing, zip, zilch. And it was raining!

We headed into the World Heritage Centre which had some great displays about the mountain and was really well presented. It showed you through the geological history, the various climates at different points on the mountain, the history of man and the mountain, worship, art and culture, the works. We spent a couple of hours going through, really impressed.

By the time we emerged, you still couldn't see anything. Of course! Nearby was a shrine that pilgrims climbing the mountain usually stop at (Fuji is worshipped as a Shinto god), so we stopped in here and had a look around though nothing seemed particularly different compared to other Shinto shrines.

Grabbed a quick lunch at the 7-11 and then headed for a nearby sake brewery. They brew their sake with glacial runoff from Fuji, so we figured that was almost as good as climbing the mountain itself! Kind of.

In the end, defeated by the rain and unable to see anything, we boarded a train bound for Tokyo. Our accommodation for the night was a capsule hotel to the north of central Tokyo, in an area called Omiya. Lots of stuff happening nearby, and we had a good wander around. Nearly had pizza after wandering into a place that did good size pizzas for 400 yen (about $5), before realising that the cover charge was going to be 500 yen each!! No thanks, we'll find a noodle shop instead. So that's what we did!Read more