22 June 2009 - Mt Fuji & Hakone Tour

Location: Mt Fuji & Hakone, Japan
Weather: Misty 20 degrees?
Author: Amy

THE JOURNEY

Thanks to Ryan, Chrissie and I finally visited Mt Fuji! We went with an English speaking tour group with maybe 20 other people. The tour bus route was basically Tokyo-Mt Fuji-Hakone-Tokyo. It was a good choice for a first trip as the tour guide entertained us with a lot of information on Japanese culture and customs, including the folklore behind Mt Fuji.

We left Tokyo around 9am (Chrissie and I made the bus with only minutes to spare thanks to train delays!) and reached Mt Fuji Station No.5 around 10.30am.

On the way there, we passed quite a lot of paddy fields but don't be fooled into thinking they are huge big paddy fields like those in Malaysia and Thailand. These paddy fields are small and family-owned. Japan is 100% self sufficient when it comes to rice although they do import rice.

Japanese style paddy fields with beautiful mountain backdrop

The paddy fields are really small!

I loved that when we were in this area, we were surrounded by green green mountains with low lying clouds everywhere. It made for a surreal and somehow refreshing feel.

The picturesque mountains.

As we approached Mt Fuji, we passed a roller coaster park called 'FujiQ'? Chrissie wants to ride the roller coaster when we go to Mt Fuji again with Danny.

First peek at the FujiQ roller coasters.

If you look really closely, you will see a carriage on the roller coaster.

I zoomed in on another picture I took of the roller coaster and it looked like the carriage was upside down at the top of the roller coaster!!! And it had a cage around it! I don't know if I was really looking at the carriage where you sit for the ride or something else. I don't think I want to find out...

VISITOR'S CENTRE, base of MT. FUJI

Mt. Fuji is known by many names according to folklore. Among them, "Goddess of Fire" because Mt Fuji is an active volcano. The last time it erupted was 300 years ago.

We arrived at the Visitor's Centre and had a short look around. There were many geographical, meteorological and other scientific displays.

"Is a tiger living in the circular crater at the summit of Mt Fuji?" is what the caption says on this display

The most interesting displays we found were 'The Best' records...

Who is the oldest person who has climbed Mt Fuji?

The oldest man to climb Mt Fuji was 103 years old! This was actually a love story, according to our tour guide. This man's wife had died in the previous years. During one of her death anniversaries, this devoted husband climbed Mt Fuji (accompanied by other family members) in order to be closer to heaven, and thus, speak to her.

Who is the person who has climbed Mt Fuji the most?

The answer is a Japanese guy, Fusakichi Kaji, who climbed Mt Fuji 1,672 times... because he was a combined guide and baggage carrier for 50 years!

Who is the first foreigner who has climbed Mt Fuji?

This honor belongs to Englishman Rutherford Alcock, the first British ambassador to Japan who climbed Mt Fuji in 1860.

Who is the first woman who has climbed Mt Fuji?

In the olden times, women were banned from climbing Mt Fuji up until 1872. However, in 1832, a woman named Tatsu Takayama climbed to the summit of Mt Fuji dressed like a man, with her hair tied up in a topknot.

There were a few more but these were the most interesting ones.

5th STATION, MT FUJI

And we made it! Halfway, that is...

All the way up, Mt Fuji was covered with fog. We were lucky with this shot

Official climbing season starts in July to August (summer). Danny wants to climb Mt Fuji so we might be giving it a shot but I think most likely, we will just hike up a bit (maybe 4th station?) and that's it.

Amy & Chrissie were here

About 5 minutes after this picture was taken, Mt Fuji was covered by fog again. So, lucky us!

There are a few touristy shops at the 5th station and we dropped in to have a look. Here's one of the interesting things we found...

Eh?

My main aim was to get postcards or pictures of Mt Fuji to hang up at home. I ended up with 12 fantastic postcards which I have absolutely no intention of giving anyone! Chris and Ryan sent a postcard to their moms from the 5th station (cause you get a special chop only at the 5th station). Sorry, Mom... I don't remember our home address in Malaysia...

I will be showcasing the postcards later...

LUNCH

We packed our own lunch so we didn't join the rest of the tour group for lunch.

Amy's nutritional and balanced lunch

Ha ha! I just had to show it after all the effort I made into packing it!

HAKONE

From this point on, all the places were a blur to me cause I wasn't paying attention to the names, and also because it got really misty and we couldn't see a lot. We took a cable car to the top of some mountain so we could see some lake (I forget the names), but it was too misty to see anything.

Misty misty! Don't ask me where this was. I only wanted to show the mist.

While waiting for the boat to arrive for the boat cruise, we browsed a souvenir shop. I had a pleasant surprise!

Totoro Heaven!



All the little Totoro's!

These are actually musicboxes!

I want!!! Especially "Laputa". My favourite Ghibli music composition.

Then off we went on the river cruise...

Hmmm... I have a bad feeling about this...

Basically, we knew we weren't going to see anything on the river cruise. Heck! We couldn't even see the ferry until it moored!

Looks like a scene straight out of a horror movie, doesn't it? I voted "Silent Hill"

We were supposed to see some temples and I remember there was supposed to be a red gate in the waters. But it was so foggy we only saw water... until we reached the next docking station...

The clearest shot I actually got during the entire boat trip.

Although I must say the misty bits added to the ethereal feel... Just not that great for picture taking...

Then it was time to go home...

All in all, I'm glad we went on this trip. It was short and sweet. Not too tiring and I got a lot of mementos I'm happy with...

THE MEMENTOS

I didn't have time to get more of the big pictures as I only had seconds to select the ones I wanted. So I took the one that stood out the most.

This is about an A1 size? So going to hang on my wall at home

And here are my beloved postcards...

Mine! Mine! All mine!

Self Reflection at Dawn

Mt Fuji with a sea of clouds
[photographed by T.Watanabe]

Daybreak at Motosu Lake

From the sky above Kamiide

I love all the postcards and plan on framing them up and displaying them.

When Danny comes, I think we will be going again and this time, with luck, we'll take more fantastic pictures!

Until next time, take care everyone!

Another food post!

Location: Tokyo, Japan
Weather: mostly nice cause it's spring/summer
Author: Amy (it's a FOOD post... who did you expect?)

In no particular order, here are some of the places we tried out.

SWEETS PARADISE

Sweets Paradise is an all-you-can-eat place specialising in cakes and dessert stuff. They've also got pasta, sandwiches and soup to even out the taste-buds a bit but cakes and fondue are the main attractions.

Choices, choices!

Chocolate fountain. I think S & Chris wanted to dive into it...

After...

The cakes weren't bad but weren't mind-blowingly good either. I liked the millecrepe the most, which is basically many layers of crepes with fruits and fresh cream in between. And suprisingly, the cabbage rolls were pretty tasty too! Cabbage rolls are meat (chicken in this case) wrapped with cabbage leaf, then steamed or boiled in soup.

CAFE SARDI

This is a cafe in Shibuya that S & I happened across and the special french toast of the day was very good. The jam was not too sweet and everything complimented each other very well.

Special French Toast of the day - french toast with berry jam and ice-cream.

Mango milk pudding because I love mango and milk pudding.

A few days later, I brought Chris to try the special of the day but it happened to be blood orange something with coconut sauce... Since neither Chris nor I liked coconut sauce, we passed and got normal french toast instead to try it out.

Plain french toast

French toast with rose jam

Honestly, the second time was not that great maybe because the french toast was very normal. The first time was the best.

SUSHI ZENMAI

This may sound familiar to some of you. That's because we've been to this restaurant before! Or at least the store in Tsukiji. This is a chain of sushi restaurants and Chris brought S to the Shibuya store on his last night in Tokyo. S really liked the sushi from what I hear and was very adventurous in trying out all sorts of sushis we don't get back in Perth.

S loved his sushi...

A few days later, Chris and I went back cause I was in the mood for sushi. The most outstanding sushi I had that day was the broiled maguro...

Broiled maguro

The texture was superb with a hint of crispiness on the top charred side coupled with the cool chewy raw insides, with a pinch of rock salt. I ordered two... Heh heh...

IZAKAYA EXPERIENCE AGAIN

We brought S to an izakaya in Shibuya that we had never been to before. It turned out to be quite a nice place. We ordered quite a lot of stuff but only took pics of a few more interesting ones.

Sashimi salad. I love this!!!

Fish ball with cheese inside. Sprinkle some salt lightly and eat

Salmon sushi. Not that memorable unfortunately...

Takoyaki with melted cheese!

SOME KOREAN RESTAURANT...

We felt like having Korean one day and we wanted to try out someplace new. It was a Monday and a lot of the restaurants were closed. So, clever me chose a place that had really good-looking waiters. If I'm going to try a new place and can't decide where to go, I may as well choose some place with eye-candy, right? Can't beat that logic!

I had beef bulgogi because I couldn't decipher the rest of the menu. A lot of them were intestine stuff...

Chris had a cold noodle dish which is excellent for summer cause it's refreshing.

I was curious as to whether the bulgogi would be different to the Korean restaurants in Perth but it was pretty similar. I think I like ssamgyupsal the most...

ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT YAKINIKU

We also went to an all-you-can-eat yakiniku place in Ikebukuro.

S showing us how it's done

The cuts of the beef was nothing like wagyu but there is certainly a lot in quantity. The seafood was surprisingly quite fresh! We tried a few new things like:

- Natto salad (only Chris ate this one)
- Raw minced beef salad (surprisingly not beefy!)
- Raw daikon salad
- Ox-tongue (I did not dare touch this after a previous experience...)

Charring our food nicely

The rest of the stuff we ate was pretty normal, like beef kalbi, chicken, seafood, grilled vegetables, sausages, fatty pork, etc...

Our 3rd or 4th helping?

We topped it off with very refreshing mango sorbet.

Happy Chris? Poor thing could only eat chicken, seafood and vegies

After that, we went to a pub and happened to catch the soccer game between Japan and Uzbekhistan (?).

Cheering on Japan

Well! We've done quite a lot lately, haven't we? Thanks to S coming to Japan, we managed to go to a few places for once. We've been quite lazy lately, only working and staying at home. So it's great when someone comes over and we finally get off our lazy bums and do something productive.

Until next time, take care all!

2 June 2009 - DisneySea!!! - Part 4

... continued from previous post

BRAVISEAMO

You know how DisneyLand has the evening electrical parade followed by fireworks to end the day? Disneysea's equivalent is the Braviseamo, a show on the water itself! It was SPECTACULAR!

Waiting for the show to start

The show starts with a graceful Water Lady gently gliding out to the harbor to greet us.

The ever graceful Water Lady

Then, out of the depths of the water, a creature arises.... it is a Dragon! I wasn't sure what to expect at this point as I had no inkling at all about the show. Imagine my surprise when the Dragon burst into flames... in the water!

The fiery Dragon

The night was meant to be capped with a spectacular fireworks show, signaling the end of Braviseamo, but due to strong wind conditions, it was cancelled... BOO!!!! Fireworks are my favourite!!!

Oh well... guess we'll have to come back again... ^_^