Japan: Day 3 - Part 1

Day 3 was Christmas Eve.

It started just as early as the day before.

By 9 o'clock I was on the tour bus and headed out of Tokyo to go see Mount Fuji.

On the way out of the city we passed the Tokyo Tower, which is their answer to the Eiffel Tower.

Not as big, but cool.

It took a while to get out of the city, but once we did we saw much of the nature that surrounds Tokyo.  It was very brown and green.

 The tour guide.

We passed through some cloudy patches on the drive but for the most part it was a very clear and very blue morning.  It was a near-perfect morning to go see Mount Fuji.  I was worried because a lot of reviews online said it was super cloudy in the winter time so they didn't get to see the mountain at all.  Not the case for this day.

 

 The first time it came into view.

A little cloudy but it cleared up.

 It was ginormous.

 We stopped at a log cabin building for an hour.  It had a lookout point where you could take pictures, as well as a souvenir shop and different rooms with facts and videos about the mountain.

 

An interesting fact was that Mount Fuji actually has 3 or 4 volcanoes within it that have built up for centuries under the surface.  The last time it exploded was in 1707.  It's an active volcano but

classified as low risk. 

After the lookout point we got back on the bus to go closer to the mountain.

 Snow was starting to show.

The above stretch of road was so cool.  They put grooves on the street so that when vehicles drove over them, and if your car/bus was silent, you could hear a song.  So as we're driving the tour guide told us to be quiet and listen for "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"...and sure enough we heard it.

We were only allowed to go as far as the first stop because of it being winter time.  The roads any further were all icy and snowy.  But we stopped here for a good hour just to explore the area and you could see the mountain pretty well from here too.

 First time seeing snow since Rexburg.
*Update: My mom reminded me that it snowed in Salinas in Feb 2011, right in our front lawn, which I completely forgot about.  Happens once every 50 years.

 I walked around the woods for a little bit.

 

We had lunch at a hotel with this perfect view of the mountain above.

There's not much left to say that the pictures don't show.  But seeing Mount Fuji was awesome.  It was definitely the highlight of the entire trip.  It was a beautiful sight and something I'll never forget.

Freezing though.

- to be cont'd -