Berubes In Japan: "Dad, I'm the type of person who likes his two feet planted firmly on the ground"

Wow.... wow....wow. What a day. If the Tsukiji Fish Market was an Ice Cream Sundae, the Mt. Fuji trip was the cherry on top.

Although we had a rough start, the day certainly did end on a high note. We hopped on a train to Otsuki at approximately 7am where we were to transfer to the Fujikyu Line. However, as we got off at Otsuki everyone was running to catch their next train and a woman, apparently noticing we had no clue where we were going asked if we were going to "the mountain" and rushed us on a train that was just leaving and said we could pay on the train. Alrighty then, easy enough. Or so I thought. After about an hour, the conductor came by to collect payment and asked for our ticket. I told him we didn't have a ticket because the lady said we could by our ticket on the train... He just kept repeating "ticket. JR pass. ticket". Urgg. Argg. Thankfully, a nice Japenese woman who spoke english, because god forbid the guy who drives the train no more than the word "ticket" was able to help. But who am I to talk. The only words I know in Japanese are "arigato gozaimasu" (Thank you). Anyway, she was able to tell me that what he was looking for was the JR pass from the first train we took so he could figure out how much we owed for this trip. OK, great, mistery solved. I did manage to meet Mike from Chicago on this train. He to was just hoping he was on the right train to go see "the mountain". We exchanged a few stories of our trip and he got off a couple stops before ours.

Once we reached our station we walked to our Ryokan which was only about 15 minutes away to check our luggage as it was only 930 and we wouldn't be able to check in until 3pm. Our hotel is situated right on Lake Kawaguchi and our room has a balcony with a full view of Mt. Fuji. Incredible. The plan was to then head to Fuji-Q Highland, an amusement park. I know, not very Japanese, but as a huge fan of roller coasters, I couldn't come to Japan and NOT ride the not one, not two, but three record breaking coasters that Fuji-Q Highland is known for. This part was entirely for me as Jesse clearly stated on more than one occasion that he just wasn't an amusement park kinda person, and as you can also tell from the title of this entry, not a fan of roller coasters.

Now, I was able to convince Jes to walk to Fuji-Q Highland which was supposed to only take 20 minutes, but ended up taking more like 60 minutes after a few wrong turns and some photo stops. The walk was AMAZING. We walked tiny paths, sometimes unpaved, through this little town, behind all the traffic. We were the only 2 people around.... and right ahead of us... with each corner turned... a Mt. Fuji made itself more and more visible. And as the clouds cleared it finally came in full view, again, just for the two of us. It was breathtaking.

Well, after riding Fujiyama, Takabashi, and Eejanaika we grabbed a crazy cab ride back to our hotel where it just got even better.

We grabbed dinner at the cafe next door. I got some nice photos outside from the lava rocks then went in and slipped into my Yukata and headed for the public baths. The public baths at this ryokan are filled with onsen (natural hot spring) water. It was amazing. I couldn't get Jes to join me as he still hasn't gotten over the whole being naked in public fear. Anyway, I have no problem being naked in public. Definitely the most relaxing time on this trip. I can't even describe how nice it was. After about an hour I decided to treat myself to an in-room shiatsu massage to complete this relaxation cycle.

If you'd asked me to describe who I imagined would be showing up at my door to give me this massage, I surely wouldn't have described the woman as a 4 foot tall by 4 foot wide octogenarian with one eye, but that's what I got. Now, despite her less than ... Lets call it youthful looks, the woman sure knew what she was doing. But come on, who wouldn't be good at their craft after practicing it for 97 years. I'd never received a real japenese shiatsu massage before (nor the kind we have in Sarnia). You could tell this woman didn't learn her craft from no school. She learned that shit from a monk or something. And before you ask, no, I was not offered a penis massage. But that butt massage felt fantastic.

Finally, to cap it all off, Jes and I went down to the Karaoke lounge for some Sake. What's more Japanese than Sake and Karaoke.

Tomorrow we have our traditional Japanese breakfast at 7am then hop on a bus to Mishiama where we'll ride the Shinkansen to Kyoto for a 2-night stay (but I really wish we were staying here for one more night)

Talk to you then...

SIDE NOTE: I have many more pictures that I've taken on the SLR that I will post when I return. I've taken them all in RAW format so they're not easily converted and posted from this tablet I'm using. I'll have a final post a couple weeks after we return to summarize the whole trip in a photo blog format. The pics I've been posting are only those I've taken with my trustee Nokia Lumia 1020.