ARTSY AVA IN JAPAN - Day 5 Mt. Fuji Tour!♥

by AVA TE-ZABAT♥ - October 27, 2017

The year is almost ending yet I still have Day 6 and 7 left of my Japan trip to post. I hope I finish it before the end of December! >_< The month of October has been so busy that I haven't found the time to blog about personal stuff. But finally, here I am again with another travel post and it's Day 5 of our stay in Tokyo and particularly a day trip to Mt. Fuji! ^_^

For our second day in Tokyo, it was reserved for a full day of touring Mt. Fuji and initially I was pretty excited for this, because it was the first time in our whole 7 day trip in Japan that I wouldn't be the one navigating or locating where we were gonna go. We joined Sunrise tours of JTB for this one and we reserved our slot through our Japan Visa agency - Friendship Tours. :) Though, there are tons of sites that offer some tour packages as well, so don't limit yourself. We just opted getting from the agency cos a.) they offered it b.) it was almost in the same price range of the others we saw in other sites and c.) we were pressed for time! If I remember correctly, the price of the tour for all 3 of us already was Php 20K++ and that's inclusive of food. :)
So, for this tour, we were asked to meet the bus at the nearest terminal to our place and it was at Hamamatsucho Bus Terminal. We got there at exactly 9:00AM and our bus left around 9:30AM bound for our Mt. Fuji - Hakone 1-Day Tour. :)

The travel time to our destination was around 2 hours and 30 minutes. It's still quite far from the city, so in that whole trip, I really snoozed! Definitely a bad decision to stay up late the night before to watch K-Drama! >_<
The view that greeted us when we got down our bus... Just wow!

Our first stop for the tour was the Mt. Kawaguchiko ropeway ride and good thing too cos I was most excited for this one! :) To be on the very top and see the whole view.

In case you want to go here without a tour guide or not on a tour, here is the price list for the cable car. :)

The most breath-taking view on our way up via the cable car. :) One of the best 5-10 minute ride!
And the stunning view doesn't stop there, folks! If you want to reconnect with nature and just get away from all the stress, this is for you...

Didn't know what this was exactly? Looked like a mochi to me, but just found it cute that everything at the store had Mt. Fuji prints!

Since this was a tour, we were only given a certain number of minutes in particular areas. For the top view of Lake Kawaguchi, we were only given around 20-25 minutes and we rode the cable car again going down for lunch time. :)

With my Momma!:)

More of these lovely hydrangea on our way down the hill. :) They have a lot of these there.

The building with the ice cream store was the place where we had lunch. :)

Spotted these beautiful postcards of Mt. Fuji on our way up for lunch

A very Japanese and delicious meal! :) Perks of my mom and Lola not eating raw, I got all the Maguro (tuna) hihihi!

After lunch, we were given 10 minutes to go around a bit and then it was the time for our Lake Kawaguchi cruise. :) Just a little fact, Mt. Fuji has five (5) lakes near it, but Lake Kawaguchi is the second largest and the most accessible if you take the train or bus. :)

Lake Kawaguchi is said to be located right at the base of Mt. Fuji, but unfortunately, since it was incredibly cloudy during our tour, we weren't able to see the famous mountain. This was already something we expected before booking the tour, so just be warned! :) But at least I still get to gaze upon the place where its located! After all, it's one of the World Heritage Sites. :)

We still enjoyed the 15 minute cruise while it lasted and to see all of the stunning view around us really made it worth it. :)

At the end of our cruise, we were lead back to our tour bus and from there headed to the 5th station of Mt. Fuji, which was surprisingly far. Took us an hour to get there.

On our way up, it was really foggy. I was quite scared. Thankfully, our driver got us there safely!

Mt. Fuji's 5th station! Saw a lot of hikers here. But as for us, we stayed here for a good 30 minutes and explored some of the "forest" parts, which I think was my Mom's ultimate favorite cos she made me do these...

She was most definitely digging the "into the woods" vibe! =P Haha! But no complaints here! I've got an awesome Instagram Momma, don't you think? ;)

After climbing, we headed down to grab ourselves the famous Mt. Fuji Melon Pan! :)

I think they were selling this for 260 Yen/piece and it's really good! They served it warm from the oven with the cocoa powder and icing sugar on top and delicious taste of melon on your first bite. :) I recommend that you get this when you go to the 5th station!

Finally the last leg of our tour, was a quick stopover at Hakone. :) Only got to stay there for 15 minutes.

Got a nice view of the Hakone Pirate Ship! :)

For our way back to the city, we were given an option of whether you wanted to get dropped off at Shinjuku or Ginza. We chose the latter. :)

Hello Ginza!!! :) We just had dinner here and went home to rest. It was an extremely tiring day!

Just a realization on the tour - I personally have no regrets that we did a tour. I think it's quite difficult or almost impossible to go to Mt. Fuji on your own as a tourist. But we realized at the end of this trip that we are not meant for tours! The whole moving from point A to point B really quick is not for us. We want to simmer in a place for a while and admire each location at its fullest! When you're on a tour, everything happens in such a fast pace, so if you plan to go to Japan and thinking of going on several tours, I highly suggest that you make sure you only go for the ones that are extremely hard to go to. If you can take just the MRT/train or navigate on your own, it's so much better. :)

Nevertheless, it was a really fun Day 5 for us and can't wait to share Day 6 and 7 soon!♥ To read Day 1-4 of our Japan adventure, click >>>>HERE<<<<