A View of Mt. Fuji and return to England

Day 11 Sunday April 15th

We definitely saved one of the best spots in Japan for last. Seeing Mt. Fuji for the first time is something that is now engraved into my mind. One of my favourite views I have ever seen. Its up there with the Golden Gate Bridge view at night from the north end looking south. Anyways..... as I mentioned in the previous post we had a quick sleep of about 4 hours and then we made our was to the train. One of the main train connections we had to make happened to be in the same station we were trapped at on the way down to Kyoto. Luckily this time we made our connection no problem and proceeded on towards Hakone.

Once we arrived in Hakone we made a bus connection that would take us to Lake Ashi where we hoped to get a brilliant view of Mt. Fuji. After going off in search of a Starbucks and finding none we took a few pics of the town and jumped on the bus, which then proceed to take us up some very steep paths to get to the town which is on the edge of Lake Ashi. The ride took about 30min and by this time it was already starting to get quite late in the afternoon as it had taken just over 2 hours to get to Hakone.




Well we finally arrived in this town and to our dismay saw nothing but clouds with a hard to see outline of Mt. Fuji in the distance. We wondered around the harbour taking photos of the Tori Gates and then along a small wooded path where we came to a huge park with every plant cut perfectly.



We walked around until sunset taking photos galore and ended up on this gazebo right as the sun was setting. The clouds had disappeared and it left us with a stunning view of Mt. Fuji and Lake Ashi. It was a picture perfect moment and both Ryan and me took full advantage of it.




By now we were running quite late so we rushed back to the town taking a few night shots on the way and began to wait for a bus. We ended up taking the bus back to Odawara where we could catch a local train that would take about 2 hours to get back to Tokyo. Hmm this was a slight problem as we had a small beer festival to attend A.S.A.P. So for time saving and just because I really wanted to we jumped on the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) instead which has us in the heart of Tokyo in under 40min. It was so smooth to ride on that I managed to get a little sleep on route as well.

We met up with Ryan’s friends again for a few drinks but called it an early night as we were really tired and I had a 6am bus to catch. So it was back to Kichijoji for one final night.

Day 12 Monday April 16th

Being up at 6am came as no surprise to my body only it was a little strange waking up instead of going to sleep. Ryan kindly came into the station with me (mostly to have yet another Starbucks coffee) and it wasn't long before I was back on the bus and on my way to the airport and then off to Copenhagen Denmark. I just want to say a huge thank you to Ryan and all his friends who did so much for me on my trip and for making it absolutely amazing. It is a trip that I will never forget and I do plan on heading back to Japan at some point in my life.

wait there’s more.....

After a 2 hour wait in Denmark I caught my last flight back to Heathrow. I was a little upsetting to get off the plane back in England as all I wanted to do was turn around and go back to Japan. But work was calling and I have to pay the bills somehow. As I got to the bus terminal I looked up to find I had to wait 1.5 hours for bus. Now I was not used to this as in Japan you rarely have to wait more than 5min for a bus or a train. As the 1.5 hours ended I looked up to a flashing screen next my bus route saying "DELAYED for 45min"..... "F*ck" I thought... or perhaps said out loud based on the looks I received from the couple beside me. Yes it was at that point, I realised I was definitely back in England.