Monday, 15 April 2024
Today’s agenda was a full day trip to Mount Fuji.
We hired 2 private vans from Tour Master, which I booked on Viator for USD1400 for 2 large vans.
We left the hotel at 8AM. Our guides were Sebastian (Seb) and Abdul Rehman.
We stopped by EXPASA Dangozaka, it’s a highway stop on the way to Fuji. I was excited to visit the stop as it was my first time visiting a Japanese highway stop (every experience counts!).
Our first sighting of Fuji was just around 40 mins from Dangozaka. We approached Kawaguchiko Town and headed to our first stop, the Chureito Pagoda. The pagoda was situated at the top of the hill.
My parents and the 5 children in our group couldn’t climb all the way to the top, but thankfully, there were plenty of viewpoints that we could enjoy just half way up the hill. The view was breathtaking. There were small stalls selling snacks (such as takoyaki and ice cream) and we took our time to enjoy the scenery.
While the rest of the group were resting at the viewpoint, my brother and I went all the way up to the Pagoda. As expected, the view was even better, but there was a long queue to take a photo of Fuji with the pagoda.
After Chureito Pagoda, our guide took us to Kosaku Kawaguchiko for lunch. A famous local restaurant.
The tempura was fantastic. Possibly the best I’ve had in Japan yet.
From Kosaku, we went to Oishi Park. The views from Oishi Park was amazing. There were colourful flowers and a nice cafe near the lake.
Seb took us to a corner of the park that had an amazing view of Fuji.
All in all it was a very satisfactory day trip for us. The weather was amazing, there weren’t too many people and we got take our time to explore the sites.
In the evening, after we got back to the city, we went to Uniqlo Ginza for some evening shopping.
Related posts: Tokyo 2024 part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7
Imran Jaafar 