Check in wasn't until 3:00pm, but the ryokan was only about a ten minute walk from the bus station, so we walked over to drop off our bags and take in the view.
There were too many clouds to see Mount Fuji, but we decided to at least go to the Mount Fuji visitor center and learn a bit about it. On a map, it looked walkable, but we discovered that it was on the other side of a major road, and was really just set up for tour buses to drop off large groups of people. Luckily, there weren't any tour groups there, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves, so we took our time. The first display we found had a robot that explained the significance of Mount Fuji to you. It was pretty weird.
We found some other displays, most of which were at about the same level of "interesting", for example, interesting video/diorama combo,
plus some fun photo ops, Hello Kitty Fujisan anyone?
We also found a place for lunch. You had to order and pay for lunch through a machine.
It was eventually delivered by humans though. We got soup and "lava" bread.
For the walk back, we meandered a bit through the neighborhoods. It is a really beautiful area even without a view of Mount Fuji (in the clouds behind the houses).
One of the things that impressed us the most was the gardening. There were food gardens and sculpted trees everywhere.
We had a great time wandering through the little streets and neighborhoods and noticing interesting things, including lots of big, green spiders that I was too scared to get a picture of, because they would start skittering around in their webs every time I got close.
By the time we got back to the ryokan we were ready for some pampering. Luckily, that was exactly what we had planned. We started by enjoying the view from our room's balcony.
We had a traditional Japanese style room. At night they moved the tables and chairs to the side and put out sleeping mats for us. Jeff called it our Japanese slumber party.
Shortly after we got into the room, our room attendant arrived with hot towels, tea, snacks and information.
I'm not sure exactly what happened to this apple, but the end result was yummy.
Part of the reason for picking this ryokan was that they have onsens, which are natural hot springs baths. Usually in Japan these are separated by gender and you go in naked. Jeff wasn't such a fan of that, but this ryokan had some other options. First of all, they had a foot onsen on the roof, so after tea and snacking on dried apples, we went up to rest our weary feet and take in the view.
The ryokan also offered private onsen with views of a rock garden every day and Mount Fuji on clear days. I booked one of those for us too.
It was incredibly relaxing, but I also got a kick out of the fact that they provided a little baby bath seat, so that you could use it as a family bath if you wanted to.
Another thing the ryokan provided was yukatas, which are kind of like a cross between a bathrobe and a kimono. If you want to, you can spend your entire ryokan stay in a yukata and slippers, and we saw many people walking around doing just that. Jeff tried it out for a while, but then went back to his regular t-shirt and shorts. I kept mine on for our fancy dinner in our room, served to us by our room attendant. When we told her this was our anniversary trip, she said she wanted to take a picture of us toasting with our peach aperitif. I'm so glad she suggested it, because the picture makes me super happy.
The dinner was a delicious adventure. We started with a whole bunch of appetizers.
The best was a big plate of delicious sashimi.
Then we had crab miso soup.
We also had a Japanese take on vichyssoise, with fish and freeze dried vegetables thrown in. It was actually really good.
While we were enjoying our soup, our room attendant lit small candles under our lava plates, so that they could heat up and we could cook our incredible beef and vegetables that were sitting just above the vichyssoise. The meat and the sashimi were tied for the best part of the meal.
There were a couple more boiled and steamed dishes after that, but they weren't that tasty, and by that point we were pretty much full. I managed to make a little bit of space to try the dessert.
The orange "slice" was actually just an orange peel filled with orange jelly, so I had to try it, and the little bowl had a yummy coconut custard.
We gave ourselves some time to digest while they cleared away the food and switched the furniture around to night mode. Then we finished off the night with in-room shiatsu massages, which we decided are kind of like Thai massages, but faster.
Even without a sighting of Mount Fuji, it was an absolutely incredible day.
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