We started our trip by flying into Tokyo. The last time Jeff and I flew together on a plane without children, was before Vivian was born. We both actually got to read our books!
For our trip, I had gotten us the Japan Rail Pass. Mom brought the exchange order with her from the States.
We had to wait in line for a bit to get the real JR pass, but then we were all set to go on the Narita Express into Tokyo. The train pulled into the airport station, and then a cleaning man went into each car to spin the seats around and give the car a once over. Jeff said it reminded him of the cleaning robots in WALL-E.
One of the first things we saw when we got to Tokyo Station was Judy's future car.
Then we went outside to wait for our Airbnb host who was picking us up to take us to the apartment.
The apartment was very nice, but it was also a bit outside of the downtown area, so there weren't any good sushi places around. Instead, we found a restaurant within walking distance that served gyoza, yum :-)
The people who worked at the restaurant didn't really speak English, and we don't really speak Japanese, but we managed to order through a combination of pointing, smiling, and nodding. We were completely stumped though when they brought us mystery appetizers that we hadn't ordered.
In the spirit of learning about a new culture, we tried a little of everything. The bowl on the right had mushrooms and beans with some kind of soy/sesame sauce combo, so we ate most of the that. The other bowl though was more meat/egg/seafood. Jeff managed to enjoy most of it once he realized that the yellow glob on the side was spicy sauce. In Jeff's world, everything tastes good covered in spicy sauce, even if it is a little squishy.
The next day our plan was to take the train to the bus station, and then take a bus to Lake Kawaguchi in the Mount Fuji area. The night before, we had scoped out breakfast places around the train station and discovered Doutor Coffee, a Japanese chain I had never heard of before, but which became our go to breakfast destination for the rest of our trip. They have good coffee and plenty of sandwich options that worked well for breakfast and for takeaway for a lunch on the go.
Once we were fueled up, we were ready to navigate the joys of purchasing a bus ticket to somewhere we had never been before in a foreign country. Luckily, the bus station was set up for tourists, and the people who worked there were very friendly and spoke English. It's incredible though that in a country with so much advanced technology, most things are still recorded on paper. My goal was for us to catch the bus around 10:00am, so we got there around 9:30. When I had checked online, there was plenty of space on the 10:00am bus, but when we got to the station, they said it was full, but we could get on the 11:15 bus. I asked politely (politeness is always the key in Asia) if there was any way to get on the earlier bus. I had heard the tourist couple next to me being assigned the 11:15 bus as well, so I figured it was a long shot, but it never hurts to ask. Sure enough, the saleslady hesitated for a second, and then said I could get on the wait list for the 10:00am. I said sure, so she filled out another piece of paper and walked me over to stand in front of another counter. There was no one else there, and after a few minutes, I got called up and told we could get on the 10:00am bus. Woohoo for the triumph of saying please and smiling! Jeff was flabbergasted at the whole "system", but we figured, just roll with it and get on the bus.
The bus ride was lovely once we left the city. We stopped several times at little bus stops along the road, that had stairs leading off to what we assumed were residential areas.
We could tell when we got into the lake district, because there were beautiful views of towns around the lake. It was really hard to get a picture from the bus that was in focus and not blocked by mesh fencing. This is the best one I have.
We also got into mountainous areas where we had to go through tunnels and do some looping up and around. It was beautiful.
As we got closer to Mount Fuji, we saw that it was covered in mist, which was not surprising giving the rainy day. What was surprising was that there is an amusement park along the road with a view of Mount Fuji.
We never did get a good view of Fujisan, so we figured we'll come back one summer when the girls are older and make sure to include a stop for roller coaster riding.
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