Chasing Mount Fuji Part I: Doing it on the fly
23 Apr
The kangaroo has a soft spot for iconic locations so he has this great wish for our wedding to have Mount Fuji in the background. When his mum, Mrs Kangaroo, was in town for a visit last month, we went on two road trips to do “research”.
Work was crazy busy for us so we didn’t book train tickets, a car, or a hotel. In Japan, that’s just not done, but as quirky gaijins we somehow bumbled our way through it all. Not planning ahead ended up to be quite fun. All you need is an iPhone, apparently.
Here’s a photo of us vagabonds on an express train to the Hakone area. We had to get off at Yokohama because the seats were all booked and so we took the next one that had non-reserved seats.
It was a long weekend with a public holiday on a Monday so all the cars were booked out by the time we reached Odawara station. In a Starbucks over lattes and sandwiches, the kangaroo worked his iPhone like never before and we managed to find a small B&B in Yamanaka-ko, one of the lakes at the base of Mount Fuji. He found it on this amazing Japanese website where it lists available rooms that saved us the trouble from calling many hotels just to make inquiries.
After a three-hour journey (we took a train, a bus, and a taxi), we got to Pension Bee Club, a French-themed pension lodge that was warm and friendly. And we also made it to dinner which started on the dot at 630pm.
Blueberries are a specialty in this part of Yamanashi so I had to order their blueberry beer just to have a taste. It was like a shandy but with blueberry juice.
They couldn’t prepare a vegetarian meal for me because of the late notice but they said it was okay to bring my own food which was cool by me. So I had a conbini type dinner…
And they were very sweet to serve me their spinach soup which was vegetarian. It was surprisingly light and savoury although it looked pretty creamy.
There wasn’t much to do so we tried to go for a walk to Yamanakako lake but we didn’t stay long as it was cold and windy. Then we headed back to watch TV — a documentary on the Tasmanian devil was on. I had to laugh at the weirdness of being in rural Japan with two Australians watching a show about Australia in Japanese. We attempted translating the dialogue for Mrs Kangaroo and we were quite chuffed we could understand 60 to 70 per cent of it. Well, the Tasmanian devil is not a very complicated animal…
That’s us in our cozy three-person tatami room. It was actually the only Japanese-style room in the lodge and was really an annex to the rest of the building. The rain sounded like huge rocks on our roof and was a bit hard to sleep.
We got up early so we could set off for the nearest car rental shop to try our luck.
We had a French-inspired breakfast before we left. I’m not sure which part of it was French but it’s quite typical of the Western-style breakfasts you can find in Japan. There’s always salad and ketchup with scrambled eggs. Instead of sausages, they made a creamy pasta salad for me, which was very thoughtful.
Stayed tuned for the second part of our weekend…
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We went to Hakone a couple of weeks ago but couldn`t see Mt Fuji while we were there but I hope to see it in a couple of weeks when we head to a ryokan near one of the lakes for our wedding anniversary.
It seems like you had a fun time and I love your photos. Look forward to reading the rest of the series.
Hakone is truly romantic… I’d love to have some couple time with the kangaroo there too! Keepin’ my fingers crossed that you’ll see Fuji-san.
Just hire one of those way corny ‘pirate’ ships that cruise the lake. Why not make it a pirate themed wedding?
LOL! That’s a fabulous suggestion, Chris. I’ve to admit those pirate ships are hard to resist…
I especially liked the bonus pirate figures – you should get one hooked up for audio and get him to do the ceremony! Complete with corny accent.
Or if you’re really keen, get the roo to rescue you or pay a ransom (the ring? bags of yen?) to the pirates (the groomsmen and bridesmaids?).
But it gets really windy out on the lake, so be careful during the cold months. If the weather is good you can position the ship so you get Fujisan in the background of every single photo. Good luck!