Japan Trip July 2007

Streets of Shinjuku

Arriving in Shinjuku. One of the largest shopping, entertainment and business area in Tokyo. You can literally go from Shinjuku to any parts of Japan by railway and coaches. The railway station itself is an confusing maze of restaurants, department stores, florists, bookshops and lotsa of lockers everywhere. (photo: Above Shinjuku Station, at cross junction)

Long Queue for Donuts

Donut craze in Japan as well? You just can't stop donut lovers. Well, this is only the front. The queue continued behind for 300 meters; and this is not Hello Kitty. (photo: Shinjuku, infront of Takashimaya, railway tracks run below)

Nearing the summit

Took a Keiyo bus from Shinjuku to Mt Fuji 5th station to begin an overnight climb up Mt Fuji. Weather was bad. Rain and strong winds. (Photo: Still a long way to the summit. Almost there）

Waiting to board train at Shinjuku

Our RomanceCar train schedule to Hakone. At peak hours, the train station is horrendously pack. For limited express trains, the locals have to reserve a seat before they can board. At evening times, the locals will queue in a long straight line infront of the ticket vending machine for the tickets availble sign to show up.

Hakone Yumoto Train Station

Today, we took the famous Romancecar train from Shinjuku to Hakone. The famous hotspring resort that offers a scenic view of Mt Fuji. We bought the Hokone FreePass that offers return tickets between Hakone Yumoto and Shinjuku, plus all the free bus rides, boat rides and cablecar ropeway. It is definately a must for tourists. (Photo: Hakone Yumoto station).






Went to visit the Hakone Begonia Gardens. Just beside the Yumoto train station. Free shuttle service. (photo: some nice flowers)

Pirate ship at lake Ashi

Took a bus with our FreePass to Lake Ashi. You can see the snow peaks of Mt Fuji on a clear day. Not today. The pirate boat operates between Moto-Hakone and Togendai. (photo: at the shores of Moto-Hakone)






A woodcraft shop by Lake Ashi. Just opposite the Moto Hakone bus station.
















Ships Ahoy! mate. One day being on a pirate ship. We took the 30mins cruise from Moto-Hakone to Togendai. No pirates gold at the end of the ride.











The famous red shrine arch at Lake Ashi. It was said that ladies come here to pray for a good husband. (photo: taken from the pirate ship)





At Togendai, we took the Hakone Ropeway to Owakudani. The boiling sulphur pit where local sell medicinal eggs (black egss) that was said to increase longevity and good health. (photo: In the cablecar, lake Ashi in the background)









Owakudani , also known as the valley of hell. This place is where the mainstream package tours congregate. Bus loads of local tourists poured in to have a taste of the black egg and sulphur fumes. (photo: boiling mud pool)








Accessible by the Hakone Tozan Train. A short walk from the small village station with residential houses dotted along the way. This is the Hakone Open-Air Museum, which offers many interesting scuplture that has a "twist" in its meaning.














A mosaic lady with a handbag?









Graffiti for all. Took a chalk and made our mark on the wall of comics characters, well wishes and alien symbols.






From Owakudani, we took the Hakone Tozan Cable Car downhill to Gora. Gora has some of Hakone's well known attractions like the Gora Park. This is also the end point for the Tozan Train that starts from Yumoto station. From here, you can take the buses to other parts of Hakone like the the Venetian Glass Museum and the Wetlands. Most tourists taken the Tozan train from Yumoto to Gora to transfer to the Cable Car to go up to Owakudani. (photo: Gora Station)





This is our hotel for the day. The Setsugetsuka ryokan at Gora. The location is conveniently located just beside the train station. Everything looks new. It was really an unforgetable experience.










Our room has a small onsen(hotspring) bath. The room combines both western style and japanese traditions. Bath slippers as above, as well as kimono sets and wooden clogs were available for us to walk around the hotel.








The hotels also offers public onsen pools and private pools. The picture show 2 of them in use as the lamp boxes are lit. Grab your towels and robes and go for a dip in the private anytime when it is unoccupied.








There is a crafthouse at Gora Park where you can see a demostration of glass blowing, or attend a lesson at it as well. Entrance to the Gora Park is included in our Hakone FreePass. Just show it to the attendance for free entrance.









The size of Gora Park is not large, the size of one football field, located on a hillslope. There are 2 entrances here. You can reach Gora Park from the Gora train station with 10min walk. Take a look if you have the freepass.









From Gora, we took the bus to the Venetian Glass Museum. Once again, using the Hakone FreePass. Transportation in Hakone can be slightly expensive. So the FreePass at hand is the best option to move around in Hakone. (photo: a tree of glass crystals)









The entire museum is more like a garden cum little venice with shops selling accessories made from crystals as well as Swarovski crystals.















Back in Tokyo. We took the subway to one of the nearby stations and walk our way to Tokyo Tower. You need to buy tickets to take the lift up to the 1st and 2nd observation level. (photo: taken from the 2nd stage, a shot from the ground)













On a busy street near the JR Ueno station, we chance upon a sushi shop and had our lunch there. The prices are resonable and the quality ws not bad. Except the regular "earth-shaking" sounds of the overhead train tracks. All these shops are built beneath the JR rail tracks.








From Shinjuku, it takes about 50 mins of train ride to get to Sanrio Land. Home of the Hello Kitty. We took longer that that as we alight at a few wrong stations. As we just want to shop, we bought the after 4pm entrance tickets with no rides.



Looks like some altar setup with all the Sanrio family characters.




















The next morning, we took a combination of Trains and subway to get to Tokyo DisneySea. There are many ways to get to disneyland; disneyland shuttle buses from Shinjuku, as well JR Line trains. To save on cost and to use our subway unlimited ride pass, we took a combi of subway and JR train. (photo: The iconic M-mouse inside DisneySea)






One of the newer attractions at DisneySea. The Tower of Terror. It is just a free-fall elevator drop experience. The special effects are good but the ride is short. The rooms under the 3 arch will open for the thrill seeks to have a glimpse of the outside scenary before closing up and fall a few storeys down.












On our last day before our next morning flight back home. We spend the entire day at the Gotemba Premium Factory Outlet. The location is somewhere near Hakone. We bought 2-way coach tickets from Shinjuku to Gotemba. The journey took about 1.5 hours. The area is like an open air shopping town. There are may branded boutique shops selling clothing, shoes, LEGO, watches.

Mount Fuji (Japan) Part 2

Continues from Part 1....

At our particular altitude, the underlying clouds that climbed up the mountain slope vanished as if vaporized by the hot sun above. We could fill the heat from the sun warming us up from the cold experience the night before. There are 2 wooden arch that welcomed climbers along the last ascent to the summit. One is at the summit entrance point and the other is about 200m below the summit.

After another 200m of ascent, we reached the summit wooden arch. There are 2 stone lions guarding the entrance to the summit. The summit itself if very different from other mountains. There are souvenir shops and mountain lodge for accommodation.

There is also a vending machine for drinks as seen in the picture below. The weather was very sunny and cloudless at the summit. The caretakers were taking the mattresses to sun to remove the dampness and odor. This place is not the highest point of mount Mt Fuji. The highest point is on the other side of the crater and heard that it will take another hour or more to get there.

There is a weather station at the top of Mt Fuji ( as shown below). It is much higher than the summit souvenir shops where most trekkers will wait for the sunrise. The photo below shows the weather station just above Mt Fuji volcanic crater. A quick look around shows that the weather station is actually the highest point around the crater summit.

The descent from Mt Fuji is of a different route. They call it the sand-slide route. As you walk, you will tend to slide a little forward at times because of the loose small rocks that the route is made of. You can still descend using the ascending trail during off peak season. But during the peak season, it will be a trail of climbers instead and hence going down against the traffic may be not that convenient to others. Anyway the designated descending trail will be faster. The descending trail starts from the summit and crosses near the 8th and 7th station. After which is will be an endless trail of zigzag path all the way back to the Safety Guidance centre. Along the descending path, you can still the sheer awe of the slope of Mt Fuji all the way to the summit on a clear sky day.

We left the summit at 12noon and started our descend. Took a break again at the 8th station. The weather then was a complete change from the cloudy and rainy morning. We left the 8th station at 2:30pm and returned to the 5th station of the Yoshida-guchi line at about 5:00pm.

During the climbing season, buses ply between the 5th station and Shinjuku direct.
The last Keio bus that leaves from Shinjuku from the 5th station departs at 4pm. Although there are still Keio buses coming here from Shinjuku after 4pm, they do not take passengers down from the 5th station. For us to get back to Shinjuku, we took the local bus from the 5th station to the lakeside town of Kawaguchiko. This bus is more frequent because it is a local bus. At Kawaguicho bus terminal, it is actually a train station cum bus terminal. We took a bus from there back to Shinjuku. The time it takes to get back to Shinjuku from here by bus or train is almost the same. If you intend to take the train, you need to make a train transfer to the JR line at Otsuki. The train service at Kawaguchiku is a private train line that goes all the way to Otuski only. If you want a simple and convenient connection back to Shinjuku. The bus may be a better option.

We reached our Shinjuku hotel around 9pm. The picture on the left is the heart of Shinjuku where all the buses and trains are.

After our dinner at the nearby MOS burger, we repacked a small backpack for the next 3 days 2 nights at the resort town of Hakone.

Below are the hot-stamping prints that we collected on the way up.

Mount Fuji (Japan) Part 1

Mount Fuji, Japan’s highest mountain stands at a height of 3776m, and one of the iconic figures of modern Japan. Official climbing season is from July to end August every year for climbers from all over the world. Last month, I made Mount Fuji as one of my travel plans for my Japan holiday. The photo on the left was taken on in Nov 2003 when we were on our honeymoon back then.





We (me and my wife) took a flight from our country Singapore to Narita Airport, a day just after the typhoon Manyi hit Japan. We landed at Narita with moderate rains and dark rain cloud skies. Took an airport bus (aka airport limousine) to reach Shinjuku after 2 hours on the expressway. We managed to find the Keio Bus Terminal which has bus service to the Subaru Line 5th station, but the service was cancelled for that day possibly due to the bad weather. Fortunately, we were told that the bus service would resume the next day; and it did.


The next morning, 16th July, at around 10:15am, an earthquake of about 6.5 hit Japan. We experienced about 10sec of shaking at our hotel room. Everything was safe and usual for the people in Tokyo. We took the 5pm bus leaving Shinjuku and arrived at the Kawaguchiko 5th station after 2.5 hours on the road. The journey from Tokyo was raining and heavy mist on the road up Mt Fuji. But at the 5th station, everything changed. We managed to catch the stunning golden red sunset.








The 5th station is at an altitude of 2305m. After buying the traditional Mt Fuji hiking pole, we took some time to put on our warm clothing and water-proofing jackets. After a light meal, we were off into the darkness with our headlamps and hiking pole. The initial trek was gentle and easy. Our headlamps illuminated the way but when the fog came in, it was very difficult to see what a few meters away was. The thick fog was actually reflecting the light source from our headlamps and we were literally seeing a wall of brightly lit fog.











Our 1st stop was the 6th station Seikansou Hut (photo below). Many trekkers tend to miss this station as it was out of the way. Most trekkers proceed directly from the 5th station to the Mt Fuji Safety and Guidance Centre (2390m); and subsequently proceed to the 7th station. At the 6th station, we got our wooden hiking pole hot-stamp for a price of 200 yen. One unique custom of climbing Mt Fuji is that you can bring along the wooden hiking pole purchase from the 5th station and get it hot-stamped at the individual mount lodge scattered from the 6th to the 9th station.








From the 6th station, it was a trek through the forest towards the Safety Guidance Centre. Along the way, we saw some dilapidated and abandoned houses partially covered by vegetation. They looked like abandoned mountain lodges with some having just the roof only. The weather was still kind to us at that moment and we could actually see the trail of lights from the mountain lodges that decorated the ascending trail. After the Safety Guidance Centre, it was a series of zigzags up the loose gravels to the 1st 7th Station, the Hana-goya Hut (2700m). There are many mountain huts that are built along the ascending trail with more than one hut at the same 7th station altitude. We got our second hot-stamp on the wooden stick. There were quite a number of people climbing at this time of the night. There were some French, New Zealander, American and local climbers taking a break at this first 7th station stop.



The trail after Hana-goya Hut starts to get rocky and steep and altitude to overcome to the first 8th station hut is about 300m. As we climbed, the weather started to turn bad. The clouds were coming in fast and at times we were again enshrouded in thick mist. Winds were starting to pick up as well with rain droplets getting larger. The thick mist provided limited visibility and at times we had to stop to shine our headlamps here and there to get the correct path. Luckily the entire ascending path has colored ropes to guide climbers on the path to take. But as the cold winds started to howl viciously, we took limited shelter from the winds at the last 7th station next mountain hut. The hut was closed and as it was already around midnight. We did not know if the owner would if we just go in and rest without permission since he was already asleep. In the end, we just sit on the ground outside the hut, hoping to get as much shelter we can have from the strong winds. I can say it was quite miserable at that time, but luckily we were prepared in terms of water-proofing on our clothing and boots. After about half an hour, the weather did not seem to improve and we decided to push forward to the 8th station.



The subsequent climb was steep and rocky, plus the rain that is coming down, the rocks were more slippery than ever. The mist was once again thick and made the climb slow. Surprisingly, there were still climbers making their ascent at this time of the night (2am). Suspect they are the climbers that just woke up from their sleep at the mountain huts below and making their way to the summit to see the sunrise. But I doubt there is much sunrise to see in such weather. Finally we reached the first 8th Station, the Taishikan Hut (3020m). The rain was getting heavier and we were starting to feel the need for sleep. Well it had been 20 hours since we woke up from our comforting beds of our Shinjuku hotel. Since the hut was still closed, we pushed on to the next hut.















We saw bright lights coming from the Horaikan hut (3150m) and were happy enough to see the caretaker manning the hut. He welcomed us in for rest and we still have to adhere to the strict rule of all mountain huts. Pay for something like a drink or some food so that you can rest inside the warm hut. We weren’t particular about the inflated cost of hot cocoas, and more interested in escaping from the cold winds outside. The caretaker has a command of simple English and we managed to start a chat. We talked about each other like where we were from, where he comes from and how long he has been working at the hut. His name was Maru san. He was kind enough to show us maps on the descend route should we forsake the summit as the weather was still bad. We rested for an hour at the hut as the day breaks. The rain clouds started to light up and the rain started to turn into a drizzle.





The photo on the left taken just outside the hut. You can see that the heavy rain clouds below. With the rain subsided and much more visibility, we continued our climb.













On the left is a shot taken on the zigzag slopes overlooking the hut that we rested. Noticed the rocks that were placed on the roof to keep it from flying off under strong winds.









We were back to the zigzag rock path ascending. Some of the snow on the slopes of Mt Fuji was still in a state of melting in this summer season. There are signs of rock fall every now and then on the path. Hence climbers have to be aware of any rock movement sounds and be alert. It actually not that serious, maybe that only happens when there is an earthquake or big storm.




Could not remember how long it takes, as we took short breaks along the way. We bypassed the Hakuun-so Hut and bought cup noodles at the Gansomuro Hut. Needed the break from the sleepless night. At 8:30am, we proceeded on with the climb towards the summit. Minus the strong winds, the weather was the same. Light rains, thick clouds climbing up the slope of Mt Fuji. Occasionally, we get a breeze of cloud blowing us from behind and the front.




Less than an hour of climb, we reached the original 8th station. The picture on the left shows the Fuji-san Hotel. Well, it is the same mountain hut as the others. The staff was actually asking us if we wanted to have a hot-stamping on our wooden pole. Same as the others, every stamp is 200 yen. You can see the variety of drinks for sale. One unique characteristics of this Fuji-san hotel is that it accepts VISA and MASTER credit cards. The rest only accept cash.





The below pictures show the mist from the clouds as we made our climb.









End of Part 1.