Mostly Japanese Mountains: The Search. Starring Mrs. Caveman. Kawaguchiko Daytrip.

Special guest appearance by upside-down Fuji.

Also featuring Dayan the Cat and bowls of steaming noodles

Tonight's Episode:

Searching for Nessie

Greetings cave-dwellers. This post will be a little bit different than others. For this excursion, I had Mrs. Caveman with me. What a treat. She's more fun than a sherpa! Better-looking, too. Truth be told, though, Sherpas will carry more of your stuff but what can you do? You can't have everything you want in life.

As I was saying, me and the missus took a day trip to Kawaguchiko (Lake Kawaguchi) to take in some views of Mt. Fuji. Even though winter is one of the four best seasons to see Mt. Fuji, this is the off-season so it was a win-win because we had the place to ourselves.

There are many ways to get to this area. For us, the cheapest and easiest was to catch the highway bus that runs from Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko Station. We didn't have to go to Shinjuku because we could catch it on the highway along the way. Here is a link to the bus company's website. http://bus-en.fujikyu.co.jp/highway/ You can also get there by train. To do that, you would change to the Fujikyu Railway at Otsuki and head toward Kawaguchiko Station. (These methods or transportation will get you to Fuji Q Highland Park too.)

Here is where we alighted the bus. This station is also the departure point for the bus to the 5th Station on the Subaru Line for climbing Mt. Fuji.

(No Nessie there.)

From there, we walked about 10~15 minutes to hop on this ropeway up to Tenjoyama Park. The ropeway is a 3-minute ride and costs ¥900 roundtrip. You also could walk up to the park but the Missus and I have decided not to discuss that anymore. The ropeway also offers package deals combining their fare with the various buses and trains running in the area. We bought roundtrip ropeway tickets combined with a train ticket to Otsuki Station for our return home.

These pictures are from Tenjoyama Park. There are (of course) a giftshop and snackbar up there.

That mountain below is what brought this trip about. My plan to climb it last week was thwarted by a large dump of snow the night before I was going. So, my solo hiking trip morphed into a date with my better half.

(Is that Nessie under the bridge?)

(No. Still no Nessie.)

Sakasa (Upside-down) Fuji

Beautiful Fuji Over Lake Kawaguchi 河口湖から綺麗な富士山

(Obviously, Nessie was here. What else might have stirred up the water to disturb the reflection?)

The local delicacy is called Hoto, a hearty dish with thick, udon-type noodles. This restaurant is called Fudo Hoto (不動ほうとう) and has two branches on either side of the lake. It was yummy.

Notice the shape of the condiments containers.

There are lots of places serving hoto in the area but this one was the most advertised and also happened to be the only one open. Its good reputation is obviously well-deserved. Not only do they serve hoto, but you can get basashi. (Look that up in a dictionary.) Their website: http://www.houtou-fudou.jp/english.html

The one drawback? They don't serve Nessie.

It's always Christmas at Lake Kawaguchi! It's just like the North Pole or the Philippines!

Mrs. Caveman posed at the Kawaguchiko Craft Park with the owls. She's a looker so she's used to a lot of hooting.

We didn't do anything at the craft park other than taking a few pictures. They offer lots of craft experiences, rent bicycles, have a restaurant or two. . .

. . . and they have a lot of owl carvings! I think the guy in charge of wood carving learned how to make an owl and then stopped studying. There are owls everywhere but nothing else.

He most definitely never learned to carve Nessie.

One other place we dropped into gets no pictures! That's their fault. The Dayan Cat Museum didn't allow pictures. http://www.konohana-muse.com/indexenglish.html

That place wasn't really my cup of tea. We only went there because the Fudo Hoto restaurant gave us coupons for cheap entry and a free drink. Their coffee and their restaurant were top-notch. Too bad we were already full from eating the hoto.

I'll be back for those another day. Maybe Nessie is up there?