Fuji-san!
Trip Start
Nov 06, 2006
1
67
75
Trip End
Apr 11, 2007
Mt Fuji, Japan
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
After that we wandered around the town trying to find something to eat, harder than it sounds since it is the off-season for Fuji (most people come to climb it in summer when all the snow has melted off). We finally managed to find a little 'restaurant' where a nice old lady cooked us some nice 'udon' (noodles in broth) it was all surprisingly nice and we followed that with some biscuits that we bought from the shop around the corner to munch on our walk around the lake. This walk was supposed to take us to the biggest shrine in the area which was recommended in the guidebook. So, armed with the little photocopied map we had grabbed at the local tourist office, we set off on a 3 hour trek around the lake. We did manage to find the shrine, which was nice but deserted, and which didn't look anything like the photos in the guidebook. Finding this a bit weird, and being dead tired after the walk we decided to bus it back to the tourist office. When we asked the woman at the desk, showing her on the map the shrine we went to we got a "Nooo, this is small shrine, you want other shrine, biggest around, 5 minute by bus" you could practically hear the "stupid foreigner" she was to polite to say out loud. We only had about an hour left before we had to catch our bus back to Tokyo, but we decided that we really couldn't miss the biggest shrine in the region so decided to jump on the 5 minute bus. As it turned out the driver didn't speak English, and we ended up missing our stop and getting off at the next one, than running down the street to the shrine's entrance. We did make it there with about 20 minutes to look around before catching the bus back. It was really worth it, the temple itself occupies a large plot of land covered in giant cypress trees which totally cut off the noise of the street and made you feel like you'd just entered another world. We walked up a path bordered by smaller sculpted shrines and through a number of prayer gates, passing by the enormous tree which sits by the entrance of the temple building. For our first temple it was great, complete with prayer trees where people had tied wishing ribbons, and various painted wooden slates. We could have spent hours there, but we did manage to get back to the bus station in time and settled back for our long bus ride back to the bright lights of the city.
