Monday was our private tour to see all the Mount Fuji sights! We knew the success of this trip was largely dependent on weather, and we ended up really lucking out with wonderful weather - and great views of the mountain. Apparently Mount Fuji is only visible 80 days of the year so you just never know!
Our guide picked us up at 7am from our hotel and our first stop was the Chureito Pagoda. Beautiful spot with great views of the mountain. There were a few clouds covering it but we got a pretty good view. After that we made our way to this traditional village with some really clear ponds (I don't remember everything about this place but the guide was telling us a bunch of the history). It was a neat village where we wandered around and got some souvenirs. We made our way to a shrine with a very old tree (as you can tell I wasn't taking all the information in so I don't remember all the names, but it was a beautiful shrine!) and then it was time for lunch. We stopped at the cutest ramen shop, good ramen for so cheap!
Next was the trip to 5th station, which the tour guide said they really only do if the weather is good - and it was perfect and clear for us:-). A bit chilly but Mt. Fuji was crystal clear and we felt very lucky. Next we went to some ice caves, then a stop at Arakurayama Sengen Park for one more view of Mount Fuji and some delicious ice cream. All in all a great day! We got back to the hotel around 6:30.
Here is where we had an awkward moment with our tour guide:-/. The tour is listed as being about 10 hours long, and at one point the guide (who was originally from Nepal and had only been in Japan for about 4 years, his English was pretty broken) asked if we wanted to have a longer tour and we were a bit confused because he was asking us which things we wanted to do but it was really hard to follow along. There was a big communication issue. Anyway, we got back 1.5 hours late and then he tried to charge us extra for that! Even though he was the one deciding where to go, and he never once mentioned that there was an extra charge for going over 10 hours. I was planning to give him 5000 yen as a tip and he said it was 5000 per hour but he seemed to accept the 5000 yen quite happily, it really felt like we were being scammed:-/. I don't think it was a totally intentional scam, I think he was just terrible at communicating, but we would have skipped things and stayed for shorter times at others if we had known it was going to cost more. In the end, I spent what I had planned to spend, but it definitely left us with a bad taste in our mouths after an otherwise lovely enough day. Would I have preferred a local tour guide that knew more about Japan? Yes. But he was an okay guide and the weather was perfect and we really had a good time, so if not for this little issue at the end I would have walked away thinking it was a good day. I tried to just shake it off but I ended up sending a whats app message to the company (they were asking for a review so I decided instead of leaving a public review I would just give them my private feedback so they can improve their drivers communication with customers). They were quite apologetic and offered to refund the 5000 yen but I told them not to, I just wanted them to be aware. It took about a day before I could totally shake the slimy feeling I had, but I didn't let it bother me too much:-).
There was a street right outside the train station with these cute little restaurants so we hit up one of those for dinner. Japan is FILLED with tiny restaurants, they are everywhere! It's actually overwhelming to choose because there are so many choices. Anyway, we chose one and had a good dinner there. Our waitress spoke relatively good English (we had heard English was prevalent in Japan but we did not find that the locals in restaurants had good English most of the time) so it was a bit easier to communicate. She did have a giggle when Brian ordered the bigger size of beer, the culture in Japan, at least in the restaurants, seems to discourage much drinking which I found very interesting. In North America the waiters will happily bring you as many drinks as you want! I have read they have an alcoholism problem there but I think it's more in private. Anyway, we just thought it was kind of funny:-D. The food was good, we had a good time and then it was off to another early night!
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