For this post, I’ll just get straight to the summary first: this day tour was a wasted trip. Because of persistent rain the entire day, Mt. Fuji never showed up at every spot we went to.
Still, I guess I can’t really complain too much that Mt. Fuji was completely hidden behind rain clouds. This is the third time I’m visiting the Fuji Five Lake area to see Mt. Fuji – the last two times were in Dec 2019 as a day trip, and in Dec 2023 when we spent four days in the area – and we were able to see the mountain at most stops those two trips. Moreover, the price for this bus trip was relatively affordable at just SGD65, so if nothing else, I took the trip as a very relaxed bus-trip to check out a few of the additional places I’ve not been to yet. This day trip’s itinerary included six vantage points to see the mountain, three of which I’d already visited before.
The six spots are, in the order we visited:
- Lake Yamanakako
- Oshino Hakkai
- Lawson Convenience Store Fujikawaguchiko Town Hall
- Oishi Park @ Lake Kawaguchiko
- Arakurayama Sengen Park
- Hikawa Clock Shop
Still, notes for future travellers who’re doing this circuit.
Seeing Mt. Fuji really isn’t a guaranteed thing. Ironically though, during the two earlier visits in 2019 and 2023, we had unobstructed views of the mountain at nearly every place we went to, which again proves the point: winter months generally provide the best opportunities to see the mountain. Every other season seems to be a crapshoot.
The Family Mart at Lake Yamanakako provided welcome relief from the rain and cold!
Oshino Hakkai village is lovely, and in better weather, offers a lovely view of the mountain with the village, water ponds and fixtures in the foreground. The village is quitee touristy though, but there are a number of light snack stalls, a large souvenir shop, and also a few sit-down restaurants. There is no admission fee to enter the village, but there is one for a small museum inside the village.
There are two Lawson stores in the area which offer that iconic view of the store with the mountain in the backdrop. The one we visited during the Dec 2023 trip was near Kawaguchiko Station, so naturally very crowded then, with many visitors obstructing vehicular traffic while trying to get their Instagram poses. The Lawson store is also the one where the locals tried to put up the large barrier in 2024 that would have obstructed the mountain from view, but that has since been replaced by a lower barrier. How low this new one is I have no idea, since the Lawson store we visited this trip was the less busy one, which according to some visitors, offers an even better view. This store is also less convenient to get to on your own. Not that it mattered this trip though, with the mountain completely hidden under cloud layers.
Oishi Park is a fairly small garden with lovely flora, but again, in rainy weather, there was no mountain in sight. There’s a famous ice-cream stall inside the shop where the park entrance is, with many flavours of ice cream on sale.
Arakurayama Sengen Park: I didn’t venture up this time, and was instead contented to stay at Shimoyoshida Station. No point going up since there was no chance of seeing the mountain, and I don’t have fond memories of the 500 steps it takes to get up to the pagoda pavilion! The Hikawa Clock Shop is a short 5-minute walk from the park, but no one in the bus group wanted to make the walk there in the rain to basically see an otherwise ordinary Japanese street with no mountain in sight.
Arakurayama Sengen Park was basically our last stop on this day trip yesterday. It was about 3:15PM, and the trip leader decided to have us board the bus and make our way back to Tokyo, warning that it was likely that it’d take us 2.5 hours to return to Tokyo Station. That turned out to be exactly right, as we ran straight into peak-hour traffic, with traffic along the expressway slowing down to a near crawl at several places.
So, a no-show-mountain trip today. There was a fair bit of disappointment obviously among the other guests, and I’m not sure if someone is going to post exactly about thatin Klook. So, my last advice: if you’re planning for a day trip out of Tokyo to the Five Lake area, you can try crystal-balling and look up the weather ahead. If so, you could do trip cancellations, or choose the right date if you can to get on trips like these.
That’s a wrap for the two free days I had before the conference event. I’ll probably write an entry or two over the next several days to journal my observations about Kisarazu, so a bit more to come soon!