We got up at 6am on Saturday to catch what would become our first of six trains for the day. Apparently there are a lot of connections required to get from Nagano - Kofu - Mt. Fuji and back to Kofu!
We got into Kofu, our home for the night, around 10am, dropped our bags at our hotel and set out to see some of the city before it was time to grab lunch at the train station and continue the journey to Mt. Fuji.
The old and the new: the view from the top of Kofu Castle.
We chose to see Mt. Fuji from Kawaguchiko. This small town is situated to the northeast of the mountain but is a great place to access Mt. Tenjo, one of the best places to view Mt. Fuji. When we arrived in Kawaguchiko we headed to the newly built Kachi Kachi Ropeway which takes people from town to (almost) the top of Mt. Tenjo in only a few minutes. However, we were all feeling ambitious (and a little restless after spending most of the day on the train) so we decided to take the walking trail to the top instead. It was a challenging walk in the hot weather, but we got many more intimate views of Mt. Fuji than we would've had if we simply took the Ropeway to the top. Plus we earned whatever kind of noodle dish we want for dinner!
The entrance to the shrine at the base of the walking track up Mt. Tenjo.
On the way up, we passed through "ten thousand hydrangeas," or at least that's as many as were advertised on the walking map.
Our first great glimpse of Mt. Fuji.
The walking path was mostly deserted but there was one friendly Japanese hiker who was willing to take our picture.
One more of the beautiful Mt. Fuji.
As we reached the top of Mt. Tenjo we were treated to another great view: looking back on Kawaguchiko and its lake.
After our (much faster) climb down to town, we headed to Lake Kawaguchi for some soft serve ice cream to cool off. Japan has some unique flavors of soft serve, but I think we all agree that the lavender was the best.
We made our way back to Kofu as the sun was setting over the mountains. All of us were pretty beat after our long day of travel and hiking so we wandered into Kosaku Kofuekimaeten, a restaurant right next to our hotel that turned out to be amazing. We all tried the Hoto Noodles, which was a first - they came in a cauldron (so it took a long time to cool off) and had a variety of delicious meats, vegetables and spices mixed in. Not exactly what I was expecting for dinner but a very pleasant surprise!
On Sunday we slept in to recover from two back-to-back intense days, then walked around Kofu for a few hours before hopping on a train to our next destination: Kyoto. Mt. Fuji was great and we're happy we had such a clear day (even today it is totally covered by clouds) but we're all pretty excited to get to Kyoto where Sarah and I can show my mom some of our favorite sites from our last trip here (and explore some new ones together)!
One of the old gates to Kofu Castle that has not been separated from the main castle by the massive train station built in between.
Some shops that Sarah and my mom liked.
They really like this one...