Japan 2023

February 25th, 2023

Our last day in Kyō­to wel­comed us with a bright blue sky - why was­n’t the weath­er like this in the past days? But the weath­er god must have heard our dis­con­tent and final­ly sent some rain clouds. Now the long dri­ve (more than 400km) to our last des­ti­na­tion of the trip, Fuji-San was on the agenda.

Drive to Fuji-San

After break­fast, we picked up our car to the hotel. In antic­i­pa­tion of anoth­er sur­prise in the park­ing price (the car was now two days there because of yesterday’s rain) I had col­lect­ed plen­ty of 1000 yen bills in the mean­time. The tick­et machines part­ly accept only these. But this time the sur­prise was pos­i­tive, the machine asked for “only” 2,400 yen (about 16€) and would also accept cred­it cards. What do I do now with all the 1000 yen bills?

After load­ing the lug­gage, we first drove to Lake Suwa on the way to Mount Fuji. The lake is locat­ed at an alti­tude of 760m in Nagano Pre­fec­ture. The route was very beau­ti­ful, the snow-cov­ered moun­tain ranges remind­ed us of Switzer­land - except for the exot­ic road signs.

Arriv­ing in Suwa, in beau­ti­ful sun­shine, we vis­it­ed the local Takashima Cas­tle and a shrine, where Simone and Luise picked up the oblig­a­tory tem­ple stamp.

Their stamp books were already well filled. A strong wind was blow­ing here and it was very cold. The water in the moat was in places still cov­ered with ice.

Takashima castle

Takashima Cas­tle was orig­i­nal­ly built on a penin­su­la pro­trud­ing into Lake Suwa, with the lake itself form­ing part of the moats. This meant that only the side fac­ing the shore had to be pro­vid­ed with strong ram­parts. The main cas­tle (Hon­maru) was con­nect­ed by bridges to the sec­ond cas­tle (Ni-no-maru) and the third cas­tle (San-no-Maru), with the main bas­tion (Koro­mo-no-nami kuruwa (衣之波曲輪 )) fac­ing the shore with the main gate (Ōte­mon).

Dur­ing the Edo peri­od, the cas­tle was sur­round­ed by land due to the increas­ing sil­ta­tion of Lake Suwa, and the site is now locat­ed in the mid­dle of the city of Suwa. Today, the site is a pub­lic park. Only the north and east sides of the cas­tle moat have been pre­served. In 1970, some of the cas­tle struc­tures were recon­struct­ed, but they are not his­tor­i­cal­ly accu­rate. Takashima Cas­tle was includ­ed in the list of the 100 most beau­ti­ful Japan­ese cas­tles in 2017.

Around 4:00 p.m. we con­tin­ued on our way to our last stop, the Fuji View Hotel. But first an unex­pect­ed dif­fi­cul­ty appeared:

We had to refu­el and drove to the near­est gas sta­tion. There, how­ev­er, we had prob­lems open­ing the fuel filler door on the rental car. The oper­at­ing instruc­tions in the car were only in Japan­ese. After press­ing all pos­si­ble switch­es in the car (Simone even opened the hood in the process), we appar­ent­ly seemed so help­less that a nice Japan­ese man came to our rescue.

So we found the unlock­ing lever final­ly in the footwell to the right of the driver’s seat. The nice Japan­ese man also helped us with refu­el­ing - you had to pay in advance at the gas pump with bills ( luck­i­ly I still had so many 1000 yen bills 😉 ).

Around 6:00 p.m. we final­ly arrived safe­ly at the Fuji View Hotel. We had cho­sen a Japan­ese-style room with a view of Fuji San this time, which was ini­tial­ly hid­den behind the clouds. We were curi­ous to see how it feels to sleep on the Japan­ese futon beds.

The room was tra­di­tion­al­ly fur­nished with tata­mi mats and yukatas for all guests. Luise was espe­cial­ly pleased that the hotel also had an onsen, which she used dili­gent­ly. In front of the large win­dow, our room had a small ante­room with two chairs. The weath­er in the evening was bad, the sky over­cast. How­ev­er, the next few days the sky was sup­posed to be cloud­less. Since we had arrived late and now want­ed to rest a bit, we had signed up for din­ner when we arrived at the hotel. To our delight, a French 6-course menu was offered there, we could not resist…

Triv­ia: An onsen (Japan­ese 温泉, often shown on maps and signs as 湯 or ゆ (yu, hot water)) is the Japan­ese term for a hot spring. In gen­er­al, onsen refers to a hot spring bath, or a place with hotels, that have a pool fed by nat­ur­al hot springs - nowa­days usu­al­ly sep­a­rat­ed for men and women. In a broad­er sense, it also includes places whose spring water must be heated.

After set­tling into our room for a bit, we then went to the hotel restau­rant for din­ner. It was a Sat­ur­day and the hotel was very busy. We saw very few for­eign­ers. Appar­ent­ly, many Japan­ese trav­el here for a week­end trip. The hotel appar­ent­ly offers two dif­fer­ent large menus on Sat­ur­days, a tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese menu and an elab­o­rate French “Supe­ri­or Menu”. Since we had eat­en plen­ty of Japan­ese food so far, we want­ed to try out how Japan­ese per­form a French 6-course menu.

That was decid­ed­ly worth it! The food was very tasty and absolute­ly worth its price of the equiv­a­lent of about 80€ per per­son. Final­ly, we had once again the usu­al tools in suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ty avail­able at the meal. Luise man­aged despite sev­er­al months of absti­nence also again quite well with knife & fork. There was also Wagyu beef again - delicious!

Triv­ia: A yuka­ta is a tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese cloth­ing. It serves main­ly as an uncom­pli­cat­ed, lighter and more every­day ver­sion of the kimono, as it is eas­i­er to tie and less expensive.

Tired, we fell into a deep and very good sleep.