Japan 2023

February 26th, 2023

When we looked out for the first time in the ear­ly morn­ing, the hotel lived up to its name “Fuji View”. Here is the first view from our hotel win­dow at 6:00 in the morning:

I was com­plete­ly thrilled by the sight of the sacred moun­tain. After the over­cast day yes­ter­day, the sky was now com­plete­ly free of clouds and Mount Fuji showed itself in all its glory.

I dressed myself direct­ly and went first up to the obser­va­tion lounge on the 6th floor of the hotel. This was already amaz­ing­ly well vis­it­ed at the ear­ly hour. Here anoth­er pic­ture of Fuji-San in the first morn­ing light.

After­wards I went out in front of the hotel. It was bit­ter­ly cold (-7 ° C). Out­side I start­ed my DJI Mini 3 Pro drone for the first time.

Above you can see our hotel in an aer­i­al shot. Com­plete­ly frozen through, I then made my way back to our hotel room. After I had man­aged to moti­vate the two fel­low trav­el­ers to get up, we went to break­fast at a quar­ter to nine. The buf­fet was very exten­sive and offered a great selec­tion of Japan­ese and West­ern food - and of course a spec­tac­u­lar view of Mount Fuji.

In beau­ti­ful weath­er and after a sub­stan­tial break­fast, we start­ed our first tour around Mount Fuji at 10:00 a.m.. The first thing on the pro­gram was prob­a­bly the most famous motif, the pago­da of the Araku­ra Fuji Sen­gen Jin­ja shrine (新倉富士浅間神社). There you can walk up to the 5-sto­ry pago­da to take what is prob­a­bly Japan’s most famous pic­ture, which of course we also did. It was Sun­day and incred­i­bly crowd­ed, the Japan­ese just also know where it is beau­ti­ful. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it was still ear­ly in the year and the cher­ry trees were still bare.

Here are some more shots:

After­wards, we vis­it­ed the vil­lage of Oshi­no Hakkai (忍野八海) with its old Edo-style thatched hous­es. There are sev­er­al ponds in the vil­lage that are fed by the melt­ing water of Mount Fuji. The name Hakkai or “Eight Seas” refers to the eight ponds that are the main attrac­tion of Oshi­no Hakkai. Bridges and paths lead around and across these tran­quil ponds. The vil­lage stands on the for­mer site of the sixth Fuji Lake, which dried up sev­er­al hun­dred years ago. There is also a small open-air muse­um called Han­no­ki Bayashi Shiryokan, which sur­rounds the largest lake in the vil­lage. We vis­it­ed this one afterwards.

After­wards we went to one of the many lakes around Mount Fuji, Lake Moto­su (本栖湖). At a view­point we had a very nice view over the lake with Mount Fuji in the back­ground. A lit­tle japan­ese boy told us that the pic­ture on the 1000 yen bill was tak­en there, so we took a pic­ture with a bill direct­ly. We were not the only ones either. The drone was also used here once again.

After­wards we went to the next lake, the Shōji lake (jap. 精進湖, Shōji-ko, engl. “fast­ing lake”), also Shōjiko. It is a nat­ur­al maar lake of vol­canic ori­gin near the north­ern flank of Mount Fuji.

It belongs to the five Fuji lakes and is locat­ed in the Fuji-Hakone-Izu Nation­al Park. Shōji lake is locat­ed at an alti­tude of about 900 m, its area is about 0.51 km² and at its deep­est point it reach­es about 15.20 m.

Next lake - same moun­tain. Our next stop was Lake Saiko, Mount Fuji con­tin­ued to be very photogenic.

Then we went back to Lake Kawaguchi, where our hotel was located.

Our next des­ti­na­tion was the Asama Jin­ja Shrine, where Luise and Simone picked up their 15th tem­ple stamp first. The Kawaguchi Asama Shrine was built as a place of wor­ship for Japan’s holi­est moun­tain, Mount Fuji.

Through­out Japan, there are about 1,300 Asama shrines ded­i­cat­ed to Mount Fuji and asso­ci­at­ed with the pro­pi­ti­a­tion or wor­ship of vol­ca­noes. These are ded­i­cat­ed to Kono­hanasakuya-hime (木花咲耶姫, the Cher­ry Blos­som Princess), the god­dess of vol­ca­noes and Mount Fuji. Kawaguchi Asama Shrine was built in 865 to appease Mount Fuji.

In 2013, the shrine was rec­og­nized as part of UNESCO’s Mount Fuji World Her­itage Site. Near the main shrine are sev­en mighty Japan­ese cedars, each with its own name. They are said to be more than 1,200 years old.

Two of the trees grow right next to each oth­er (low­er right pic­ture). They are called Futa­hashira (two pil­lars) and are sup­posed to bring luck in the choice of a partner.

But for many, the main attrac­tion of the shrine is its small but pic­turesque torii, known as tenku no torii (gate in heav­en). It bears this name because it is locat­ed on a hill with a beau­ti­ful view of Mount Fuji.

The very makeshift look­ing Torii was set up in 2019 by some clever Japan­ese in a pho­to­genic loca­tion on a pri­vate prop­er­ty. You can take pho­tos there for 100 yen per person.

The choice fell on the Yamanakako lake. I set up a tri­pod there on the lakeshore. The view there was real­ly spec­tac­u­lar. How­ev­er, it was also bit­ter­ly cold.

While we looked at the light show of the set­ting sun, two swans came and posed in front of the light spec­ta­cle in the back­ground. So we also had some wildlife - instead of ele­phants in front of Kil­i­man­jaro as 2022 in Kenya, we now got swans in front of Fuji-San. This result­ed in some (as I think) very nice shots.

We stayed at Lake Yamanakako until the late blue hour. With the lights of the adja­cent towns, this made a very nice motif. I took the shot above again with my drone. The pic­ture below was tak­en on a tri­pod with a long expo­sure of 30 seconds.

For din­ner, we had not yet made a reser­va­tion, since we did not know how long we would be on the road. On the way back to the hotel, we there­fore made a stop in the city of Fujikawaguchiko (where our hotel is locat­ed) in a fam­i­ly restaurant.

Luise often went to this restau­rant chain with her fel­low stu­dents. It’s infor­mal, inex­pen­sive, and you can stay there as long as you want. Orders were placed via tablets locat­ed at the tables. The food was sim­pler than yes­ter­day but also very tasty.