Tokyo

The weather report was not all that promising for our first day in Tokyo. We also had one day left on our rail passes, so the logical thing to do was to leave Tokyo for a daytrip to a nearby town. The two main options are to visit Mount Fuji and a town called Nikko. I reckoned that you couldn't see the mountain through the clouds, so I chose Nikko.

A really wonderful set of temples to rival those in Kyoto, but it was wet!!! And silly me... the shoes I've been wearing all around the world have a hole in them. And since I've basically been enjoying summer for the last 9 months, it's never been an issue... until now!! As beautiful as Nikko is... trying to enjoy yourself while huddling under a tiny umbrella, with your feet soaking wet because water has gotten in... I managed to last for 3 hours before catching the train back to Tokyo!

The next day it cleared up, but this was the day for wandering around Tokyo when the weather was less important. Tokyo itself is not particularly full of things to see, but I managed to at least get a photo of the Sensoji Temple... I left the group early to go meet up with some Japanese people I met through work, and so we went out to dinner and drank too much shochu!!!

There was another free day and so I decided to attempt to sneak a peek at Mount Fuji since the weather was perfect in Tokyo. There is a tourist day pass that includes the train trip from Tokyo and a circular route involving a variety of different forms of transportation, so I obtained one of those. But my day involved..... 3 separate trains, a funicular and a cable car... to arrive at the top of a mountain with a supposed view of Fuji, only to see this...

And since it was quite cold, windy and grey at this viewpoint, I decided to complete the rest of the circle which involved another cable car, a "pirate ship" boat cruise, a bus, and 3 more trains back to the hotel.

So, here's the view from the lake... where theoretically the view of Fuji is quite impressive...

And here's a photo of a photo of Mount Fuji, showing what it ought to look like!!