Dave & Jen Visit Japan! Day 4

 

Saturday was Mount Fuji day! In order to ease my tour guide duties, I signed the three of us up for an MWR (Morale, Wellfare and Recreation) tour on base. It turned out that Saturday was beautiful weather and PERFECT for some Fuji-san viewing! Mount Fuji can be elusive in the clouds some days, but it was gorgeous for Dave & Jen's visit. Thank you weather kami!

We started out at the Fuji Peace Park which was build and donated by the Indian Prime Minister or something equally as random. It didn't offer much in the way of park or peace, but it was in a beautiful location to shoot some pictures of Fuji.

 

After 30 or 45 minutes or so of capturing Fuji on film, we headed to the Oshino Village which is famous for its 8 ponds that were formed by Fuji. They used to be one large pond, but they have dried up and formed 8 smaller "ponds". I use the term "pond" loosely though. Being from MN, when I think of pond, I really just think of a small lake, but since everything in Japan is smaller, so are their ponds.

Here are 3 of the 8 ponds. See what I mean? They are pretty tiny! Each was named for something interesting or some superstition. The second picture is called Mirror Pond because you can see Fuji's reflection. This pond (below) was my favorite, I forget the name, but it was name because a girl was getting married there, farted and was so embarrassed, she drowned herself.

After checking out Oshino village, we headed to the Sengen shrine. It was your basic Japanese shrine- beautiful and old. There was also a wedding happening that I was happy the family got to see. Since we were a little in to the mountains, the shrine was covered with snow as well. Seriously icy and slippery snow, but it was beautiful!

 We stopped for lunch at Fujiyama brewery. Dave was definitely happy about this!

 

This was a busy tour! Next we headed to Lake Kawaguchiko to enjoy the scenery and do some souvenir shopping. I found a cute Fuji cell phone charm and lastly we headed to the Fugaku Lava Caves. These caves were formed by the release of gases from cooling lava from Mount Fuji (which is still an active volcano). 

I think by the time the bus headed back towards base, we were Fuji-ed out, but we stopped one last time at a rest stop for another photo-op!

It got me excited for August though when I am going to climb all 3776 meters!