Day 6 Mt. Fuji

Today it was time to leave the man-made beauty behind and spend some time admiring what God has made:  Mt. Fuji.  This was a day FULL of trains, trains, and more trains.  So getting out and hiking for a bit felt really, really good.  It was also beautiful (to me) weather: slightly cloudy which kept temps down and the colors brighter.   

 

 

 

 

We ended the day in our next location and a taxi ride to our AirBnB.  I have decided I really do not like Japanese taxi drivers.  The people as a whole are truly the nicest, kindest people I have ever met...but I'm exempting taxi drivers.  This one refused to use his GPS and ended up costing us a lot of extra money.  Grrrr...but we got there.

Japan Day 4 Tokyo/Kamakura

What is a trip to Japan without going to Tokyo?  When we first planned this trip, we were going to go to the Tokyo temple my church has there.

Unfortunately, it was under repair, so we couldn't.  At the time I admit I wasn't too upset.  It was a trip with a lot of traveling and being hot and sweaty...I just wasn't feeling very "churchy."  Now, though, I admit I am disappointed we couldn't.  It would surely have been an amazing experience.  Oh well.  There's no use worrying about things you can't change, and location isn't what makes a temple special anyway.  It's what happens inside, which is the same around the world.

So we went to the Ginza instead.  This is a large hoity-toity shopping district in the city.  When my dad served his mission, the area was off-limits, so he really wanted to see what he wasn't able to those many years ago.  As it turns out, not much.  It's probably more impressive at night when everything is lit up, but during the day it is just....a lot of tall buildings.

 
Definitely worth checking off the list, but there you go.  Shopping centers looks the same around the world!

After that, we went to a beautiful shrine and temple with a large outdoor market in front of it.  I did not get pictures of the market, but just think a farmers' market but for touristy things and you get the idea. My favorite part might have been the large, covered area with misters.  It is HOT in Japan, people!

Japanese architecture is just stunning, and I never got tired of seeing the shrines and temples.

Day 5 Yokohama/Otsuki

This was a fun day.  It started with a visit with a childhood friend, Maria, whom I have not seen in years. The last time I saw her, I was living in Georgia.  I didn't know it at the time, but she was working as a librarian in South Carolina, and we were in the same temple area.  I had gone one day, and she happened to be there as well.  Neither of us knew that either was even living in the area!  This Japan meeting actually had a similar feel of serendipity.

My dad had happened to have a conversation with her dad and brought up our planned trip to Japan.  Maria's dad was thrilled to hear that because Maria was currently working for the DOD library system there.  Not only that, the base she was working was actually in the same area that we were traveling.  And so the stars aligned, and we were able to arrange a meet-up.

Before leaving the area of Kamakura, we met up with Maria at Daibutsu, or the Great Buddha.  As the name would suggest, this shrine houses an impressively large statue of Buddha.

 

The shrine was beautiful, and seeing Maria again, in a foreign land of all places, was a special treat.  It did not last long, though, as she had to go to work.  And so we parted ways after about an hour.  She went to work, and we headed to Yokohama.

Yokohama is the second biggest city in Japan--or at least, that's what Google just told me.  What is much more interesting is that it is the home of the CupNoodles Museum, which sounds very similar to the Coco-Cola Museum, for anyone that has been there.  They talk about the history of CupNoodles, and then the part I was looking forward to, you get to make one.  Sounds great, right?  History plus food--what can go wrong?

Well, what can go wrong is that the day you are there is the one day that week it is closed.  So...moving on to a new plan:  a boardwalk where I got to (sort of) confront a fear. This boardwalk is home to the Cosmo Clock 21 ferris wheel.  There is one important thing to know about me.  I am scared of...everything.  I joke that I am scare of life, but there is definitely truth in that jest.  One of the many things on my list is heights.  So I told my dad I was happy to sit at one of the picnic tables while he took a scenic ride of the port.  He wouldn't go without me, so I had a choice to make...

 

(In the ultimate irony, take note of my shirt.)

I did open my eyes.  A few times.  So I didn't miss out completely.  It was a stunning view.  And I was very happy to put two feet on the ground again.  At this point, our day was mostly done.  Or so we thought.

We hopped on a train to go to the next AirBnB.  After the long ride was over, we hopped off, stepped outside, and pulled out the directions.  It was at this point, when nothing looked right, that it was discovered the AirBnB was booked for a different, very similarly spelled, city.  We were where we wanted to be to start the next day's adventures, but we had no place to sleep!  Luckily, there was a hotel with a vacancy right across the street from the train station.  It was a tiny room, but it was a room with two beds (after we asked for one to be added), and all was well.