Hello!

It's finally time to start with my winter vacation picture spam. All photos are sorted and most of them are uploaded by now. I promise that I try to update regularly - at least my travel entries. Please be patient.
Before we start with day 1, I've thought of something special for this time. I decided to make a small travel map (maybe I'll do that for all of my trips from now on). You feel even more like you've done something and been somewhere with that :D



If I wanna display all my travels so far, I'd need a more detailed and a bigger map. Couldn't find one so far (not online at least). Anybody can help out?
There's one tiny mistake, though. I didn't go to Takayama (#4) directly from Saitama, but went back to Tokyo and went from there. But that's just a tiny detail anyways.
As you can see I pretty much went around in a circle (apart from my trip to Tokyo area).
P.S.: Yeah, I know that Hokkaido is missing on this map, but it's not important for my trip this time and it would have taken up too much space (sorry Hokkaido! XD)

Kawaguchiko - Day 1 (December 29th 2010):

So, my first destination was Kawaguchiko. Kawaguchiko literally means "Lake Mouth" and just refers to the area around lake Kawaguchi which is one of the 5 Mt. Fuji lakes in Yamanashi Prefecture.
Mt. Fuji is so big that it actually is part of two different prefectures. One is Yamanashi (where I went) and the other one is Shizuoka (on the exact opposite side viewed from Lake Kawaguchi).
In summer I climbed Mt. Fuji (as you might remember) and we originally planned to start our journey from Lake Kawaguchi (because the view there with the lake is so beautiful ), but due to a typhoon our plans got cancelled and changed and we ended up climbing it from the opposite side from Shizuoka Prefecture. That was one of the reasons why THIS time I wanted to go to Kawaguchiko ^-^;



Photo taken out of the Shinkansen (Shizuoka Prefecture) - clouds cover Mt. Fuji (as almost always *sigh*)

Some of you might remember that I was really worried about the weather (if it's only a little bit clouded, chances are high that you won't see Mt. Fuji although you're so close to it!). The weather forecast didn't look that great, so I was really worried - especially because every day thus far had awesome weather!!! I was really angry that it should be only cloudy when I go there.

Anyways, I had to survive a very long train ride (8 hours!!!!) with 4 or 5 times of changing trains that day (and one delay!!! - rare in Japan, but it happens).
I took the first train possible in the morning and arrived in Kawaguchiko around 3pm. Sunset was scheduled for around 4:50pm, so not much time left for sightseeing on that day.
Some random facts of that day:
Between Yokohama/Hachioji and Kawaguchiko there are really handsome boys/young guys!!! I was really surprised! (*_*)v Some of them really looked like Johnnys! XD
After my train was delayed for over 20 minutes I as well as a lot of other people had to run in order to get the next train. I wasn't that fast because of my heavy luggage. I stopped to ask a train attendant for directions and he started to speak fuc**** English with me! Normally I don't care anymore, but I was in a hurry and I just couldn't understand his English. JESUS!!! Don't try to practice your English when it's an emergency, PLEASE!!!!!!! (x___X)
I absolutely barely made it into the train (jumped into it with my heavy luggage .. don't ask! XD ...)



In front of Kawaguchiko Station around 3pm. I finally arrived there and there were clouds, BUT you could see Mt. Fuji!



I wanted to rush to my hotel which was only 2 min. away from the station, but .... you know me. I was so afraid that Mt. Fuji would disappear behind all those clouds in a few minutes, that I stopped various times to take some photos as long as he was still visible! XD



I finally arrived at my hotel and I didn't realize that it was a hotel with view of Mt. Fuji. LUCKY (*_*)v
The photo above shows the view I had from my room. Awesome, right?
The hotel itself was really small with only a few rooms, but the people there were really nice and helpful (let's forget about the loud and cold nights - Twitter followers might remember).



I spend a few minutes in my hotel room to take some photos.



I thought that those clouds look suspicious and I wasn't sure if Mt. Fuji would disappear anytime soon or not.
I took my backpack and was already on my way to the only sightseeing activity that I still could do that day (by that time it probably was around 3:15pm).
Luckily Kawaguchiko is a small town and you can walk to most things from the station (esp. when the weather is good).



I went to the Ropeway that is really close to the station (around 10-15 min. walk!). From up another small mountain you have a great view of Mt. Fuji.
Knowing that tomorrow's weather would suck, I thought it's the right thing to do.
What you see in the photo are the 2 mascots of the ropeway/mountain. Cute! ^-^



The mascots are also on the actual ropeway cars. It's a small ropeway with only 2 cars! The other one has the rabbit (and you'll see it in another post ^-^).



Almost up there. And what you see here is Lake Kawaguchi (at least part of it ^-^).



And finally up there the mascots greet you ^-^



Only a few steps later that's the AWESOME view you get!!!! I couldn't believe my luck!
There it was! Beautiful and completely visible!! FINALLY!!!! ;o;
It probably was around 3:30pm by that time and knowing that it's only a mere hour until sunset, I decided to stay until sunset.
It was extremely cold up there (-8°C or so), but the beauty of Mt. Fuji let me forget about the cold (*__*)v



I didn't let this chance pass by and took millions of photos with different settings (even some RAWs this time!^^)



If you look closely you can see Fuji-Q Highland as well. There's a red huge rollercoaster in that picture, can you see it? ^-^



They love their mascots! They were really everywhere, especially the rabbit (^-^)v



They made good models together with Mt. Fuji! :D







Mt. Fuji basically changes colors depending on where the sun stands. Viewed from Yamanashi Prefecture, Kawaguchiko, sunrise is on the left, at noon the sun is exactly above the summit and sunset is on the right (which you'll see in a few more seconds, too! ^^).



I guess that's for lovers. I saw quite some young couples ringing that bell and taking a photo together there ^-^



I decided to walk to a small shrine in the forest as there was still some time until sunset.
You can also climb the mountain without using the ropeway, but as I didn't have much time and as it also was so cold, I decided to use the ropeway in the end ^^



Mt. Fuji viewed from within the forest.





Even more mascot love ^-^



Close to sunset gives the whole scenery a reddish/brownish touch.











Finally the sun is about to set.











The sun is gone, leaving some beautiful colors behind ^-^



The kind of sunset I hoped to see when climbing Mt. Fuji in summer :/ ...



I took one of the last ropeway cars back down and walked around the lake a little bit (but not for too long because as soon as the sun is gone it's getting really freaking cold ;o; ...)



You can also take boat tours (which I did another day!)



Everything around the lake is illuminated and looks really nice. There are many onsen hotels. Actually I wanted to use one of those, but all of them only have rooms for 2 or more people ;o; .....



Mt. Fuji in the dark XD



"Houtou" - a special type of noodle soup Yamanashi Prefecture is famous for. The noodles can be compared to udon noodles, but yet are a bit different. Super yummie and warms you up in no time!
It can also be eaten at Kawaguchiko Station for 900yen and I highly recommend you try this when you're there!! :D
I ate that around 6pm and after that my day was pretty much over. Kawaguchiko is small. Everything has closed and there are no department stores or anything close to the station (and it's too cold to walk for more than 20 minutes!!!).

I ended up spending the rest of the evening in my cold hotel room and twittered (which caused my high cellphone bill ;o; ....) and also planned my future trips in more detail.
I decided to go to bed early because I wanted to arrive at my next destination at sunset time (around 7am), so I got up around 5:30am the next morning.
Unfortunately I couldn't go to bed early as my room was freezing cold and my room neighbor decided to watch TV until 1am or so (x___X) ....
The weather forecast said it would be cloudy only the next day, but still clear in the early morning hours (that's why I decided to get up that early).
Quite a short entry, but if you consider that I arrived around 3pm, it's no wonder.

To be continued!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned (^-^)/