Kawaguchi-ko we go.

Travel to Kawaguchi-ko Album

We stayed an extra night in Tokyo because Shawn was sick. When he was feeling better, we hopped on a train to Kawaguchi-ko. This is the home of Mount Fuji! Our trip was on regular commuter trains, so I took some photos of ads I saw on the wall. One is of comic book-looking characters and it's about learning English- cool! At a change-over, Shawn only wanted white rice. So I took a photo of what he wanted and showed the ladies working behind the counter. They got a kick out of it. Since they didn't speak a lick of English- this was a great way of communicating! I decided to try the noodles in the photos too. They were aweful- unfortunately. They tasted like the ocean smells. And they were cold. I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth for a while. Ugh! The worst part is the food stand is set-up so you buy a ticket from a vending machine, the ladies make it, then you eat it standing up, crowded between two businessmen slurpping up their soup. When I finished, I took my almost-full tray back to the ladies. One said something and I just smiled and left. Well, there you have it, our first experience with Japanese cuisine and it was a bust!

When we arrived at Kawaguchi-ko, the Inn was right across the street from the train station. As we walked into the Inn, we saw slippers at the front door. We were instructed to take our shoes off, put them in a closet, and use the slippers for walking around the hostel. This posed a huge problem when we found out there wasn't an elevator. We had to carry our bags up 3 floors in slippers that were falling off our feet. We were shown to our room. At that point we found out that it was indeed a Japanese-style room (photo). Straw-like mats for flooring, rice paper window shades, low table....and no beds. We soon discovered something like futon mats and blankets, etc inside the closet. And with a little creativity, we were able to make a wonderfully comfortable double size bed!

And now for the good part. There wasn't a bathroom in our room. We were told that there were shared bathrooms. Ok, easy enough. Haha- then we went to check them out, it was a huge room with different stations for bathing (photo). You sit on a bucket to wash yourself with no privacy! Then if you so chose, you could join in a public bath (photo) that was large enough to fit 6 people. There were specific instructions on the wall (photo), just in case you were unfamiliar with this type of bathing. Good thing this was the off-season for Mount Fuji. There was no one in there and our "showers" were as private as a large room could provide. I did try the Hot Spring bath- the whole time I was thinking about lobsters. The water was sooo hot, that I eased in wondering if I was being cooked. But when I got out, I was as red as one! No harm done, just another check on my list.

The next morning, you couldn't beat the view out of our window! It was Mount Fuji- bright and clear and calling our name.