The Quinn Family Excellent Adventure: Pause Tokyo 2 Japan - Let's do a random Mount Fuji overnight to Kawaguchi

It was nice to pack light for a single night. The local trains to the Shinjuku station was easy enough. Walking to the Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal was a little hard the first time. Much of the foot work in underground and without our Google Maps GPS we sometimes wander a bit. We found it though, Yay. We hit a ticket Kiosk and figured out a one way ticket to Kawaguchiko Station. The next available ticket was at 1:30 PM. Bummer. We should have done this sooner. We grabbed it and embraced waiting several hours in the bus terminal. Our return trip could not be ordered from this same machine. We were helped by a staff member who carefully found us a return ticket for 11:00 AM the next day. Sweet. I was so glad to have previously arranged an AirBnB in the Lake Kawaguchi area. We would only have 3 hours of sun to check stuff out. The second hour of the 2 hour bus ride is met with beautiful landscapes. Mount Fuji is visible not long into the drive. We were very fortunate to have excellent clear weather.

After departing the bus, we walked as fast as we could to our AirBnB. After a quick check in and repack, we were out to see the sites. KT wanted to see Aokigahara on her own and left before us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aokigahara Michelle and I headed out to seek out the famous photo shot location of Mount Fuji forgrounded by Lake Kawaguchi. It was pretty easy to find it. We had 2 more hours of light. Michelle wanted to goto the Lake Saiko Bat Cave. https://www.yamanashi-kankou.jp/foreign/english/spot/056.html We took a risk, struggled and found the correct bus and we were off. Once on the bus, we checked if it was open. Nope. That was dumb. I then checked how to get home. Sadly the bus we were on appeared to be the last in this direction. There was no return bus until the next morning. That was also dumb. I immediately looked at the walking terrain which I knew we may need to do. 80 % of southern Lake Kawaguchi had a safe looking shoreline path with lamp posts. Even in the dark, it would be safer that the skinny twisting roads. I wanted to bail but Michelle wanted to keep going. The gap between Seiko lake was interesting, all road walking with a huge uphill. Easy enough. Saiko lake was twisty and no lakeshore path. Cool.

We dung our bell for our stop, headed to the front of the bus and paid the man. He knew he was dropping us off at Lake Saiko Bat Cave which was closed. He told him we knew we were walking home now. It was kind of nice. We had about 1.5 hours of good light and 13 KM's of beautiful mountain side views. We had a little water, a few snacks and a long walk ahead. Fortunately we all still had cell access. KT had come close to visiting her desired location and was in the same boat with respect to a return trip. No buses, or taxi's to be found. This place is sort of like Algonquin Park in terms of isolation. We hoped to meet up for dinner somewhere but we were separated by a 5 KM expanse of wilderness. Our walk home was safe except for about 30 minutes of the road beside Lake Kawaguchi. Once on the lakeshore trail, it was a breeze. KT was on a different busier road. I hoped for the best. We soon hit a Lawsons and were feasting. KT pulled in soon afterwards and we all enjoyed the benefits of a wild 12-17 KM random wilderness walk in the northern Mount Fuji area. Michelle was kind enough to setup our awesome traditional Japanese beds and we slept like champs for some reason.

Kinda busy Bus station

Helpful staff thankfully