The Elusive Mountain

Sunday morning we were off bright and early to head to the Mt. Fuji area. First we were to take a boat ride across the beautiful Lake Ashi, then a ride on the Hakone Ropeway, which is like giant ski lift-type thing. All of this was designed to give us "stunning views" of Mt. Fuji. 

So off we went on our long bus ride. We arrived at Lake Ashi to find it was about 40 degrees out, cloudy and blowing a hurricane, which made 40 degrees seem much, much colder. We were looking for the stunning views of Mt. Fuji. This is what we saw:

Then we rode a pirate ship across the lake. Not exactly an expected mode of transportation in Japan, but hey, how many people can say that getting in touch with their inner Captain Jack Sparrow was part of their Japanese experience?

While cruising on Lake Ashi, we continued looking for the stunning views of Mt. Fuji. This is what we saw:

Next up was the Hakone Ropeway.  If a mini van and a ski lift had a baby, this would be it. 

By now it was not only cold, cloudy and windy, but the fog was rolling in thick and fast.  Still yearning for those stunning views of the fabled mountain, we peered through the fog. This is what we saw:

It's a good thing that we actually saw Mt. Fuji in the distance from the expressway on our journey to all these amazing viewing sites or we would have thought that the elusive Mt. Fuji was just a myth, kind of like Bigfoot.  

We had one last crack at a Mt. Fuji experience. Our last stop was to be on Mt. Fuji at the fifth station, about half way up the mountain. Sounds exciting, right? Gonna be a cool experience, right?  If we can't see the mountain, we can at least experience the mountain up close and personal, right? We were excited to salvage something from the freezing cold, cloudy, windy, foggy day. And then the rain started. Which meant it was snowing on Mt. Fuji. Which meant the roads on Mt. Fuji were closed. Which meant we went to the base of the mountain, the visitor center and no farther.  It seemed that Mt. Fuji was not meant to be ours. We would have to content ourselves with the distant view we had seen from the expressway and no more. 

Until we awoke the next morning at our hotel at Lake Kawaguchi and the day was saved.