Day 16: Mt. Fuji/Tokyo

Today, we got an impressively early start, leaving the hotel somewhere around 700am to catch a high speed train towards Tokyo. The plan was to stop at a place called Shizuoka, get off the train, and take a 30 minute bus to the Nihondaira hilltop with the best view of Mt Fuji. So we get on the right train, are cruising along at 150 mph, and have time to grab breakfast in Shizuoka. After asking directions to the correct bus from a station employee, we were confident that we could get the right bus on time. 10 minutes to the bus, we try to find the stop, struggling, and the station employee sees us, looks at his watch, and starts frantically waving towards a far away stop. He starts herding us down some stairs, pointing us in a general direction. So we weaved through some twists and ran down a hallway--with our big packs on--and sprinted up a flight of stairs. Bus stop in front of us, bus #42 is about to leave. But we thought we should be getting bus #19. Bus leaves. 20 seconds later, turns out, Station #19, bus #42 is right. Next bus, 3 hours. DANG.

But we grabbed sushi at a grocery store, sat and ate in a park, and walked around this little town(probably well over 1 million) halfway between Tokyo and Kyoto. We read, and made it back to the stop with plenty of time to spare.




The ocean is never far in Japan..

As luck would have it (second time now for those keeping score at home), Fuji had been cloudy most of the day (I won't bother w/ the bad pictures). When we reached our stop, we could just barely catch glimpses of the peak. But after sitting and enjoying the warm sun and escape from urban chaos for an hour and a half, the clouds gave way. And as you can see, we got a pretty sweet view of the mountain. Well worth the wait and a very calming few hours.





Our next bit of luck would come upon returning to the Shizuoka train station to continue on to Tokyo. After asking when the next Shinkansen (bullet train) was leaving, the woman hesitatingly explained there had been an accident on the Shinkansen. We figured this was a catastrophic accident (but ended up not hearing about it after, so it must have been minor), and decided to start taking local trains (estimated travel time 3 hours to Tokyo as opposed to 1 hour via bullet train). The local trains were packed and, spoiled by our JapanRail pass that allowed access to high speed, we hopped off at a station hoping that the Shinkansen had started up again. We asked a station staffer and, ears perked up, he heard a bullet train arriving that second. So back to running up stairs, we made the train, got seats, and saved an hour of travel time. The Amazing Race film crews could barely keep up!


Once in Tokyo, we hit the town in Rappongi, reputed to be the best nightlife spot. Lots of clubs, bars, bright lights, promoters trying to drag you into the coolest clubs that usually ended up being empty. "Come back around 1130, you'll wish you had a table! Luckily, we held out until we met a couple Japanese sisters (one spoke great English, the other broken). Our iPhone Japanese-English translator came in very handy. Simply saying "I like fruit" can make a friendship blossom instantly. Thank you, Sapporo! The sisters showed us around to 3 or 4 bars and clubs. Very friendly! I got one to give Mark wet willies, (don't worry, Abbie, much to his chagrin), but this thoroughly entertained her and I for a good hour.

The end is near..