Day Five- Kawaguchiko/Tokyo

After a lovely night's sleep in a traditional Japanese room, we were up bright and early for some more fun in the sun. Oh no, I mean rain. For breakfast we went to "Seben Ereben" (7/11). While Greg played it safe with a pastry, I went for the Japanese approach and had rice ball wrapped in nori paper. I didn't really know which to choose, but knew that I had to steer clear of some kind of fish eggs. So I picked the one in the green wrapper with a picture of some bean type vegetable. Imagine my surprise when I looked down to discover that the green beans had eyes. And gills. And tails. Clearly the actual flavour was "Green Bean and Little Fish". I did not finish it. After recovering from the shock, we hopped on the Retro Bus again and went to the Kachi Kachi Ropeway.

It is named from the kachi kachi yama story, in which a naughty raccoon is punished by a rabbit. There are figures everywhere. It's a bit weird actually. Anywhere else it would be predominantly aimed at children, but not in Japan, oh no. This is something I noticed a lot, particularly in toy shops.

The view of the lake was nice, though it would have been much nicer in the sun. There is also a Mount Fuji viewpoint. In fact, on normal days you can see it through this heart:

Wait a minute, what's that Greg has spotted on the horizon?!

If you are up a mountain, what are some things that you might need? Whatever it is, you can probably buy it... from a vending machine:

After the disappointment of still not seeing Fuji-san, we went for a bit of a wander and came across a lovely little temple.

After another two hour coach journey (this time I had to sit next to A BOY!!!) we arrived back in Tokyo. Guess what the weather was like. Go on, I dare you...

 Yup, that's right- the sun was out. Typical. Our second Tokyo hostel was... teeny tiny. So after the flashest of flashes we went for some tea. To a sushi go round restaurant. Why did I not take pictures? I am not sure. I liked it. Boyo did not. Time to tick another place off the to-do list so we went to Ginza.

 Before leaving the UK, I knew nothing of Ginza, only that we did a translation about it from English into French in final year and that that was very hard. Turns out it is full of fancy shops and cafes.

 This delicious cake was about all we could afford, apparently it is not unknown to pay over 1500 Yen (over a tenner) for a cup of coffee! Bearing this in mind, we found the hostel bar and had some Umeshu (plum wine/brandy/deliciousness) and a couple of other drinks before going back to our room which wasn't even big enough to have both suitcases open at the same time! In the words of a very wise old woman- it was only a base.