It was a very short stay at Tokyo the night before as we had planned to spend two days/1 night in the Lake Yamanakaka in the hope to see the Mount Fuji!
Lake Yamanaka is the largest of the Fuji Five Lakes in surface area and the highest in elevation.
We still had a valid JR Pass so we took the JR train from Tokyo to Mishima (~45 min) and from Mishima we had booked bus tickets with Japan Bus Online to Fujisan-Yamanakako (~about 13.5 pounds/single ticket). The bus took approx. 1h30. From there, we had to call our hotel so that they could pick us up at the bus stop with a shuttle.
When we arrived at the Lake, it was pouring rain and we could not see much of the Lake!
The Hotel Mt Fuji hotel was clearly not cheap (~190 pounds for one night) but the hotel was located on the top of the hill with a great view on the Lake and the Mount Fuji, weather allowing... Given the very bad weather and the isolation of the hotel on the top of the hill, our activities were quite limited that day. We had lunch at the buffet of the hotel and quickly realized we were the only non-Japanese tourists of the entire hotel! In the afternoon, we went to the ryokan (separate ryokan for men and women). However, while the ryokan itself was very nice - traditional outdoor ryokan, it was impossible to see anything but grey clouds.
In the evening, we had dinner in one of the restaurant of the hotel and it was it for the day!
We got slightly luckier the morning of the following day as we could see the Mount Fuji for no more than 5 minutes before the sky became very cloudy again.
I decided to go again to the ryokan. We could not see the Mount Fuji anymore but at least we could see the Lake a little bit more than the day before!
Given the rain has stopped, we headed down the hill, had a breakfast at Denny's and had a nice walk along the Lake. It was probably the only place we visited in Japan where we could still see quite clearly some cherry trees blossoming. It was pretty!
We made a stop for a late lunch at a pizza place called Gusto where pizzas were pretty satisfactory and then we headed back to the bus stop to grab our bus back to Mishima. It was starting to rain again so it was the good time to leave!
Same journey back to Tokyo. We came back to the same hotel in Shinjuku where we had left our main luggage.
We were quite disappointed by the weather as we did not enjoy the outdoor, the view and the ryokan hotel as we would have wanted! Probably the biggest disappointment of our trip! Unlucky this time!
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