people you meet on a tour (or part three of the Japan trip saga)

My last day in Tokyo was spent hurrying around a few local landmarks.
Looking out onto the city from Tokyo Tower

and also looking down at my feet (the yellow rectangles are the tour buses).

Getting off the bus to quickly walk around the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace - the palace itself is only open to the public 2 days a year (we didn't hit one of those days).


We saw most everything else from the bus - like I said, it was a rush. The next morning, I said goodbye to Tokyo and boarded a bus headed for Mt. Fuji. I will have to say that this part of the tour didn't interest me too much when I booked it. However, I couldn't find the type of tour I wanted without including the Mt. Fuji part. It ended up to be a great day though. The tour quide was really quite good (he kept us entertained with little tidbits of trivia concerning Japan) and I met a variety of interesting people. I even saw an exit on the freeway for Sagamihara (where I had lived when I was younger).

How far you were able to travel up Mt. Fuji is dependent on the weather - mainly snow. We were fortunate to go to the the 5th station, which is more than halfway up the mountain. By the way, Mt. Fuji is 12,385 feet. The weather in Tokyo had been pretty moderate, but it was cooooold on that mountain. Part of the reason was the wind - it was very windy.
However, because of the wind, we were able to get some clear pictures of Mt. Fuji.

After lunch, we were supposed to take an aerial cablecar with great views of Hakone National Park. But the high winds had closed it down. We instead took another tram that was enough for me. Mt. Fuji is a volcano, so I guess the area is a hot spot of sorts and you could see steam? or gases? rising in some spots - sorry,I am not a geologist! If I remember correctly, the tour guide said it last erupted in the early 1700's.

The end of the day was a cruise on Lake Ashi, one of the five lakes surrounding Mt. Fuji. I am sure that the area is a hot spot in the summer, but for now, all the duck paddle boats were in rows waiting for the warm weather.

Alot of the people were taking a train back to Tokyo. But there were a few of us that got on the train for Kyoto, my next leg of the trip. While we were waiting for the train, a few of us started talking about where we were from. What are the chances that a young couple from Houston was there! She actually was coming for the wedding of a Japanese friend from college years earlier. Over the span of the whole week, I met quite a few interesting people......
a mother/daughter team from Barcelona
a couple from Pennsylvania with 2 small children on their way to China
for their adoption of a second little Chinese girl
a French couple that made me remember how I felt about some of the French when
I lived there (take that how you may!)
a friendly young couple from Australia
a Japanese man that worked for Proctor & Gamble in the U.S. that was in Japan
for meeting to try to market Head & Shoulders to the Asian market - I told
him I equate the shampoo to dandruff control but I had noticed a commercial
in Korea for the product that seemed to suggest it was good for your hair
(no dandruff in sight)
another young Australian couple on their honeymoon
a very pretty young woman that had come to Tokyo for some classes on holistic
healing
a Japanese/American man that had left Japan at age 5 and was here for his first
visit since leaving
I won't bore you anymore with the details. But since I was on this trip by myself, I really enjoyed the times I did have to converse with other westerners and hear their stories.