Today we went on a pre-booked day trip to Mt Fuji and surround with Viator. I did look into doing this on our own but without a car it’s almost impossible to do. This is the link to the specific tour we took: https://www.viator.com/tours/Tokyo/Mt-Fuji-Lake-Ashi-and-Bullet-Train-Day-Trip-from-Tokyo/d334-2142TYO_F800_F820. Make sure to read the terms and conditions carefully – if weather is shit, it still goes ahead and you will see NOTHING. We were very lucky we fluked good weather.
We used the metro to make our way to the Ginza pick up which was easy to find. We were picked up early and it turned out very awkwardly there was another person with the exact same first and last name as me – that caused a lot of confusion. We hopped on a 40 seater bus and did a few more pick ups before heading to our first stop – Mt Fuji.
Our bus was mostly Americans with some French and a few other nationalities thrown in. Usually I avoid Viator tours for this reason – the travellers on these sorts of things can be very entitled. This group was pretty good though. Our guide was Yabe-San and he did a great job explaining local history and telling us about the area we were driving through.
After about 2.5hrs driving from Tokyo we arrived at Mount Fuji fourth station. There was hardly any traffic going out of Tokyo it up the mountain as today was a government holiday – we paid the return price of that on the way out though!! We couldn’t go up to the highest accessible point by vehicle (fifth station) as it had snowed and the roads weren’t clear. We hopped out here for half an hour and looked at the gorgeous view of the southern alps. I also appropriated a rock….now I have one from Mt Vesuvius and Mt Fuji for my collection!
From here we drove for another hour (lots of bus time on this trip but we were prepared for that) to a Kawagachi lakeside lunch. It was a traditional hot pot style and it was really good, I was happy I paid a bit extra for it to be included. 
We then drove for another hour (yep, lots of bus time haha) to go on a Lake Ashi boat cruise. This was only a short cruise of 15 mins but it was really pretty and it got us to the base station for the ropeway.
At Mount Komagatake ropeway we climbed into a cable car and everyone squished in like little sardines. I picked the wrong side so didn’t get a view of Mt Fuji going up.
Once we arrived at the top we realised the fog and clouds had started to come in and unfortunately this meant we couldn’t see Mt Fuji from the look out! Noooooo. Time for cute selfies instead.
We traipsed around a bit at the top and then instead of going up to the shrine, we elected to be first in line to come back down the ropeway to try and get good shots of Mt Fuji that way. Success!
Yabe-san then told us it would be 40 mins to the Odaware Shinkansen station where they dropped us to get a 40 min bullet train back into Tokyo rather than spending 2+ hrs on the bus. Unfortunately 40 mins turned into 90mins as the traffic coming down the mountain was super busy. We eventually got back into Tokyo at 7pm and then had dinner at the same place as last night because the ramen was just so freaking good
Viator trip rating: 3.5/5 the service was excellent but there is SO MUCH driving and you are so rushed in some parts but then in others your wandering around a gift shop for 45 mins. If you want to see Mt Fuji and you can manage 6-7hrs on a bus or train with minimal effort….it’s a winner. I did a lot of research on this tour as I was determined to get out there on my own and it really is just about impossible without a vehicle.
Steps today: only 2382! Lots of sitting on my ass haha
Japanese food eaten: hot pot, Sashimi, katsu sardines, pickles, ramen, revolting sour lollies, pocky
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