Keio Highway Bus To Mount Fuji (2011-06-06)
How could we have not gone to see Mount Fuji already after having lived in Japan for nearly 12 years? The fact that the magnificient mountain is visible from Tokyo and our contentment that there's always tomorrow to visit made us procrastinate our trip there. But after the 3/11 Quake, the fact that "there's NOT always tomorrow" has never been more real, so, we made a day trip to (Lake) Kawaguchiko at the foot of Mount Fuji in late May.
I think Mount Fuji is at her prettiest with a snow cap.
Ideally late autumn or early spring is the perfect time to visit.
If you're lucky there may even be
red maples or cherry blossoms to gild the lily. May is not the
ideal time to see Mount Fuji but we wanted to go before the snow cap
completely disappears.
Today I'll begin the trip with transportation to Kawaguchiko.
We took the cheapest way to get there which is by Keio highway bus
instead of trains.
Thanks to the always RELIABLE service in Japan, KL got the
online-only packet
of 4 tickets at a discounted price of 5990Yen/US$73. He then used
two of the tickets to reserve two seats on the bus and all he had to do
was show the printout to the bus driver when boarding.
Since we didn't know when we would be leaving Kawaguchiko, we left
the return tickets open. The web-only discount
tickets can only be purchased online, so we couldn't just go to the
ticket office in Kawaguchiko to get them.
Around 4pm, KL reserved the 5:10pm bus seats back to Tokyo using his
mobile
phone. Before boarding, the driver checked the ticket reservation
page
on KL's iPod against our names on his list and off we went. It
was A
BREEZE.
Reliable timetables, punctual schedules, accurate online
information and
superb service make doing business with Japanese companies (in this
case,
Keio bus company) a
pleasure.
Travelogue continues tomorrow.
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