Owakudani Valley & Mount Fuji

Hi everyone!

Wish you all a HAPPY, DELIGHTFUL, PROSPEROUS AND WONDERFUL NEW YEAR (though it's a belated one)!

Before I blog about my Italy trip, I plan to finish writing about my Japan trip. First in first out ok? But this is not going to be the last post...... Please pray hard for me to have more time to blog! Peak season for audit firm is going to start very soon!

OWAKUDANI VALLEY (大涌谷)

This valley was formed by vocanic explosion thousand years ago. Walking on trail, you can see a wonderful smoking volcano and yellow sulfur.

It's similar to the Jigokudani Valley that I visited in Hokkaido on 2010.

I really hated this place because we stuck in the traffic jam for more than 5 hours due to the public holiday in Japan on 23 November 2012. It was really a waste of time!

Sulfurous fumes

It was raining and thus the sky was really grey!

Hot spring!

Can you see the small shop in the photo? Here you can purchase eggs, cooked in the naturally hot water, But the eggs were sold out T_T It was already 4.30pm and we had not taken our lunch due to the traffic jam.

Bought this HOT red bean cake to warm up our body

This is the most popular black eggs in this valley. Eggs are cooked in the hot spring water and shells are blackened by the sulfur and which are said to prolong one's life by seven years.

My lunch at 5.30pm

We reached our lake side hotel finally after 3 hours OMG!

Our dinner at hotel

Salami

Maguro sushi

Beef for shabu-shabu. Super tasty and I love the sesame dressing! Too hungry and forgot to take photos actually!

And we got KING CRABS for our dinner!

Yummy yummy! Though it wasn't as good as those that I had in Hokkaido. The portion for two. We couldn't finish them eventually.

View from our hotel room. We stayed in a hotel at Lake Kawaguchiko. We were so lucky because it was a clear day so we could see the beautiful Mount Fuji when we woke up.

Enjoying the beautiful view while having our breakfast!

We quickly finished our breakfast and went to have a stroll along the lakeside to bring Mount Fuji back to Malaysia using camera!

Sugoi desu ne ("awesome" in Japanese)!

Didn't feel like leaving at all because it was not easy to have a clear view of Mount Fuji. The high altitude of Mt Fuji means the weather changes very quickly with cloud moving across the peak obscuring the view from time to time. According to my tour guide, it's rare especially for tourist to get to see this perfect cone-shaped figure.

Lake Kawaguchiko is considered the best spot to view the whole cone of Mount Fuji.

Just couldn't help but keep pressing the shutter button of my camera.

Then, we continued our journey to Mt Fuji 5th Station but too bad it was closed due to heavy snow on yesterday. I thought we could go up to the 5th station but the tour guide told us that only 1st station was opened T_T

Basically we couldn't see anything from the 1st station because Mt Fuji was blocked with all the trees. So I only took photo with this signage.

And lastly, my portrait at the 1st station.

I actually fell sick when I was in Italy. And have not fully recovered. Writing this blog post consumed me a lot of energy.....

GOOD NIGHT!