Japan, Day 4: Kawaguchiko, here we come!

When I was looking through this blog earlier today, it struck me that I hadn't written anything about our Japan holidays since January. That's six months ago! I guess it is time for me to continue with our maiden journey through the Land of the Rising Sun.

If you can remember, we actually flew into a typhoon and had to be diverted to Incheon in South Korea. It was only in the following day that we landed at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. There was hardly any time for us to look around Tokyo - we only spent two days there and one of the days was at Disneysea - before we headed out to Kawaguchiko. Getting there was a bit of fun. From the Ikebukuro station, we had to change trains at Shinjuku for the Chuo main line to take us to Otsuki. At the quaint Otsuki station, the connecting Fujiyama Limited Express would then take us to Kawaguchiko.

An explosion of colours at a vending machine

Basically, the Otsuki railway station proved to be very colourful on its own

We got no-where with the ticket vending machine but eventually one of the station masters came to sort us out.

The entrance to the station's platform to await the arrival of our train

But first, not giving up the opportunity for a quick take-away meal

Even the trains can be very colourful

And this is the first coach of the train. With our tickets, we did not know whether we'd be allowed to sit here. So it was just a look-see before we went back to our own seats. By this time, rain was beginning to come down.

The Mount Fuji station where the train stopped for a short while before continuing to Kawaguchiko.

Here we are at Kawaguchiko

Yes, here we are, finally, at the Kawaguchiko station. It was still drizzling and the local time was 4.45 pm. The problem was that there was no sheltered walkway between the platform and the station building and we had to brave the rain just to get there.

A welcome sight inside the station. More things to buy while waiting for the rain to stop. When the rain did stop, we had to make our way to our apartment in the dark. Local time was 5.30 pm. 

This was our one-room apartment at Kawaguchiko, which looked rather empty when we arrived....

....until we rolled out the mattresses and made ourselves feel like home.

But first, there was dinner to think about. Where on earth could we find anything to eat in this town after dark? This was something we had not planned for. Luckily, we had espied a restaurant - a tempura restaurant - earlier and that's where we retraced our path in the dark.