Ha, ha.... It's been three years since I stopped writing my travelogue on my family's vacation in Japan. We went there in October 2017 and my last entry was made in July 2018. I really don't know why I stopped writing about our trip but I did. I should complete what I started, shouldn't I?
So here we were, Day 5 of our vacation. We were in Kawaguchiko, a town at the edge of a fabulous lake and with a fantastic view of the Fuji mountain. We had just completed a short bicycling trip to the lake and was walking back to the homestay apartment.
By the way, this was a fantastic spiderweb we encountered, The spider was no where in sight, though. Just the web still glistening with the morning dew.
Throughout the whole of our short stay in Japan, we had depended on their super-efficient trains to get to our destinations. All the time, except for this short journey from Kawaguchiko to Mishima which we took the bus. The problem, you see, was that there was no direct train service to a shinkansen train station and no way were we going to retrace our steps to Tokyo just to enjoy their bullet train. Therefore, bus it had to be, and Mishima was the closest shinkansen station on the map. And luckily enough, there was a direct bus service there.
No, this wasn't the bus that took us to Mishima. This was only one of their small buses that served the townfolk. It's quaint, though. I had seen it whizzed its way around Kawaguchiko. How I wished we had the opportunity to board one, if only for the experience but our bus would be arriving soon. Nevertheless, my son still found time to visit the 7-eleven store across the road despite me anxiously waiting for him to return.
The bus journey to Mishima was, of course, without any incident and for the first time, we managed to observe everyday life in Japan. Not the big city everyday life but everyday life in a smaller, slower city.
The information screen in the bus informing us that it would stop briefly at Fujikyu Highland and Yamanaka Lake before arriving at Mishima station.
The entrance to the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park. A roller coaster was seen in the background.
A last look at Mount Fuji.
And here is the Yamanaka lake.
A lake cruise that's sure to thrill the little kids in us
The bus detours through a main road in Mishima before arriving at the station where we hurried to catch the Shinkansen to the Shin-Osaka station.
Pressed for time, we did not have any time to explore the Mishima station. Indeed, after alighting from the bus, I quickly hurried my family into the station to find the nearest ticket machine. It was important to buy the tickets fast, since we wanted to sit together. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a car with four empty seats. In fact, my son and daughter had to sit apart in their standard (economy) class coach when I bought their tickets. But when I wanted to buy the tickets for my wife and I, suddenly there were no more seats in their standard class! Instead, I had to buy green (first) class seats for the two of us. So my kids sat in standard while we sat in green class. Of course, the green class seats were more luxurious and exemplary. We really enjoyed ourselves for the brief journey of almost three hours.
Mishima shinkansen station
Inside our first-class coach
Information behind every seat
There's really very good leg room in first-class!
A defibrillator on board in case anyone needs it.
When we arrived at the Shin-Osaka station, we still needed to catch a connecting train ride to our accommodation unit in Imamiya. We dragged our luggage across the station, bought our tickets and waited on the platform for the Osaka loop line and then.....proceeded to board the wrong train. We didn't realise the mistake but in hindsight, it did look funny that the other passengers hadn't any luggage with them. It was only after the train had stopped at its final station that we suddenly found ourselves at the entrance to the Universal City theme park in Osaka.
Back into the train we went to retrace our way to a station where we had to switch trains to the Imamiya station. The apartment was a welcome sight to us when we finally reached it. As can be seen from the pictures below, it was a very decent place. More spacious than the other two apartment units we stayed in Tokyo and Kawaguchiko.
Not too sure where we went for dinner that night but my son took us walking around aimlessly and ended up in this restaurant after we didn't want to queue waiting for sushi. Good meal, though.
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