My journey to the Land of the Rising Sun - Day 4

Today's post has got to be the shortest of all my posts about my holiday in Japan. After a relaxing night at the Kasugai View Hotel, we awoke to a gloomy morning in Yamanachi. Mount Fuji could only be partly seen as it was shrouded in low-lying clouds.

Today was by far the coldest day, thanks to the wind and light showers. I felt the wind pound me whenever it blew. Our first stop for the day was at the Oshino-Hakkai Village, which boasts of a set of 8 ponds filled with water from melted ice and snow from Mount Fuji. Melting snow from the slopes penetrates through porous layers of rock, which filter the water, rendering it crystal clear. The dreary weather did not make for good picture-taking opportunities today. Even the surface of the water was much too rippled by the wind to see clearly all the way to the bottom.

I experienced my first encounter with mainland Chinese tourists at a souvenir shop in Oshino-Hakkai. I wonder whether these people were ever taught such things as manners? They come in like a hurricane - loud, crude, uncouth and pushing their way through and swallowing everything in their path. I despise such lowly, pathetic creatures! Before the hordes of chinky mainlanders arrived, I was fortunate to have tried some free samples of the local snacks, one of it being some sweetened gigantic black bean. I bought a vacuum-sealed pack of sweetened beans, a bottle of wasabi salt and a marimo moss ball keychain.

After trodding around on soggy, damp ground, we returned to the bus to head to Gotemba for lunch. We were served a bento set with udon, some tempura, tamago (sweetened omelette), grilled salmon and some boiled vegetables. Everything except the rice and udon were served cold as this is how bento should really be since it is usually eaten as food on the go.

After refuelling our stomachs, it was time to do some shopping at the Gotemba Premium Outlets at the foot of Mount Fuji. There are a total of 210 outlets at Gotemba, with a good mix of luxury and mid-range brands. I paid a visit to some of my favourite brands such as Ralph Lauren, Hugo Boss, Emporio Armani, Adidas, Banana Republic and GAP. There is even a LEGO shop which carried up-to-date stock. It was time for some shopping spree in Japan! We were given 1.5 hours to shop at Gotemba before we had to leave for Tokyo.

We arrived in the eastern side of Shinjuku in the evening and walked through the red light district of Kabukicho which had rows of adult stores and kinky neon signs advertising all kinds of adult services. After walking through those dodgy lanes, we reached the main intersection at Shinjuku. Shinjuku is a very busy area and it was hard not to get lost in the crowd. To get some relief away from all the crowd on street level, we headed underground which was quieter.

Tonight, dinner was at a Chinese restaurant in Shinjuku and it was nothing worth shouting about. Our hotel for the night was at the Keio Plaza Hotel, Tokyo. It's a very large and busy hotel in the western side of Shinjuku. The hotel is surrounded by tall office towers and from my room window, I could see the Shinjuku Cocoon Tower with its signature criss-cross patterns. I could also see that the streets were still busy with office workers pouring into the subway stations, even at 11pm! From afar, they looked like black ants marching.