Mt Fuji & Hakone Trip

Wednesday, 19 Sep 07, 1.11pm at home

Hello diary,
It's been almost a week since I wrote diary. Last week I was busy settling my first holiday trip to Mt Fuji and had short 3-honey-days with my hubby last weekend because last Monday was public holiday. We went to Mt Fuji on Saturday, it was a fun trip except one thing. We almost missed the bus because of my carelessness.

We were supposed to meet at a hotel near our home at 8.30am. We left home around 7.30am with big smiles, brought snacks and drinks, and walked with "semangat 45" by holding hands. We reached the station where the hotel should be around 7.45am. We asked people around there but there was no signal where the hotel was. When my watch was showing at 8.15am, I couldn't keep searching the hotel. I called my travel agent and I found out that I took note wrong address of the hotel. As predicted, my husband blamed me, no, he blamed my clumsyness. I know it was totally my fault. But, at least he should give me applause on my kecepatan dalam membaca. The address should be 'Nihonbashi-Kacigarasomething', I only read the first word 'Nihonbashi'. These two are different areas. It's something like 'Slamet' and 'Slamet Riyadi'. Slamet stays at Pojong, Slamet Riyadi is at the heart of Solo City. Anyway, finally we took a cab to the hotel. I felt like a secret agent 008, I was sitting on the cab with my back straight, looking at the GPS on the cab that looked smart but showed nothing to me and looking at my watch every 2 seconds. We reached the hotel at 8.32am. The bus has left! Omo omo omo.. sambil lari tergopoh2 lari masuk ke dalam taxi lagi, and we went home?? Of course NOT! We went to the next hotel where the last bus would depart, which was at 9am. And finally we reached the other hotel at 8.45am, the bus still had not come yet. Phew, we managed to get on the bus at 9am. Thanks to kecekatanku dalam bertindak, right?

If you're going to mountain, what's the first thing you need to bring? Hairdryer? shaver? Of course not! The answer is: we should bring jacket, rite? If you're going to Mount Fuji, the highest mountain in the world with 'salju abadi', what should we bring? A Thick Jacket! Bingo! Hahahaha! Hey, don't think that I didn't bring jacket when we went to Mt Fuji! My stupidity is: I was overly paranoid to a cold weather. I brought all my winter equipments that I have (it's not that I wanted to 'AcTioN' on the mountain with my winter coat), somemore, I bought a sweater for Ron too! At least it's showing that I'm a good wife and I did perfect preparation before the mountain picnic, rite? We ended up bringing a big bag to a big mountain. As soon as we got into the bus, the tour agent said that there was accident and traffic and whatever whatever so we couldn't go to the 5th level of the mountain, we only could go till the 2nd level. This means that the weather wouldn't be so cold. We both were so dissappointed, in our own ways. Ron was dissappointed because he couldn't get chance to go to the top of Mt Fuji and see his first snow, I was dissappointed because I was wearing turtle neck shirt which was so warm. Wearing turtle neck on summer is as bad as wearing a tank-top on the snow. I can't imagine how turtle is able to survive by wearing turtle neck non-stop forever. Anyway, I'm sorry,honey.. to make you carrying the big bag with full of jackets. I really wanted to wear that jacket if the weather was a bit cooler, really..

Our trip was fun. We went to Mt Fuji 2nd level and had lunch at Hakone. We took a ropeway (cablecar) to view Hakone from above. Nice.. nice.. The cablecar was too small and nobody took picture for us. I didn't want to miss this important moment. There was no other choice, I took picture myself.. I know, I know, you can see nothing except our two big heads, rite? Just believe me, the view was nice..

We landed at the top of somewhere to view a boiling valley. It's called Owakudani. We must walk up to the top to see it. It was a 15 minutes walk but like 15 hours walk. One thing that kept motivating me to climb up: when I saw emak2 or engkong2 walked passing me and when I saw a girl with high-heel and mini-skirt who still could walk 'ngethek' like it's just a piece of cake. After we reached at the top, there was a smell of H2S that smelt like eggs and I saw most of the people there were eating black eggs. There was a sign "When you eat one black egg, your life will be 7 years longer. When you eat 2 black eggs, your life will be 14 years longer". The black egg is called Longetivity Egg. I didn't eat the egg because the minimum number of eggs we should buy is 6. How many years can I live longer if I eat 6 eggs? They don't dare to write 6 x 7years = 42 years? I just took picture with the hello kitty that's trapped in the black egg. I guess, that hello kitty can live longer than forever.

Next one was a "pirates" boat cruising at Lake Ashi. Would Jack Sparrow be crossing Lake Ashi? Please don't.. Anyway, I like this cruise so much, the wind was very strong. Unfortunately we left our jacket and winter accessories on the bus. After 10 minutes cruise, Ron asked me to go down karna kebanyakan makan angin bisa masuk angin atau kembung. Well, he was right. My head was dizzy after that. I'm getting old now, I should bring Paramex wherever I go from now on. The cruise was around 25 minutes. Then, we got on the bus again to go back to Tokyo. We reached home around 9pm.

Now I'm planning a 6-day tour to Hokkaido island for 7 people. I'm planning everything from the plane ticket, train tickets, bus rides, hotels, tour itinery, meals, car rental, etc.. Can you trust me to be your tour agent and your tour guide at an unknown island? I'll start my Japanese class next week, I should be able to master Japanese by end of Dec. Now, you can trust me?

-Abbie-
p.s DO NOT ZOOM IN THE PICTURES! Danger, my plum cheeks will be at your full screen. Haiz.. I know I must go on diet NOW!