I don’t know what I’ve been doing from April to October except for trying to resuscitate my saving account to stable condition after few months of unemployment but hey, hello October I suppose. Can’t believe I haven’t even completed my blog post about the last spring trip to Japan. Talk about procrastination hahaha. Japan has been enduring a tough summer this year and hopefully Trami would be the last typhoon that they have to endure. When the typhoon not in town though, Japan is beautiful.

 

However, I heard that catching the view of the top of Mt Fuji is tricky, no matter what the season is. I managed to catch it during my first trip to Japan with my bestie but when I went for the second time, it was not very clear. Even though we specifically went to Lake Kawaguchiko, one of the famous viewing spot of Mt Fuji. The top of the mountain is foggy. Some of the tour participants kinda grumbled because before we had our meal, we could see the top of the mountain from our bus. But then, it’s impossible to defy the itinerary of a tour group when you join one so we continued our journey to Gotemba Premium Outlet with heavy heart. Thankfully, in the middle of the pit stop, we managed to see white sakura trees and happily taking picture with it for a while. 

 

Gotemba Premium Outlet is not that huge and that’s good for us because we only had 3 hours to cover the whole outlet. This is especially hard because there are three people in my family and everyone has different needs to cater to. We managed to go through every shops according to everybody needs though, Coach for me, Kate Spade for my mum and Adidas/ Nike for my brother. And even, eating Haagen Daz on the way. But I had no opportunity to check out those Disney/ Pokemon stores. Oh gosh, shopping is also an ordeal when you join a tour. The best thing is, you don’t have to stratch your head figuring out how to go to and from Gotemba Premium Outlet because it’s pretty out of the way from downtown Tokyo. Make sure you spare some time to grab those limited edition flavour of Haagen Daz ice cream. A lot of them can’t be found in the convenience stores in the city. The white peach is pretty good. Yumz. 

 

We stayed the night at one of the hotels alongside Lake Kawaguchiko. If you think all the hotels near the lake are in good condition, you may want to rethink. The hotel that we stayed seems to be kinda old and it does not have a lot of basic amenities like hot water, stable wifi connection, and stuff. Oh gosh, it’s literally the worst hotel that we stayed during our 8 days trip in Japan but guess what, this is the most expensive hotel from the pricing perspective. Why is that the case? We found the answer when the sun rose the next day. It’s because the hotel is facing the direction of Mt Fuji and you will be able to see the view of the lake together with the mountain (and its reflection in the water). Oh well, I suppose everything is about perspective, isn’t it?