A trip to Mt Fuji

My wonderful host brother Itsuo picked us up and took us for a drive to Mt Kawaguchi to see Mt Fuji (we took MAAAAANY photo's of Mt Fuji, which I will put together in a separate post).  

Itsuo, Nikki, Meisei, Jacqui and Steve, heading off for a driving adventure in Kofu

This was our first view of Mt Fuji - as you can see, the light was difficult to photograph, but the view was spectacular.

Itsuo is a wonderful Dad, and Meisei is a lot of fun to have around - he's a super cool guy for a 6 year old - and he came out with some really good english phrases, which surprised us greatly.

Itsuo took us to a Music Museum on the lake (I'm pretty sure they do a lot of weddings there - the photos with Fuji in the background would be amazing)

The Music museum is set out like a cute European village.

We found an Australian flag in the garden

I'll put up more photos of Fuji in the next post, but here Meisei is playing in the water (that is so cold it has ice around the edges) in his gumboots - proving that kids are the same everywhere (it was fun having him do things that kids back home in Australia would do)

Yep, we got a nice selfie with Fuji in the background

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Fuji is on everything - even the traffic lights.  This town reminded us a LOT of Cooma.

One of the great things about Japan is that they have a lot of regional dishes.  The regional dish for Yamanashi is Hotto - which is a large cast iron pot filled with soup, vegetables, very thick udon noodles and meat.  It was VERY filling (J & I shared one between us), and it is delicious.

 Hotto

Meisei had Zaru Soba (cold noodles) that kids in Japan seem to like a lot (we love them in Australia too).

Horse sashimi - sorry to my horse loving friends, but it was delicious - it tasted a lot like Tuna sashimi.

 All of us together having Hotto at the base of Mt Fuji - it was just perfect

Here they are playing soccer in the snow at the base of Mt. Fuji - they were really getting in to it.  Watching this reminded me a lot of watching S play soccer in Crookwell in the snow when we lived in Goulburn.  In Crookwell the spectators sat in their cars and when a goal was scored honked their horn.

 Hello Kitty, Yamanashi Edition

 Where we had the Hotto they had shoji screens with beautiful shadows from the trees outside.

 All the sightseeing was a bit much for Meisei - we tired him out (we went back to the hotel and had a nap as well).

 On our way back to Kofu, we went to my old High School - Kofu West Senior High School (Kofu Nishi Koko).

 Kofu Nishi Koko front gate

The front of the school - it is currently New Years holiday, so it was almost completely deserted.  Just going to see what it was like brought back many happy memories.  My Japanese mum also graduated from this school (I also got to graduate from here, although I'm pretty sure I didn't satisfy all the requirements - so it was kind of them to give me a High School Diploma in 1987)