Day 3 was in many ways less eventful than the past two. The day began with me accidentally blasting my balls with water as I struggle to figure out the stereotypical Japanese toilet. After getting dressed and ready, I went to the local family mart to get some white person food aka tuna sushi and then ate it upstairs with everyone else. We made our way to a minibus we had booked for the day which I thought would just be an hour at most……. 4 hour later.. with an ass stiffer than Harry mood, we arrived at or destination. Before exploring the Fujiyoshida sengen shrine, we decided it was time for some food as some of us hadn’t had breakfast and it was now 1. With all the exotic choices of food, I decided to broaden my mind and try something I couldn’t get anywhere outside of Japan. Some French fries. We enjoyed our food in a little hidden section of the place we were eating which was very cozy and nice. Concerned that we needed to use our time effectively before we left, Toby Mike Simon and I left the others to go look at the main attraction and capture some photos.

After some time the others joined us and we began our ascent up the mountain, how we waiting to avoid the hundreds of people climbing the small narrow stairs leading to the main shrine, I suggested we take some side paths that slowly led us up the mountain with almost no other tourists. The views were very nice but there were more to come. Back in the main area now, we climbed up to a small outlook where I ask some English speaking tourists to take a photo of us all. Don’t get me wrong, I was very grateful for them taking time out of their day to take a group photo of us either the  “heaviest camera [he’d] ever held”… however I don’t think I could exaggerate enough how horrific this photo was… I don’t think it could’ve been much worse if he tried. Regardless, Toby and I were keen to keep tracking up the mountain where other tourist feared to tread. With the impending lack of time in our minds, we went onwards with haste, bet kept getting held up by the rest of the group. After about 20 minutes we reached turtle rock which only vaguely resembled a turtle, and the rest of the group was wanting to stop. Beanie Toby and I wanted to go onwards, believe we were close to the peak, and so we told the group we’d be back in a mere 5 minutes. 10 minutes later we discovered a small sign and a local telling us we were 5 minutes from the peak and so we excitedly and hastily trekked onward to the top. 

My photo:

Not my photo:

Once we arrived, I couldn’t believe the view. The hike which had been completely encompassed by trees now led to a view unobstructed, showing us the beautiful town below, alongside mountains Fuji, which was unfortunately hidden by clouds. Admiring the best view I’ve seen in my life, I got to work with my camera, which despite capturing an incredible image, could never convey the beauty I was experiencing. After some quick photos we had time concerns in mind and made our way back down to the others. Now at the bottom, it was clear some of us were hungry and out of energy, which was further reflected in the quiet and sleepy drive back to our hostel. Once regrouped upstairs, we prepared for a long 20 minute walk of wondering and looking for a place to eat. 15 seconds into our 20 minute walk, we decided to go to the local place 30 meters from where we are staying and spent the remaining 19 minutes and 45 seconds ordering food from a single iPad which had no English at all despite having chosen the English menu. When our food arrived, we all learned how much we all loved gyozas, as each one of us on average had a plate of about 10. Being gyoza festival, Each person was given a free gyoza voucher, and we calculated we’d be able to topple the Tokyo gyoza economy with the 72 free gyozas we’d have gotten from the vouchers.