Mt. Fuji and Baby Blue Eyes

This was another weekend full of activity for me, something that doesn't happen often, since I'm a couch potato during more weekends than not.

I had one more day left to make the most of the 3-day train pass, so I decided to book a train that would take me the Mt. Fuji Stn to go see the baby blue eyes that were in bloom. I also booked a seat back. The express train that would've taken me directly to the Mt. Fuji Stn was full, so I had to take an express to the Otsuki station and change to a local station. The express train I took was fully booked so I was lucky to get a seat reserved when I did. Seeing how many people were out on the platform, I was lucky to get a seat on the local train. I got some great views of Mt. Fuji on the way.

One of the things that really gives me a sign that I'm no longer in a populated city is that there's only one bus per hour, if even that. The previous bus left a few minutes before the train pulled in, so I had a little wait. I roamed around a bit and took pics of the roller coasters at FujiQ Highland, an amusement park I could see from the station. I also got a chance to take pics of Mt. Fuji with a local train coming in. The once an hour bus was 10 minutes late getting to the station. I was glad that I planned to take an earlier bus back. I figured the bus was just going to get later as the day goes on.

I finally get to the park and the first thing I did was to check the bus schedule. I saw that there was a 1:30pm bus, which would've given me an hour to kill at the station before I had to catch the train back, given the bus came on time.

I was greeted by rows of tulips and a magnificent view of Mt. Fuji at the entrance of the park. Baby blue eyes were in season and I was expecting to see a big carpet of the little blue flowers, but it was more like patches were planted. Photographers found the right angle to make it look like a carpet of blue. LOL It was a nice park, with falls, watermills, a greenhouse selling flowers and plants, souvenir shop, small cafe, and a cave showcasing lava rocks and lava tree molds. The lava tree molds were cool to look at and the temps in the cave was pretty cool, chilly even.

Although cherry blossom season was over in my neck of the woods, the multi-petaled cherry blossoms were still in bloom at the park. That was nice to see. I also saw white baby blue eyes with purple dots. They were really cute. There were rows of a variety of tulips. I've never seen some of the tulips I saw at the park. I liked the ones with the frilly edges and multi-petaled ones.

It was nice walking through the park and getting different views of Mt. Fuji. I was ready for a break. I saw that the cafe had soft serve ice cream. There was one with sweet mochi so I decided to get that one. It hit the spot. While I was enjoying my ice cream, I saw the bus before the one I was going to catch go by . . . and it was about 20 minutes late. That didn't bode well for the bus I was going to catch. I was glad I decided to give myself an hour leeway.

That 1-hour leeway got pared down to 10 minutes before the train left. First, the bus was 30 minutes late. Then, I saw how the foreign tourists were fumbling with change to pay their fare since not all of them had chargeable transportation cards or the cards didn't have enough to cover the fare so they had to charge the card then pay the fare. I figured that contributed to the bus being late. Then something went wrong with the computer on the bus so the driver had to shut down the bus and do a few things to reboot the computer and do some resetting. All that probably took 10 or so minutes. It doesn't help that the bus driver drove sooooo slowly. Maybe it felt that way all the more since I was looking at my watch, hoping I'll get to the train station in time to catch the train I booked.

The 3-car train came on time and I went to my seat. There was someone else sitting there. But, that's a common happening. Many foreigners don't book seats in advance and just try their luck since it's cheaper to just buy the express ticket without reserving a seat. Unlike the entitled shits on airlines, people will move without a fuss if the person who actually booked that seat shows up. I settled in, munched on some snacks to tide me over since I missed lunch, and passed out.

It was a fun weekend. Wine on Saturday and flowers on Sunday. I was exhausted and non-functioning on Monday at work. LOL

JN63JPN  9 May 18