Mt Fuji - sort of

Our Mt Fuji tour was a lot of fun. There were five sightseeing stops: one Shinto shrine, the Mt Fuji visitor center, one Buddhist temple, a lakeside lunch, and of course Mt Fuji itself. Our first stop was a beautiful Shinto shrine that's about 1200 years old!! Absolutely beautiful and crazy ornate!! Of course the only unfortunate thing is that it looks so much like every other Shinto shrine we've seen - and our MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) likes to take you to one on every single tour they give (excepting of course tours like DisneyWorld and Universal Studios). For example, please compare the above to one we visited in Nikko: Very similar right? Still beautiful and I'm grateful to see them. We did learn something interesting though - the Shinto followers believe that deer are the messengers to their gods, you can whisper in their ears and they will carry your prayers. So, that just makes me wonder what kind of message is Dad sending? :) Just kidding Dad, you know I love me some deer sausage :)

Our second stop was the Mt Fuji visitor center - booooring. As most of y'all know I'm a huge fan of reading the information cards every time I go to museums (snort) and I tell you what - this was even better.

Moving on. Next was Mt Fuji herself - I say herself because the Japanese call her Fujisan (Mrs Fuji) and say she is shy, which is why many days she hides her face behind the clouds. And she proved very shy upon our arrival. This is a huge mountain and all we could see was a slightly darker shadow...poo.

That seriously is Mt Fuji behind me - see what I mean?

However, being the true Texan that I am I was able to find one serious interestingly thing, and probably the best part of the whole tour for me

Isn't he handsome?? Heehaw.

Next stop was the lake for lunch. We had a really good meal, I had pork ramen (and I have to tel you, it's nothing like the soup we get in the States and I'm seriously going to miss this!), and Mack had katsu-don which is basically white rice mixed with onions, then a piece of fried pork on top with an egg cracked onto it which basically cooks from the heat of the bowl. He loves it. We followed this up with a specialty of the region, lavender ice cream. An interesting flavor, but admittedly not one I would choose on a typical day.

Next stop was the Japanese Peace Temple, a Buddhist temple built to celebrate and promise peace in Japan - although I suppose this was one of those no explanation needed times? It was beeeautiful!!!! A huge white structure with golden Buddhas and surrounded by perfectly trimmed trees that are so quintessentially Japanese.

Lining the entryway are the temple dogs, but in this case they choose to display the style of dog (or in India's case lion) that is standard to each of the main countries where Buddhism is practiced. My favorite is this one

It was a great tour, and luckily this time we actually got home at a reasonable hour. I hope all of you had an exciting weekend!!