Lake Kawaguchi Revisited

After a 3 year hiatus, we visited Lake Kawaguchi once again to have a brief change of scene and for some respite from the metropolis. The location of Fit Resort is shown on the poster of Mt Fuji. I won't go into too much detail as my post from our last visit (nearly 3 years ago) would suffice.

One of this years highlights was playing tennis - Clara found great pleasure (and exercise) in being the ball girl and played an important role in keeping the game flowing as the need for players to scramble around for tennis balls was removed. The other highlight was swimming in the lovely pool with Clara. As with the last time, the pool did not have many other swimmers, for most of the time we were the only people there. Clara loved it and gained a lot of confidence - a great chance for both of us to spend some quality time together.

The room itself was slightly disappointing, but that became less of an issue the more beer and wine I drank on Saturday night. A lovely weekend away which was not even spoiled by the 2 hour traffic jam we found ourselves in on the drive home. The only problem is that the weekend is over in a flash and I will be getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow for the long train journey to Kaihin Makuhari - no rest for the wicked. Perhaps some colleagues and I will climb Mt Fuji this summer if we all gather up the required motivation. As I have been in Japan for some time now, I really need to conquer Mt Fuji to tick off the list of things to do. More on that later, perhaps.......

Lake Kawaguchi

On Saturday morning (yesterday), we packed ourselves and all our accouterments into the car and headed off to Lake Kawaguchi for the night. We have all been busy recently and the thought of escaping Tokyo for a while was very appealing. The next two weeks will also prove to be hectic, but I am hoping all the positive energy accrued over this weekend will push me over the finish line.

Lake Kawaguchi is about 2 hours drive from Tokyo - well within my patience threshold. We were excited about leaving the rat race and the heat of Tokyo behind. Temperatures in Tokyo have hovered around 30C for the past week and the commute to and from work is not becoming any easier. Because of varying factors, Lake Kawaguchi is considerably cooler than Tokyo. Temperatures hovered around a very comfortable 22C.

We booked in to the Fit Resort Club at about 3pm on Saturday and got settled into our room. Clara was badgering me to go swimming so we went down to the pool soon after our arrival and had a pleasant swim. In the evening, we all headed to a nearby yakiniku restaurant where I ate the equivalent of two cows and drank the equivalent of two Olympic sized swimming pools of beer. Upon returning to our room, Clara was dispatched off to bed, while we all stayed up and chatted.

Clara woke me up this morning at about 7am and made me get organised for breakfast. By 9am, I was sufficiently fortified to be coerced back into the swimming pool by Clara. We were really lucky to have the whole pool to ourselves as all the other guests at the resort seemed to have disappeared. Clara and I really enjoyed our swim and were in the pool for nearly two hours. We had also brought our tennis racquets but did not have enough time to play on this visit. Next time.

After out departure from the resort, we drove around Lake Kawaguchi. We had a local speciality called Hoto for lunch and then Clara selected me to take the helm of a pink pedalo for 15 minutes. Clara started to cry when I started showing her my repertoire of pedalo tricks but I eventually managed to stem the flow of tears by reverting to conventional navigation and propulsion techniques. After I had regained Clara's trust and respect, she started calling me Captain.

I was hoping to get some pictures of Mount Fuji standing over Lake Kawaguchi but the weather did not cooperate. Despite that minor disappointment, we all had an excellent weekend which should give me a good boost for the coming week.