On the morning of the 13th, I was picked up at the hotel by a car full of very tired-looking, sniffling people. I felt sorry they had to stay in the hovel (it was actually their second night, having stayed there the night I was sent home). But then I remembered how much I had paid for the hotel and quickly got over feeling guilty.






We drove to the Nihonbashi area to see some museum that was closed (as are most of the places we visit first thing in the morning, seeing as the people organizing this tour never seem to realize that things don’t generally open until 10 or 11am), so instead we just walked to Nihonbashi. Nihonbashi is a bridge, literally “The Bridge of Japan”, and is the point at which all distances to Tokyo are measured. There are several important old roads, including Tokaido (the road from Kyoto to Tokyo) that start from Nihonbashi. Once an attractive wooden bridge (subject of many ukiyoe woodblock prints), it is now made of stone an hidden under highway overpasses. It is actually quite a disappointing site and makes me wish that people here tried a bit harder to preserve their history.

We then drove to Mount Fuji, which was hidden behind clouds- even when we were at its base. This is rather rare in the winter, and it is said that those who fail to see the mountain in the winter will never marry.



The roads on the mountain were covered in snow, and because they hadn’t been cleared yet driving was a bit scary. Unable to see the mountain, we got out at this unfortunate sign to take pictures (10 points for spotting the mistake).



Then we drove to the sea, where we spent several hours cooking nabe. It was a cold and windy day and the pot just wouldn’t heat up. I don’t know whose idea it was to do nabe on the beach on a windy day, but by the time we finally gave up and moved the pot to the car we were freezing, starving and grumpy. Or maybe that was just me. After we ate, we realized that Mount Fuji was visible from the parking lot. The sun had pretty much set by the time we noticed, but we were at least able to see it.