The Latest and Greatest of Mt. Fuji

Recently, it was pretty rainy for about two weeks. Finally, the clouds broke and Mt. Fuji came out to play! I'm coming upon some of my last days of seeing Mt. Fuji with frequency, as along with summer comes clouds, rain and rainy season. This weekend I had some friends visit from Aichi-ken. They had made multiple attempts to visit the area around Mt. Fuji, but were never successful. Finally this weekend they were able to see Mt. Fuji for the first time after being here for 2 years! This inspired me to post some pictures from the weekend. I'm gonna miss this mountain so much when I leave! Hope you enjoy the views!

From the third floor of my school, Fujinomiya West High School

From the cafe at Lake Tanuki, with a latte and a Mt. Fuji specialty cookie.

Fujinishiki Sake Festival near Shibakawa

The ladies from Aichi enjoying their first views of Mt. Fuji

Such Grandeur

Rice Paddy Jumping

Rape Flower Blossoms

Photo Opportunity

I love the nature around Fujinomiya!

I hope you enjoyed this collection as much as I enjoy the real thing! It was a great weekend - maybe I'll post more later. Mt. Fuji is back to hiding again today, unfortunately.

Around the 'nomiya

We spent a few days just around where I live, and of course one of them was spent at Shiraito Waterfalls and Lake Tanuki, the sorta "must-sees" of my city. First we headed off to the waterfalls. On the path down to the falls there is a bunch of bamboo, so we decided to go senior picture style (as we did at many places throughout the week!):






















































At the waterfalls, we decided to buy the cell phone charms of some Mt. Fuji characters. They kiss each other and we wanted to make sure they had enough "alone time" before they parted ways again and resided in different countries:


After Shiraito Waterfalls, we headed up to Lake Tanuki for a little picnic, followed by a walk around the lake:

And a few more senior pictures:

Mt. Fuji didn't come out to play, but it was a fabulous day despite it!

Sunday!

Sunday was a nice girls day all around. Andrea and Kelly and I went strawberry picking near Fujinomiya. Most people that I have talked to around here haven't been there, but it was nice that it wasn't so crowded like it probably would have been in Shizuoka City. Strawberry picking is different here in that you don't pick the strawberries to take home, but rather it's all you can eat in a half an hour. I had 26 strawberries...pretty pathetic next to the 45ish that Andrea had! We brought our Hershey's chocolate syrup and it was glorious. And we may have snuck a few home with us too. Don't tell ;)




After strawberry picking we stopped up at Lake Tanuki to get a nice view of Mt. Fuji. We had gone up to Lake Tanuki before, but it was too cloudy to see Fujisan, so it was nice on Sunday. It was a little cold up there, but beautiful nonetheless. And we became celebrities somehow, and about 10 photographers with huge lenses started snapping pictures of the three of us ladies in front of Mt. Fuji. Apparently they don't see three American ladies there every other day they go to snap pictures :) We almost couldn't get away, it was crazy. And this picture reminds me not to slouch when standing next to people who are shorter than me. Shoot. Anyway hope you like it :) This weekend is busy until I leave for Yuki Matsuri! Hopefully catch up after that at work!