nov 11 – ebina service area to mt fuji
I’m going to try titling my blog posts like it's an itinerary, and we will see how it goes haha.
Since we were jet lagged and slept in a parking lot, it's no surprise that we woke up at 3 AM. We lay in the camper trying to go back to sleep for a while, but eventually made the decision to get up and all that jazz, especially since the service area is open 24h.
The washrooms were super clean, and even had indicators for which stalls were taken, and if they were sit or squat toilets! I know it's so minor, but doing a whole trip in a camper made me really appreciate nice toilet facilities (of which there were many in Japan – I can only think of maybe one or two washrooms that were questionable, and they were still nicer than some I've been to in Toronto.)
Anyway, we got a hot meal of gyuudon. Keelan had one with onsen tamago while I got a grilled salmon with mine. A hot meal after all that travel and poor sleep was super satisfying. We did some wandering around after eating, including buying some coffee and tea from the vending machines.
The cups were also super cute!
By this point in time, it was around 6 AM, which is not a great time to be awake, but no longer obscenely early. But the most unfortunate thing is that places don't seem to open until 10 AM in Japan!!
We took our sweet time driving out to the Gotemba Premium Outlet area and still got there super early. And Google Maps took us on some weird side roads. We eventually decided to go to yet another Service Area (Ashigara), since they had a dog park and a little grassy walking area!
You can see our camper behind the red motorcycle.
It was a bit overcast and dreary, but it was super nice to do a little walk. The leaves were starting to turn in this part of Japan too!
We didn't end up going into the dog park (and there was no one in it anyway) but it was nice for all of us to stretch our legs.
Keelan and I had second breakfast at the Starbucks. He had a sausage roll, a cinnamon bun, and another coffee. I had another matcha latte and an Aomori apple pie with custard. (I didn't take notes on this so I'm just going off my memory and the photos! Don't fail me now, brain...)
I also managed to do all the ordering for this in Japanese, which helped build my confidence more. I mean, Starbucks is probably one of the easier places for an international traveler (in any country!) but it was nice for me haha.
In case you're wondering what Koharu did as we ate, the answer is “sleep in the camper”.
After this, we ended drove to the SWEN outdoor store in Gotemba and spent an hour in there, picking up various supplies we thought we'd need. (We also spent like half an hour in their parking lot waiting for them to open and reconfiguring our camper, now that it was light out and there was more room without tons of moving vehicles!).
In terms of stuff we bought, it was a fire pit (since most places in Japan don't have built-in fire pits, like campsites in Canada, and you obviously don't want open fires in random places), camping chopsticks, and a cute camping lantern. I think we also bought some small consumable stuff like butane canisters, charcoal, etc. But it was nice because we got most of it tax-free! They were set up to refund tax for tourists, which I was not expecting, but I guess Gotemba is a pretty major tourist area.
Once we did our shopping, we drove to the actual outlets, but specifically Hotel Clad for the onsen, Kotonoha no Yu. It was really nice!! We rented a private bath for one hour and I really liked it. Plus it was nice to slough off all that travel gunk finally.
Very relaxing and a lovely view, especially since it cleared up and was turning into a bright sunny day!
We could've eaten lunch there, but opted to keep going. Mostly because it was starting to get pretty toasty and we didn't want to leave the dog alone for that long. I don't think it would've been a concern, but I always joke that I'm the one with separation anxiety. I don't like being away from her for too long!
For our lunch, we went to a dog friendly restaurant (Hoto Labo) in the Fuji Five Lakes area that I had looked up in advance. I was really looking forward to it, since it's a local specialty and everything, but it was actually a really weird experience. We waited for a table and that was fine, but then when we were taken to our table, the person just kind of... dropped us off at the entrance and left? So we were standing there being like “uhhhh?” and then just opted to sit down at the table next to us, since it was empty. One of the other patrons asked me if we were supposed to be there, lol.
Eventually they came back with water and then pointed to an iPad for us to do the ordering. At least ordering was simple! And the food was tasty, too. We even ordered a little hoto meal for Koharu!
Even though she looks excited for it...
She did not even touch it lol.
My meal was pretty good though. I apparently didn't take a picture of Keelan's, whoops. The other customer who was originally like, “why are you here” asked me about Koharu and I asked about her shiba inu, and managed to not suck that much at Japanese.
But the entire experience was like... super strange. Because it was so quiet in the restaurant. Everyone was essentially couples with their dogs but no one was talking!! Just really odd and silent.
When I went to go pay, they asked me if I posted on social media, so I put up a couple pictures of Koharu not eating her food on Twitter and got a little discount lol.
Anyway, after that, we walked along the lakeside trail!
And as it is in the Fuji Five Lakes area, you could see Mt Fuji! It turned out to be a beautiful day and I think we were all happy to go for another walk and enjoy the weather.
Something that we only realized as we were driving out was that Mt Fuji was actually right behind us when we drove in. We didn't notice it at all until we were leaving though!
Anyway, our next stop was Fujisan Winery, and that was also a bit of a weird experience. The drive itself was beautiful – quiet little roads with forests and hills and some small buildings every once in a while. But the entrance to the winery was a totally sketchy dirt road that was overgrown and did not feel like the right place, except there was a sign that said “Fujisan Winery” pointing down it, so... off we went.
We did eventually get to the winery, though. We got out of the camper and were like, “okay now what” because there were multiple buildings but nothing was clearly marked, and there were some people doing a wedding(?) shoot (but maybe it was for PR purposes?). Some guys that looked like they worked there were like, “you here for the winery?” and when I was like, “yes, the winery” (because what else would you go there for?), they pointed me at a building. So in we went.
Also super weird because like. No one greeted us, even though there was someone at the counter polishing wine glasses. We browsed around and picked up two bottles of wine – one was a Pinot Noir and the other was a Japanese grape, the Koshu. I'll be honest in that I don't recall much from either of these bottles – we drank them during the trip and I didn't take notes on them, nor do I have particularly strong memories of them. So they were drinkable and inoffensive, which I personally think is the bare minimum for a bottle of wine. But that means I wouldn't go back, especially with the strange experience. When we went to purchase the wine, the person at the counter didn't notice us (or was ignoring us but giving them the benefit of the doubt here...) for a good minute or two.
So yeah.
Two odd experiences in the same day is not exactly the greatest start to a trip, but hey, at least they were mostly inoffensive!
Anyway, after we got out of that, we went to the Asagiri Kogen Michi no Eki to pick up food for dinner. Michi no Ekis are like a combo farmer's market/tourism office/road and rest stop – I really liked visiting them! We picked up some frozen food made for barbecueing, some breads for breakfasts, and other little things. Actually, when we went to check out, there was an issue with one of our items so our cashier had to call someone over, and then they had to figure out why something wasn't in the system and it was a whole thing. But eventually we managed to pay!
So once we had all that sorted out, we drove to our campsite, Fumotoppara. This is a pretty famous one because a) featured in YuruCamp, b) you can see Mt Fuji from it, and c) huge space for camping wherever you want. We arrived just before sunset and checked in without any issue, especially since I printed out the confirmation and could just hand it over. We paid with card, because we were told that rural areas don't take card ever, and so we wanted to save our cash for when we were there. However, as you will read when I finish writing about my trip, that was actually not the case and we ended up with a surplus of cash by the end of the trip.
We picked up some firewood from the on-site store, and then drove to our camp spot. Since the campground is “free” style, you can roll up to anywhere. We picked a quieter area near the edge, but still with a nice view of Mt Fuji and near a water station.
It was the first time we were setting up camp, but I think it went pretty smoothly. The camper rental came with a bunch of stuff, but one annoying part was how the awning was broken so we had to set up an external canopy thing if we wanted any rain coverage. Luckily, it was looking to be a completely clear night, so we didn't bother! We also had a little folding table, some camp chairs, and various tools like a burner and cutlery.
We also got to bust out our new fire pit, and the bonus is that we could burn all the cardboard and packaging right in it lol.
And of course, dinner was cooked over an open fire, since we could.
Koharu wanted to eat our dinner too.
Anyway, after eating dinner, we finished our bottle of wine (and I only know it was the Koshu because of this photo) and washed up. I remember when Keelan went to the washroom, there was a super weird car that drove around announcing “be careful of fire!” for like 15 min straight. I guess when you're that popular of a campsite, with so many people, you gotta really hammer it in?
Anyway, we went to bed pretty early since, y'know, awake since 3 AM. The metadata on this photo tells me it was taken around 7 PM, which I would believe. I'm pretty sure we fell asleep before 9 PM, haha.
I put most of my photos into this post, but there's a few additional ones in the album. I think I'll just be adding to this album as I write up posts!