Japan - Day 7 - Mount Fuji

Today we had to get up bright and early to meet our tour group for our day trip to Mount Fuji, Japan's tallest mountain. Once on the bus, it took us about two and a half hours to arrive at our first stop at Mount Fuji. Lee, Matthew and I slept most of the ride. Our first stop on the mountain was mostly a tourist trap, a large building selling knick-knacks and food, but we did get a nice photo opportunity and to refuel after the long bus ride. After about an hour we re-boarded the bus and headed to our next stop which was lunch. Lunch was at a road side restaurant that our tour company had booked out for us. Next on our itinerary was a gondola ride up the mountain. Again we took the bus to the gondola station where we got on. We got to see some beautiful views of the surrounding country, but unfortunately it was a pretty cloudy day. One thing of note was the sulfur mine we saw from above, it was quite interesting to see and of course, quite pungent. Once we were done with the gondola ride our bus took use to a beautiful alpine lake where we boarded a catamaran and took a very relaxing ride around the lake. Finally, after the boat ride, we took our bus to the train station, where we got to do something every exciting, take the BULLET TRAIN! The bullet train's max speed is 200 km/h or about 125 mph. We made it back to Tokyo in about 30 minutes! It was so cool, and it was a super smooth ride! Once we got back to hour hotel we ended the day with a fancy dinner at our hotel.