When we were planning our trip to Japan, one of the things both Meghan and I wanted to do was see Mt. Fuji. It's such an iconic part of Japanese culture that we felt like we couldn't not see it while we were there.

The tricky thing is, Mt. Fuji isn't actually very close to Tokyo. I think it's manageable with a trip on the bullet train, but Meghan and I didn't want to deal with intense navigation and directions on our last day, so we booked a day trip tour so we wouldn't have to worry about it.

The tour actually worked out perfectly because we got to see not only Mt. Fuji, but also parts of Hakone and the surrounding areas as well.



After a 90-minute bus ride, our day actually started off in Hakone with a cruise on Lake Ashi. It was rather windy out on the water, but we got to learn all about the history of the lake and the mythology of the shrine on the water.



According to the legend, a nine-headed dragon was terrorizing the people who lived on Lake Ashi and stealing their children until a Buddhist priest came and prayed along the waters of the lake causing the dragon to repent his evil ways. The shrine was built to commemorate this and every year there's a huge festival and celebration to honor the day the dragon stopped terrorizing the people.





Our cruise didn't actually stop at the shrine, but took us to another port on the lake where we rode the Hakone Komagatake Ropeway to the top of Mt. Komagatake.



The views from the top of the mountain were incredible.



It was cloudy when we were there, so we couldn't see as far as you could on a clear day, but still seeing all that open space was pretty incredible.



We spent some time hiking around the top of the mountain up to a shrine at the very summit.



It was also really chilly that high up. According to our tour, Komagatake is the second tallest volcano in Japan. We were 1,327 meters above sea level. I was glad I had packed a heavier coat for this trip.



When we descended back to sea level (via the ropeway), we were treated to a delicious Japanese lunch. All week long we'd been eating with chopsticks and didn't even have the option to use a fork, so I was kind of surprised to see a fork at lunch. Before this trip, I was pretty terrible with chopsticks, but by Monday, I felt like such a pro, I didn't even touch the fork! I even ate rice with chopsticks! Small win!



After lunch, we hopped back on our bus for the drive over to Mt. Fuji. Fuji wasn't actually very far distance-wise from Hakone, but because we were driving on all these curvy, narrow mountain roads the drive took close to two hours.

It had been pretty cloudy all day, so by this point, Meghan and I weren't super confident we'd actually get to see the Fuji summit. But then we passed through a tunnel on the drive, which according to our tour guide, frequently is the dividing point between weather patterns. And sure as anything, as soon as we got through the tunnel, the clouds were temporarily behind us and there were some clear blue skies and gorgeous views of Mt. Fuji.



We proceeded up the mountain. We had originally been thinking we'd get to go to station five, which is about half way up the mountain, but because there was still so much snow, we were only able to go to station four.

Station four was still pretty high though and we were definitely above the clouds.





And it was really, really cold.

The clouds parted for a few seconds again and we were able to get some more pictures of the top of the summit.



Hearing all the stories about people who hike the mountain of course made me want to hike it. Not that I'm in any sort of shape to be hiking mountains, but it just seemed like something that would be really cool to do. Even in the summer, when the whole mountain is open for hiking, hikers can expect to move from summer-like temperatures to winter by the time they reach the summit.

After our adventures on Mt. Fuji, we headed back to Tokyo to meet up with Scott for dinner. It was our last night in Japan, and all I wanted again was some more of that delicious ramen that we had on our first day. Meghan and Scott were more feeling curry, which I'm not a huge fan of, so we did curry first and then went to the ramen place where Scott took this ridiculous picture of me.



Guys seriously though, this ramen. There are no words to describe how good it was.

After dinner, it was back to Scott's apartment to pack up all our crap and get ready for our insanely long travel day back to the States.

We left Scott's apartment at 6:30 a.m. Tokyo time, and I got back to my apartment sometime around 6:30 p.m. DC time. For those playing along at home, that's about 25 hours of travel.



6:30 a.m. leaving Tokyo

On the flight from Tokyo to Houston, I watched five movies...five! I don't sleep well on planes and my brain was too tired to focus on words in a book. So I watched Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2, Top Gun (my fave!), Pretty Woman and Joy. (I realize now that's a lot of Jennifer Lawrence in a 12-hour period).


Coast of Japan from the plane

Our layover in Houston was long, but it weirdly seemed to fly by because I was downloading all the photos off my phone and writing blog posts. But the flight from Houston back to DC seemed to take forever even though it was only 2.5 hours. I fell asleep for about 10 minutes and my head must have been in some weird position because I jolted awake with terrible pain in my neck.

So I've now been home for several days, and my jet lag still sucks. I didn't have any problems with it going to Tokyo, but I have been on the struggle bus ever since getting home. I'm wide awake every night at 11 p.m. when I should be going to sleep, and I can barely keep my eyes open during the mid-mornings/early afternoons. That's been really great for work this week.

But all the miserable jet lag is 100 percent worth it. This was by far one of the coolest trips I've been on in my life.

Monday's steps: 16,973 Miles: 7.23

Snapchat: (First video clip is from the day before)