On Saturday morning I took a bus from Shinjuku to Fujikawaguchiko with three of my friends from work. Lake Kawaguchi is one of the five lakes surrounding Mount Fuji and though on a clear day you can see Fuji-san from Tokyo, it’s much better close-up.

Karl, Paul, Hana and I arrived around lunch time, ate some food and headed up the panoramic ropeway to Tenjozan Park. It was fairly cloudy at the top but we still got some good snaps of Fuji.

Afterwards we took pedal boats onto the lake and drank gin and tonics made by a nice man in a cart.

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We stayed in a guesthouse in the centre of town and in the evening, Paul and I walked about forty minutes to get to some hot springs. For just ¥800 we could soak in an onsen with views of Mount Fuji behind us. It was magical.

Just like the sento, onsens are separated by gender and all bathers are butt naked. I spent most of the time in the outdoor rock pool although it was dark and cloudy so views of Fuji were restricted. Sometimes when the water got too hot, I lay on the rocks beside it and alternated between the rocks and the water depending on my body temperature. There were no other bathers bar a mother with two young sons and two teenage girls who spent most of their time in the sauna. Saunas in Japan are almost identical to saunas in England except for the fact they have huge flat screen TVs hidden behind a glass case in the wall and loud technicolour variety shows blaring out into the room. It’s not hugely relaxing but I don’t really mind. I get too hot in the sauna anyway.

After an hour and a half of moving between the baths, I met Paul outside and we took the bus back to the guesthouse to meet Karl and Hana.

That night the four of us slept on futons in a giant room with tatami flooring. The other three claimed not to have slept well but after a long day of travelling, pedal-boating and soaking in the hot springs, I slept like a baby. Apparently one of us was sleep-talking, which didn’t help the others get to sleep. Not sure who though…

On Sunday we had sun and clear skies so we headed for Aokigahara, otherwise known as suicide forest. According to urban legend, Aokigahara is the one of the most popular suicide destinations in the world with as many as 100 visitors a year walking into the forest with no intention of returning. The forest is supposedly eerie and the trees so densely packed and twisted together that some visitors are said to use tape to avoid getting lost. We entered apprehensively, nervous at what awaited us.

Honestly, I didn’t notice anything particularly creepy about the forest. It had a few caves, which we ventured into, otherwise it was a pretty standard woodland. The weather was beautiful, families strolled around eating ice creams and the occasional skinny man in tiny shorts with a numbered piece of paper taped to his back sprinted past us. It might as well have been the New Forest.

Paul and Hana disappeared off-piste in search of the morbidity we had been promised. I stayed behind, not because I was afraid of seeing a corpse (I wasn’t particularly sold on the idea though equally I couldn’t imagine they’d find one) but more so because I’d found a comfy tree to read in. (You all know how tired I get doing the smallest bit of exercise.) Karl stayed behind to take pictures; sometimes of the woodland, sometimes of me.

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Paul and Hana returned after fifteen minutes or so, not having seen any corpses (probably for the best). From the forest we then walked to a cafe on the side of the road called Solar Earth Cafe.

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A man and a woman stood behind the counter. The man was at least in his sixties and spoke very good English. As it turned out, his mother was from Tokyo and his father from Cork. We ate hotdogs in the sun with Mount Fuji in front of us before we reluctantly boarded the bus back into town and then the coach back to Tokyo.

Back in Tokyo I swiftly unpacked and re-packed my suitcase because first thing Monday morning, I took the train to Narita airport. I’m writing this blog post from the very remote, very beautiful Aka Island where I arrived this morning after spending last night in a hostel on mainland Okinawa. I’ll be in the tropics until next Wednesday and I’ll be bombarding you with my beach snaps via blog post then.

Thanks for reading!