In April a buddy and I rented a car and dove to the five lakes region, which is just north of Mt. Fuji. My friend also got his masters at UC San Diego, in the same program, and came to Japan on a one year contract. Luckily he has an international driver's permit, since it is required for foreigners to rent a car (unless they have a local license). I should have gotten one before I came here; it's an easy process in the US--the permit is essentially just verifying your US license and translated into a bunch of other languages--but I haven't found any way to get it here in Japan.
I was happy to take the passenger seat and let my friend do the driving. He wanted to drive too, since he had a car back in San Diego and missed being behind the wheel. This was the second time we'd done a day trip rental (we also went to the Chiba peninsula), so he was more comfortable driving on the left side. He said one of the hardest things to get used to was the blinker--aka indicator--was on the other side of the steering wheel. When turning he often activated the windshield wipers instead!
From Tokyo, we took one of the toll highways west, passing near my neighborhood and continuing through Setagaya and Yamato. Once outside of the metro area, we got off the freeway and took smaller roads, which had more to look at, but took way longer due to all the traffic lights. The first lake we reached was Yamanaka, east of Mt. Fuji and set apart from the other four. From there we turned north, heading to Kawaguchi, next to the aptly named town of Kawaguchiko. The area usually would be buzzing with tourists and day trippers from Tokyo, but due to Covid-19, traffic was light and there were few open shops.
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Map of the five lakes region, near Mt. Fuji. We drove from the south to Lake Yamanaka,
then to Kawaguchi, Saiko, Shoji, and Motosu |
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| Shores of Lake Kawaguchi; unfortunately it was too cloudy to see Mt. Fuji |
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| One of the rare photos of me; my mom's always asking for more of those! |
We stopped at a local restaurant known for Hoto, a special kind of noodle dish from the five lakes region. Unfortunately it was closed on account of Covid, so we continued driving, heading north along the shoreline of Kawaguchi, and then on to Saiko Lake. West of Saiko we reach Shoji, our fourth lake and the smallest of the five. Along the shore we found an open restaurant which served Hoto noodles, so we took a lunch break.
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| Hoto noodles, which are a local specialty in the Five Lakes region |
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| View of Lake Shoji, near the restaurant where we had lunch |
After lunch, we drove around the north side of Shoji to Lake Motosu, the last of the five. We were going to drive round the whole lake and then make our way east again, but the road was closed, so we had to turn around the way we came. From Lake Shoji, we took a slightly different route back to Kawaguchiko, stopping at an ice cave along the way. The cave is at the northern foot of Mt. Fuji, and it still had a large chunk of ice when we visited in April. Near Kawaguchiko we hopped on the highway, this time toward Otsuki. We followed the highway west, past Fuchi, Chofu, and Shibuya, back to Ginza where we had rented the car.
By the time we reached the rental office it was nearly 8 pm, and my butt was sore from a full day of riding in the car; it's strange how tired we can get from just sitting! The actual rental fee was about $45, but adding in gas and the tolls--not cheap in Japan--it was over $100 for the day. Split two ways it wasn't bad; public transport wouldn't have been much cheaper, and the car let us see so much more scenery. Below are a few more pictures of the area:
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| Another one of me, with Shoji in the background |
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| We went on a short hike near the ice cave |
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| Lake Motosu; on a clear day you can see Mt. Fuji. |
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The image is actually on the back of the 1,000 yen note, with
Lake Motosu in the foreground |
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| Along the shore of Lake Motosu, near where the road was closed off and we had to turn back |
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