Mt. Fuji from Lake Kawaguchiko - Japan Trip Day 7

The previous post in this series is here..

We were up and ready outside the hotel by 5:30 AM. Our Pakistani driver was very courteous and told us that every 30 minutes makes a difference. Some folks leave at 6 from Tokyo and never even get to Mt. Fuji in traffic and come back. That is why he wanted us to leave at 4:30 AM so we beat traffic both ways. He wanted to speak in HIndi but not everyone in our group was fluent in Hindi so we kept telling him to talk in English if possible and he tried his best.

We drove a good 2+ hours to lake Kawaguchiko area with beautiful views of Mt. Fuji from various angles for the last 30 minutes of the drvie. Once we parked at the first parking lot, we got to walk through a flower garden with some amazing views. Also saw a dog in the middle of the garden. Have never seen such a beautiful dog. Eventually the owner came and walked away. It was just hanging out all by itself, a sight to behold.

Photos.. didn’t even have to edit them..

Video highlights reel.

We did a photoshoot next to the flower beds and lake and drove to the next parking lot for the next stop…

Tokyo Day 5- Ueno park

The previous post in this series is here..

After Senso-Ji temple, we took a cab that dropped us off at Ueno Park. We walked in expecting some Cherry Blossoms. There were none on the path. Then we (I) heard someone talking about a walk path to the left. No one was going there. So we turned right and down to the lake area and saw another temple from the outside and took photos.

By the time we climbed back up, it was cold and chilly. The sun had also set. So we walked back to the entrance. I was going through a temporary brain fade and thinking we should come back to see that road in day light. So the group tried to calm me down from my man-opause and said “okay okay.. we will try to make time and visit this place again during the day tomorrow”.

We also assumed that given it was late evening, we could go back by train. Our memories of doing this in Osaka were nice. Tokyo was different. We saw the first train and got spooked. We had to take the second one having come down to the station. So we crammed ourselves into the next one with the kids being in the middle.

Once out on the other side, we walked back to the Monday Apart hotel.

We made Chai, cooked up Poha, semiya upma and other instant food packets and sat together and ate it !

It was a meal that will stay with me for a long time. It is not like we have not had food together as families before at each others place. This was special. The rest of the families, especially the ladies who would otherwise not eat that much were finishing things off.. for us.. so we could buy stuff of equal weight at Uniqlo ..

that sacrifice is sincerely appreciated!

The first photo below was taken in a cramped elevator in the Akasukabashi train station when we were coming out..

A video highlight including the train after we got off it. It was two stops but we literally had to squeeze ourselves in. Office train traffic in Tokyo was something else!

We did go back to Ueno park again.. Will write about it later.. for now the blog will take a break as we are back to work days. Will pick this up later this week..

Del Valle Regional Park

It has been a busy 10 days. A quarter of my pre-molar broke off. An attempted filling by a backup dentist saw me eat the filling within a few hours of it being done.

Then a gum infection that has threatened the existence of two teeth, pain, pus, antibiotics, repeated visits to the dentist and staring at gum surgery in the near future.

In spite of all this and pulling out of a conference that I really looked forward to going since November, the last 10 days had their moments. Did manage to finish a 60 day challenge just before all this happened. There was a lot of music in my life, thanks to SIFA and Paadarivom Padipparivom. To add a highlight to this, yesterday the hiking group pulled me into an almost 9 mile hike.

Had a bad cold the previous night but was giving a lot of support from the group and they said “you have hiked with us in worse condition. So this is not an acceptable excuse!”.

We left Cupertino at 2 and reached Livermore a little after 3 PM. Started hiking right away. We finished and came back down by 7PM. We did have a 15 minute Chai, Cookie and Vazhapoo Vadai break at the top.

It was nice and sunny and the sun was beating down on us. There is no tree cover for this hike.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. Initially it was a struggle for me with the stuffy nose, but once it cleared off, enjoyed the East Shore trail.

Here are the pictures..

and here is a highlights video reel..

We will most likely to on another trail in this same park next winter..