My last Golden Week is over. I can't really imagine myself moving back to Japan and living here, so it was my last Golden Week holiday period.
What a packed GW it was. This year Golden Week holidays fell on Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I had classes on Monday, so I was unable to take the Monday off.
The weekend started off early for me as I took two hours off on Thursday to head over to the highway bus. The highway bus to Nagoya took about 4 hours and I arrived around 7:30PM. I met up with Kazuki and we went to grab dinner at a nearby izakaya.
We had to get up early the next morning to take the 7AM bus to Fuji-go-ko (Fuji Five Lakes), which is an area with five different lakes all surrounding Mount Fuji and giving optimal viewing pleasure of the monstrous peak. With the holiday traffic, we made it to Kawaguchi Lake around 1:30PM. Our late lunch was the local udon dish, but it was disappointing and had an unpleasant fishy taste to it. Where lunch failed to meet expectation, the lake itself and the Japanese inn we stayed at made up for the disappointment.
Kawaguchi Lake is vast and offers a beautiful view of Mount Fuji--on a good day. That first afternoon was cloudy, but the mountain was fairly visible. With few people walking around, mild temperatures and scenic views, our day was pleasantly spent pedaling a swan boat, taking a stroll around the lake and riding the ropeway up for high altitude sightings of Fuji Q Highland (the theme park we would visit the next day). The Japanese inn was a bit far from the Kawaguchi Lake train station, but our room had an amazing view of Mt. Fuji and a wonderful indoor & outdoor onsen. I took advantage of the onsen, hotspring bath, three times in the 16 hours we were there.
Saturday morning, Kazuki and I woke up early again to catch a ride from the Green Lake Inn staff. They dropped us off at the Kawaguchi Lake station and we took the first train over to Fuji Q Highland. We picked up our passes, which were included in our bus trip package, and headed to our first ride: Eejanaika. The coaster reminds me of Riddler's Revenge from Six Flags--you get strapped in to a seat, then the body vest and your feet dangle as you are flung in different directions. The second coaster took two hours to wait for, but definitely worth the wait! Fujiyama is a coaster that has a deep plunge about 2 or 3 times. There are few loops, but the fast pace of the ride for three minutes is 100x more fun than waiting for a cup of ramen. Then we checked out Evangelion World. If you are a fan, this place has life sized figurines, cut outs, mini shows and lots of photo ops. The last thing we were able to see before our 5PM bus was the haunted hospital. The obake yashiki in Fuji Q is supposed to be the scariest in Japan. It was an extra 500 yen to go in and about 20-30 minutes to walk through with only a pen light in hand. The long corridors echoed our nervous footsteps and chatter as we passed by blood smeared walls and several dressed up staff members. Longest 20 minutes of my life.
Although we wanted to go on more rides, such as Do-Don-Pa, the long lines didn't permit it. We headed back to Nagoya in the evening and the Sunday was spent in the city seeing a random J-Pop performance and an art exhibit by a Californian artist.
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The second half of Golden Week was spent closer to home. Tuesday afternoon I picked up Kazuki from the bus stop and we went straight to the Tonami Tulip Faire. The Toyama festival has been experienced in growing beautiful tulips of every variety and displaying them for the past 60 years. The entrance fee was a big steep, at 1000yen per person, but it's a cute festival to visit at least once. We met up with Allison, Misty and Katie at the faire and we all drove to Nanao for the Seihakusai festival.
The local Ishikawa festival features three huge wooden floats, called dekayama, that are human-powered. Anyone is welcome to pull the huge 20 ton floats around the city and on the third day of the festival all the floats converge at the station. We only stayed the first night, but it was fun to meet with everyone for drinks and conversation at Damo's house.
Wednesday morning was more relaxed. Some of us who visited Nanao headed over to an onsen in Notojima. Our plans to visit the Notojima Aquarium was deserted after seeing the long line of cars headed to the tourist attraction. We grabbed a late lunch and headed back to southern Ishikawa. After finally cleaning my apartment, I was able to have company over for dinner and served "Mexican food" on Quatro De Mayo. :) We had salad, tacos, quesadillas and cake.
The last day of Golden Week was spent at another local festival. The Kutani Chawan Matsuri in Nomi city features the famous pottery of the area. Lots of pottery is sold at great prices. Of course, there are also the food stalls and performances, such as taiko. I had some match and sweets with some friends and then ended my day at the onsen and more quesadillas.
After so much traveling, I fell asleep last night at nine p.m.
