So I wound up station at the 5th Station for quite some time. I talked to this dude from Canada that was living in Japan. It was nice to be able to talk to someone in English. Then I headed down from the 5th Station to continue my lap of Mt. Fuji. I throw it into B mode and the ride down was fun I'm starting to get the hang of the YamahKyu's handling. Didn't run into too much traffic also.
Made it back down to the base of Mt Fuji and it time to head to the Southwestern area of Mt. Fuji. I'm riding and I notice there are a lot of places to camp along the way. This is a very outdoorsy part of Japan of course since it's a national park.
Anyway riding down Fuji Skyline Road and I come upon this Suzuki RR K Car. If you don't know what a K Car is it's a very small car that has to adhere to certain dimension and powerplant to meet K Car Standards. Its got like a motorcycle sized engine in it. Think like a Smart Car or Fiat 500. Anyway I'm following this car and I'm noticing its going along at a good pace. The speedlimit is like 40KPH and we're going like 70KPH. So it has piqued my interest and I decide rather than try to pass the K Car I will follow it as best I can.
It's a TOUGE BATTLE! (Touge means mountain pass btw) Then we get to a bunch of sweeping hairpins and a bunch of consecutive hairpins. The car is doing a good amount of speed through the turns. I also notice it has the senior person sticker on it, which means an elderly person is driving it I guess. I also notice it's a woman. So it this elderly woman is keeping me entertained haha. She must be a local or something. I'm having to try a little to keep up with her in the Yamakyu. That was a fun experience. From my experiences riding in Japan is that Japanese drivers are either really slow or their really fast. Some will just cruise along and some will drive over the speedlimits like way over the speedlimits sometimes as I will discover later in my trip.
Also I did some research on the Suzuki RR K Car that I followed. There not much info I can find on it but it actually called a Suzuki Wagon RR. Also the RR is a supersporty version fo the Wagon R. It has a 660CC turbocharged engine and may very well have been AWD. So I may have in fact been chasing a touge weapon. Small, lightweight, turbocharged, and AWD make that an ideal canyon carving K Car!
I never come into this sub thread. Wandered in here by accident. Glad I did! What a great thread! Thank you OP for this write up. Brings back so much memories from my trip to Japan many moons ago. Maybe next year, I'll join ya. Keep up with the post!
Onward. So I begin to make my way to the southwestern section of Mt. Fuji. I am travelling on route 72 and its a nice countryside rode going through a forest. I noticed a sign that says HKS. HKS is a company that makes performance automobile parts in Japan. They make some pretty good stuff like air filters, turbo kits, cams, piggy back ecus, and more. They're a pretty big name in aftermarket Japanese performance parts. So I head down that road and check it out.
Totally unexpected to find HKS out here near Shizuoka at the foot of Mt. Fuji. I get there and take pictures next to the HKS sign. I note that there a bunch of factory like buildings. Probably where they make the parts. I then ride around the employee parking lot and see if what the HKS employees are rockin. There's even another YamaKyu there.
Continue on to my next destination is Shiraito Falls. Its a nice waterfall place in Shizuoka no far from HKS. I fill up with gas along the way. It seems like the YamaKyu can ride for ages without a fill up. I get there and pay 200yen for parking. I park next to this Transalp and cafe racer type bike.
You can see Fuji-san from the parking lot marvelous!
I make my way to Shiraito Falls. It is about 300 meters from the parking lot so I'm in for a little hike.
I make my way across and bridge and not far is a place called Obinmizu. It's kind of a spring. It fills up with snowmelt from Fuji-san. People throw coins in it also so I threw on =)
From here you can get a glimpse of the water fall.
Farther along the way is an Observation Deck for viewing Fuji-san of course and Sharaito no Taki.
Then I make my way down to Shiraito Falls and it is quite an amazing waterfall. Its no wonder this is a national park.
The path leading away from Shiraito Falls. There is actually another water falls farther ahead as well.
The other waterfall is called Otodome no Taki. It's a taller one.
This is the observation areas. I think they are still work in progress. There a bunch of shops where you can buy souvenirs or snacks. Nice place to relax. You can tell everyone is having a good time here.
Burning daylight I am about halfway around Fujisan at this point, you can see we started at the north east area and now in the south west area.
The next stop is Lake Tanuki not far from Shiraito Falls. I heard you can get good pictures of Mt. Fuji with the lake. At this point I'm kind of rushing because there is not much daylight left in the day. The clouds are coming in also. Lake Tanuki is not one of the Fuji's Five Lakes also.
Saw this nice Toyota HiAce in the parking lot
Another van this one looks like a camper van because it has the high roof.
Here is Lake Tanuki it's very nice peaceful kind of place. Unfortunately I don't have time to take in the view for long.
Unfortunately Fuji-san is playing peek a boo games with me because the clouds have obscured it. The second picture is what it would look like without the clouds.
Here is the missing section. After riding to Lake Tanuki I head north to one of the Fuji 5 Lakes Lake Motosu. It's a pretty big lake. The suns coming down fast so I didn't want to dawdle too long. I rode to one of the parking lots and took some pictures. There is a yellow submarine boat that you can go on a tour of the lake on. You can ride around the lake also and there are camping sites along the way but like I said I didn't have much time so I decided to head on to the next lake.
Here where I am at this point of the trip. I am pretty much at the 11 o clock position of Mt. Fuji lap. Not far north from Lake Motosu is Lake Shoji. It's a small lake so I decide to ride around it.
So as I'm riding around the lake I see this dirt road that goes down to the lake. So I'm thinking THAT'D BE A GREAT PICTURE! So I turn around and I start to think it's a bad idea because there may be sand down there and I don't want to ride the YamaKyu on sand. But it was fine a little goatie but I got a great picture with Lake Shoji before darkness came.
Last stop for the day and its Aokigahara. If you don't know about Aokigahara it is world famous for being the "Suicide Forest" or a haunted forest. People will come here and commit suicide. Not expecting much, I set off into the forest to check it out. So I basically just put the GPS coordinates in to the point that says "Aokigahara" in the google maps. The GPS was trying to pull a "death by GPS" on me telling me to go down a road that's not really there or that I could see at night. So I venture into the haunted forest at night. So I can say I visited a ghost town at night and a haunted forest. =/
So I rode for a while and like I said it tried to get me to turn onto this imaginary road. This is a highway mind you also so there's a fair amount of traffic travelling down it. So I wind up turning around looking for this imaginary road. I was thinking there was going to be a road or dirt road that went to a parking lot or something. So what I wound up doing was finding somewhere to pull over on the road and hiking through the forest for a bit.
Here's where I parked the YamaKyu time to go explore this haunted forest a bit.
So there is some evidence that people were here. You're in the middle of the forest near a road and there is a lot of litter around. Mostly food stuff like waterbottles and onigiri wrappers. Makes this place even creepier '
So an interesting thing about Aokigahara is this forest has grown over lava flow that came from Mt. Fuji hundreds maybe thousands of years ago. Also it is VERY easy to get lost in this forest because everything looks the same. There is no trails or anything. I think that maybe why there so much trash around is people are leaving a trail so they don't get lost in the forest maybe. Lucky for me I have GPS so I can find my way back.
I found this sign I was thinking it might be one of the suicide signs that tells you not to commit suicide. But from google translate I have found out it's a no littering sign. Something about preserving the environment also. This is a national forest afterall. It's a shame people a littering it. =/
Alright after escaping the Forest of Death it was time to call it a day. I continued down hwy139 to Kawaguchiko. If you remember my last Japan ride report this is where my my final destination was last year and it is pretty much the final destination for I have done my Lap of Mt. Fuji! So right now I am at the 12' O Clock position of Mt. Fuji all I have to do to truly complete the lap is to go back to Yamanakako where I stayed at last night.
So to Kawaguchiko I go!
Along the way I go shopping at the Daiso I passed by. I love shopping at Daiso I use a lot of their stuff for adventure riding and other stuff. The Daiso in Japan is better because it's truly a "dollar" store or ni-hyaku yen store (100yen). I like to buy tools at Daiso to make tool kits for my motorcycles.
One thing you don't see in US Daiso stores also is hanko or stamps/seals. This is how they do signatures in Japan and they got a whole lotta them!
Next I look for the capsule hotel I booked. I eventually find it and before I check in I head across the bridge for a little night ride across Lake Kawaguchi!
After my bridge ride I check into the capsule hotel, its called Fuji Backpackers Capsule Inn. Notice I get the VIP parking.
After I grab some dinner of course at the conbini.
I didn't get many pictures of the Capsule Hotel. It wasn't the nicest one I've seen and the didn't seem to be managed so well. It was coed also something that doesn't seem too common. There are shower rooms and laundry room also. A lounge to hang out in with vending machines. There's even a batting cage right next door. Definitely a touristy places you see lots of foreigners out and about. Wish we had capsule hotels in the US. Many times when travelling all you need a places to shower and sleep and pop smoke in the morning.
This is my 4th and final ride day and the main task on the agenda is to get back to Tokyo and return the bike. Unlike the last couple days today is a beautiful day and I take advantage of that and try to get some awesome views of Fujisan. So first thing I do is ride over the bridge again but I kinda messed up. I tried go to the same spot I went to last year and take pictures of Fujisan in front of the Lake but I went through a super long tunnel that goes through mountain and had to take a kinda long detour there. =/
The tunnel
Eventually I find the place I took pictures at last year. Last year I was on the MT-07 this year now the MT-09 Tracer.
You can see the snow on top.
So I ride down the street a bit and I find an epic spot to take pictures. There is actually a ramp that takes you down closer to the lake and you can get a great picture there! BTW this is where I got the picture for all my VLOG videos. But look at that reflection on the lake epic!
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