Japan Day 6

Today did not quite to as intended, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Last night we had a scale 4 earthquake which, at the time, was little more than a brief question of "what did they put in my drink??" The aftermath, however, had more obstructive results. Our itinerary was originally to venture up Mt. Fuji and subsequently up a cable car to Owakudani. Due to the earthquake and a little bit of rain accompanied by a LOT of fog, we were unable to get very far. We got to the base of Mt. Fuji into the visitor's center to watch a 15 minute informational movie I couldn't hear... So that was that. On the plus side, we stopped by a small area with some very nice looking ponds and interesting natural local produce. I grabbed a good number of Fuji-San souvenirs that I actually found interesting and worth the money. We also tried a mountain herb mochi dumpling filled with soy bean jam paste. Interesting flavor. I would try it again, but it's not a flavor commonly found in the west so it's something I'd have to get more used to. Instead of the cable car and trying the fabled black eggs, we went to an art museum across the lake from Mt. Fuji. Of course none of the mountain was visible due to the fog, and by the time we left, neither was the road. My only experience like that before was driving back to Arizona from San Diego in the evening. The museum had cool scenery at least and I had some fun playing with my phone's image filter. Yes, apparently I'm a lib arts college girl, fight me about it. Tonight was our venture to finally find Mr Donut. With great success I might add! We also found another multi-level arcade that had some pod VR-ish type games and even pokken. Our guide showed us a Yakitori strip so that was on our list for dinner, though the place we landed at was serving more food scraps than anything (chicken skin, wing tips, etc) so it wasn't wonderful but the atmosphere was very nice. We finally saw the neon lights of Tokyo night life as well! I'd say this trip has been a success so far. Tomorrow we have a free morning then it's off to Kyoto via bullet train! Pics of that to come so stay tuned on Twitter and Facebook :)