"There it is! Oh my gawd, isn't it just beeeauutiful??" My friends and i were looking at Mount Fuji from a lane at Gotemba. Gotemba is located in the vicinity of Mount Fuji with scenic surrounds and postcard perfect views of Mount Fuji on a clear day. There's even a giant ferries-wheel up on the hillside.
Gotemba is definitely worth a visit, with a wide choice of brands like Bodyshop, Gucci, Prada, Kate Spade... You get where i'm going. But there are also good value buys plus trendy Japanese labels like United Arrows and Beams. There are actually close to 200 shops there, i couldn't cover everything within our limited shopping time especially when there are 2 shopping zones-East and West- which are 5 minutes of walking time apart, across a picturesque bridge. We moved from East Zone to West Zone and back again, carrying out this cycle over and over until at one point we just decided to take a break right there on the middle of the bridge.
Getting There
Catch a bus from Tokyo Station's Yaesu South Exit which takes you directly to the outlet. But there is only one service per day: departing from 9AM and returning from Gotemba at 3.30PM. The journey takes about 85minutes and will cost 2800Yen (about SGD36).
Spotting a Mountain
"Can you get a picture of Mt. Fuji?" Zhi Yi, one of my 3 friends who were on the trip with me asked.
"I caa-aaaan't see much of it!" tip toeing as high as i could on the brown bench amid on-lookers wondering what we were doing. Standing just across the BodyShop outlet, our view of the majestic mountain was unfortunately obstructed by a high wall. "Oh well", I jumped down from the bench and we moved on, 100% confident that we would somehow find a way to take a photo later on. And so we continued on with our busy window shopping.
Unfortunately, by the time our tour bus was ready and everyone was waiting to get a good photo, the whole tour group, including ourselves, were still not able to take any clear pictures of the mountain. All due to a certain relentless fog. Every time we thought the fog was clearing, out came another one right behind. By the 10th minute, it was really time to leave because we had a schedule to follow (one of the cons of being part of a tour group, you don't have the time to appreciate the beauty of a place much less gather information about it).
Dejected, everyone filed in a single row and went up the bus one by one. The bus driver stepped on the pedal and off we went, bidding our goodbyes to the elusive Mt. Fuji.
Natural Miracle
As we were driving down a lane, the fog around Mount Fuji began to slowly clear away and out came a very beautiful view of the perfect mountain! Apparently, as i later found out, Mount Fuji is always shrouded by the fog and it's incredibly rare to be able to get a clear view of it. The kind tour guide managed to stop the bus driver and we scrambled down the bus to take as many pictures as we could, as well as a group photo to commemorate the wonderful occasion.
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