We woke up early this morning and were eating breakfast at 7. This was after I had fitted the hose for otosans new pressure sprayer. We left around 8 for the ropeway at Mt Chausudake and even at 9 there was a 1 hour wait for a parking spot! Okasan, Kaoru and I got out as Otosan couldn’t do the hike anyway. We caught the ropeway (cable car) to the top and took some photos before starting the 45 minute hike. We were treated to some fantastic views that my camera skills (and camera, for that matter) could not do justice. This is an active volcano, but somehow, when Kaoru said “so you have to be careful”, I couldn’t think what I could do carefully because I was walking on something that could erupt at any point. We could see clouds of sulfur gas coming off the ground at a number of places, and the smell was quite strong in areas. It was windy at the top, although a still day at the bottom compared to yesterday.
As we were walking back down, there were a lot of people coming back up – we could tell it was getting busier. The ropeway station was already quite full but we managed to get on the first car, despite there being over 100 of us already. I could not imagine where all these people came from. There was no room for parking so they must have come up by bus.
Otosan had been driving around and then had propped in pole position for us – right at the bottom of the stairs! So we got in and started the drive down. There was no traffic going with us but the line of stationary cars waiting to get up the top went for a long way. It would be at least a 3 hour wait for them. Unbelievable. As bad as Disneyland! And this was still only 11 am on a Monday! I’m glad they suggested we start early and come here – it was a beautiful place, but I wouldn’t want to wait like these people are!
We went to lunch even though it was only 11.30 – we went to a nice little cafe that served pies. But they weren’t pies like we have – they were more like Calzone’s. I had a potato, bacon and cheese one, and it was quite nice. We also had soup and ice cream as part of the set menu. A cruise start to the day.
We were home around 12.30 and Otosan wanted a sleep before we got cracking on chopping wood.