Kawaguchi-ko

The Cottage & the Unit
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At the weekend we headed down to the LL cottage in a place called Kawaguchi-ko. This is in an area called Fuji five-lakes and is about an hour and a quarter drive from Tokyo. Unsurprisingly the lakes are at the base of Mount Fuji. We hired a 7 seater “unit” & started off early doors on the Saturday morning. It also happened to be “maple weekend” when the leaves start changing from green to red so once again, it seemed like the whole of Tokyo had a similar idea and the roads were pretty crowded. We finally made it down there around midday and managed to get the car up some narrow roads to the cottage.

View over Kawaguchi-ko
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The cottage is similar to a ski chalet – you can check it out in the photos. It has 4 bedrooms and a large open plan lounger/kitchen/dining area. There is also a balcony which has an amazing view of the lake and Mount Fuji (although unfortunately the mountain was shrouded in mist so we couldn’t really get a clear view of it). With no cooking facilities at the Kitano Arms we decided to come prepared with all the ingredients necessary for a massive roast dinner. We bought a large joint of beef (or lamb – we aren’t sure!) and I made some famous Yardley Yorkshire puds, whilst Karen treated us to a traditional German apple cake. After working up an appetite and thirst walking round the late, it was all hands on deck to prepare the feast.

it literally catapulted us from 0 to 120 mph in about 3 seconds

On the balcony
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Muchos drink was also consumed and poor Rachel (our most recent addition) managed to drink way too much way too quickly.

Bizarrely, contrary to our usual drinking marathons I think the whole experience had completely worn us out and most of us were fast asleep by midnight! The next day we got up and made an equally impressive fry up before heading to what must be one of the best theme parks ever. It is called Fuji Q Highland and is famed for its incredible rollercoasters. One of them previously held the Guiness World Record for being the tallest continuous circuit roller coaster. The first drop was over 70m and hit speeds of 80 mph. The next roller coaster was equally impressive and it literally catapulted us from 0 to 120 mph in about 3 seconds. I think we pulled about 4G and you couldn’t even scream it was going so fast!

We headed home after another tiring day and cooked our second dinner. It made me realise how much I miss decent good food and an oven! We are hoping to go down to the cottage again, but currently there is a ban on trainees having it more than once during their 6 month duration due to a previous bunch of trainees trashing the joint. There is always one that has to ruin it for everyone else!