Itinerary:
- Breakfast at Hilton Tokyo Lounge
- Gotemba Premium Outlet
- Lake Ashi at National Park Hakone
- Queen Ashinoko Pirate Ship
- Hakone Shrine at Hakone Geopark
- Odawara Castle
- Dinner at Saizeriya
- Cakes at Harbs
Since we have an early tour, we decided to have breakfast at the lounge as it is open earlier than the breakfast at the lobby.
As it was early, there was not many people at the lounge, so we picked a seat near the window to look out at the high rise buildings nearby.
After breakfast, we took the metro to Ginza station to meet with our tour. We left the hotel early as we weren't sure how packed the metro would be in the early rush hour. Luckily, since we left early, there was not a lot of people.
Since we are arrived early, we waited for almost an hour before it was time to aboard the tour bus. First stop that they took us was the Gotemba Premium Outlet. We arrived right before they opened at 10am and saw that outside each store, one of their employees is standing and bowing to us at the opening time. This was an eye opening as I have never seen any one bowing outside to welcome us.
One of the highlights of this outlet is that we can get to see Mount Fuji if we are lucky.
Mount Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan and is very shy so not everyone who comes to Tokyo gets to see her. The best time to see Mount Fuji is during winter time and it is pretty hard to see her during summer time. So, my hope was not high that we will be able to see Mount Fuji today as it is middle of June. But we were very lucky, when we arrived at the mall, I could see the tip of Mount Fuji which you are see from the photo below. While we were shopping, I could see that Mount Fuji has disappeared. So my advice is that take as many pictures as you can while Mount Fuji can be seen because in a matter of minutes, it can disappear.
We have to cross this long bridge in order to get to the other side of the outlet.
After lunch, we left to go to Lake Ashi as we will be taking a pirate boat on the lake to view Mount Fuji close up. We bought some fish sausages as a snack while we were there.
After going around the lake to view Mount Fuji, we proceed to the next stop, which is Hakone Shrine at the Hakone Geopark. A special feature of this Shrine is that one of the torii gates is in the water.
There was a long line to take a picture with the torii gate in water.
After taking the picture with the torii gate in the water, we went to check out other parts of the Hakone Geopark.
Lastly, we went to Odawara Castle.
As this was our last stop, we were excited to go back to Ginza for dinner. We picked an Italian restaurant today as the kids were tired of Asian food.
We shopped around Ginza shopping area after dinner before taking the metro back to Shinjuku. Below is a picture that shows how crowded the metro is during peak hours.
After sending my parents and kids back to our hotel, my husband and I decided to go out and buy some cakes from Harbs. We were debating if we want to eat at the restaurant but after checking with the host, it was an hour of wait, we decided to just buy the cake to eat at our hotel room. We bought the Mille crepes and the fresh fruit cake. Both were delicious and was a great way to end our day.
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