The Benson's Blog!: Japan: Day 11 (Shopping, Electric area and Mt Fuji at night)

Day 11 was a low-key day to prepare for the trip to Mt. Fuji (we started the hike around 10 PM on Day 11). We slept in which was very relaxing. We saw a little bit of Tokyo before Mt Fuji - ate lunch with the businessmen, shopped in department stores and then walked around the electric area.

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We had a "working man's lunch". Btw, all of the businessmen wear black pants with a white shirt - there is no color in their wardrobe.

When you come in the restaurant, you order and pay for the meal you want. The machine prints a ticket.

Then you give the ticket to the server and shortly after, he brings the meal you ordered. It is very efficient, we were eating within minutes.
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After lunch, Dave and I walked around looking for ponchos for Mt Fuji. I brought my Marmot waterproof jacket to Japan but it was not waterproof which I learned in Miyajima. Apparently putting the waterproof jacket in the washer makes it not waterproof anymore. The first poncho I saw was $180 - no thanks! After a couple of hours, we finally found reasonably priced ponchos at a department store. A very nice (English speaking) associate helped us.

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At the electric area, there were quite a few electric stores. The largest store, Yodobashi-Camera, has 12 or 13 floors and it has all the electronics/house-hold items you can imagine - cameras, TVs, computers, iPods, movies, exercise equipment, refrigerators, audio/video, games, kitchen appliances, etc...It was pretty overwhelming (and wish I got a picture to capture it) and we could have spent a lot more time in the store. It was interesting to see all the Japanese "stuff".

One of the electric store , 5 floors.

The rest of the electronic type pictures below are in the Yodobashi-Camera store (the big one).

Lots of TVs as you can imagine.

I've heard of Blu-Ray DVDs on movies but didn't know there were R & RW discs available. I think Japan is ahead of the U.S. on technology...Whoops, just checked on Amazon and you can buy them there. I guess I'm behind on technology.

The refrigerators were neat - so many compartments. How many temperature controls do you think there are?

Japanese stove. It would have been interesting to visit someone's home.

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After dinner, it was off to Mt Fuji! We took a 2 1/2 hour bus trip to Station 5 on Mt Fuji. There are 10 stations total, with Station 5 being the farthest a bus goes. To get to the top, you have to hike. From the little research of Mt Fuji we did, "anyone can climb it - kids and elderly"...lets just say Day 12 was not that easy for me. :)