Japan Trip 2025

I took a couple weeks off to go to Japan in July 2025. It put a close on a particularly busy time at work, so the explicit goal was to bathe in nature for a bit.

The trip was:

Start in Tokyo, stayed a hotel on top of Miyashita Park in Shibuya
Train to fuji, one night in a hotel + exploring Kawaguchiko lake
Climbed Mt Fuji!
Back down, one night at a fancy ryokan in Kawaguchiko
Osaka for a bit
Nozawa-onsen -- "Japanese Alps"
Karuizawa
Back to Tokyo

Fuji

Fuji was nice.

I took the Yoshida trail. The hike starts at about 2300m where there's a big "station" with shops and food.

Me at the Yoshida 5th station

Inside

The trailhead

At the bottom it's pretty forested, but that changes after not very long

Most of the trail is volcanic

At 6th station

This is what the trail looks like down here

View of the hills below

Looking up -- look at all the switchbacks! There's a lot more of this

I think 7th station

I'm a bit higher at this point

Kamaiwakan hut -- I didn't stay here, mine was higher up

Looking back down

At this point much of the ascent looks like this

Above the clouds now

My bunk in the Taishikan mountain hut

Other side -- it started storming shortly after this, but cleared up before midnight

I climbed to about 3100m and stayed "overnight" at the Taishikan mountain hut. Overnight meaning about 3pm until about 1:00am, when you start climbing to reach the summit at the 4am sunrise.

The summit's at 3776m. So in feet, start at the 5th station at 7500ft, summit at 12389ft.

I bought a stick and got a bunch of branded stamps along the way, but sadly forgot the stick on the shinkansen back to Tokyo.

There were a lot of Chinese tour groups, and it was more or less single file for the last 600m stretch. I made the summit about 30m before sunrise, watched it come up, and then got a bowl of tonjiru at the top.

Setting out for the final ascent

Fujiyoshida below

Lots of us climbing

At the summit!

My faithful lost stick

Tonjiru at the summit

Descent was endless switchbacks, less fun.

Starting the descent

Most of the way down

Back at the 5th station

Hydrangeas back down in kawaguchiko

Fujiyoshida

That night I stayed at Kaneyamaen .

Incredibly beautiful gardens. Yamanashi is gorgeous in general.

Kaneyamaen's gardens.

Looking out over Fujiyoshida

Osaka

Osaka was mainly to see the expo . This was a miss, overcrowded and the pavilion content was mediocre.

Dotonbori

The big wood circle encompassing the Osaka Expo

Gundam statue

Crowds and various pavilions inside

Nozawa-Onsen

Up to Nozawa-onsen I stayed at Kawamotoya , would recommend.

It's normally a ski town, so was fairly empty in July. Lots of Australians about.

It's got walls of green and expansive mountain views in every direction, wonderful place to hike up the ski trails even though I was still a bit tired from Fuji.

There are a bunch of small onsen with wooden huts scattered about, and I took a dip in several.

Looking at Nozawa from up above

Up the ski slope a bit above the town

Nozawa-onsen is part of the 'Japanese Alps'

Green wall

It's VERY wooded

Atop a closed ski lift

My hotel room was pretty nice. Staffed by live-work Australian students.

Hydrangeas

Looking up from a bit lower down

Only locals are allowed to use the 'cooking onsen', which is about 95C. The many bathing onsens are around 40-45C.

Nozawa at night

Karuizawa

Karuizawa is a rich resort town. I noticed a high concentration of bridal galleries and pet accomodations, which I think is some kind of economic index.