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Good news, for me, because on Wednesday morning, 23 May, I went to the hospital and was prepped for a cardioversion, and the procedure was completely successful. My arrhythmia is now gone. It feels so good to be firing on all cylinders again. After 3 months of subnormal heart function, it will take time to get by body back to normal, and I plan to start back at the gym when we return from our Michigan trip at the end of June. I am very happy about my future prospects. Life is good!

On Day Four we were given a 6:00 AM wakeup call and had to put our bags outside our room. We went for a delicious buffet breakfast and met in the lobby at 8:00 AM. We boarded our motor coach and headed for Hakone, which is renowned for its hot springs and spas. As we leave Tokyo with its temple dogs and skyscrapers, gaining in altitude as the countryside changes to forests, we enter the world of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. We stop at a vista lookout to take in the scenery.

Mount Fuji in the distance stands majestically. Interestingly, it is a “fact" that Mount Fuji is actually three separate volcanos, one on top of the other. The bottom layer is Komitake volcano, then Kofuki volcano, then Fuji, which is the youngest of the three. Now I must admit, this make no sense to me either. If they are one on top of the other, then they must have come through the same vent hole in the earth’s crust, in which case I would just call it one volcano. The Japanese must have discovered some sort of new math. I’m just sort of thinking out loud, you know.

We arrive at Lake Ashi and board this boat for a cruise on this beautiful lake. It is a bit cool and windy, so I find a place out of the wind to sit an watch the scenery roll by. We pass a few small towns, and pull into port at some to offload passengers and take on some new ones.

We arrive at Moto-Hakone Port, not far from our hotel for the night, the Odakyu Hotel de Yama. Moto-Hakone Port was rather quaint. We were on our own for lunch, so Pete and I set out to find a place to eat.

We found this little hole in the wall place run by a couple of folks who appeared to be of European extraction, possible Slavic or German. They had a meat counter with lots of German looking sausages and cold cuts. The menu had photos, which I like.

Pete tried one of the sandwiches and I tried the beef stew, which came with a buttered roll and potato salad.

Above is our receipt, and Pete laid out the currencies we had, just to take a photo of them. The current exchange rate was $1 to ¥107.22, so the price was certainly right, lunch for two with drinks came to just $28.20. You can’t complain about that. I remember when I was in Japan with the U. S. Navy from 1959-62, the exchange rate was 360 Yen to the Dollar. Both of our economies have gone through some strange gyrations during the ensuing 56 years. It will be interesting to see how things go over the next 56 years. Or for that matter, the next 3 years should be pretty interesting as well, and I’ll be around to see that.

On our route we came upon this theme park, and although we could see that the rollercoaster was operating, there were very few people there. It was just too cold to enjoy an outing at a theme park. I don’t know what the elevation was, but I’d guess we were maybe half way up the mountain range at this point, probably between 1,500 and 2,000 meters.

In these photos it appears that we are very close to some snow covered mountain but I don’t think it’s Fuji. I don’t know if this is just an optical illusion, or if the road we were on actually did come this close to Fuji. My recollection at this point is a little vague. I need to start taking better notes. ;o(

In any case, I’m going to cheat a bit and share with you these next four photos which I got off the Internet. This is the view we should have seen from Lake Ashi, but if memory serves me well, it was more like the scene in frame 3 below. We rode the ropeway, but we never saw Fuji like this. What they call the ropeway, we in North America would call it a cable car.

There is obviously more than one ropeway, because if you look closely at the car in frame four, it is very different from the cars in the other two photos. One cannot help but admit though, Mount Fuji is certainly a spectacular volcano. It has been mostly dormant since its last eruption on 16 December 1707. At 3,776 meters it is the tallest peak in Japan. About 200,000 people climb up to the top of Mount Fuji each year. That was one of the things I dreamed about doing when I was there with the Navy for 3 years in the ‘60s, but the opportunity never came up. The climbing season is quite short. If you go, you can purchase a walking stick, and it gets branded at various levels, and when you reach the top, they brand the top of the walking stick with an image of the mountain, to show that you made it to the top. I’m probably too old to do it now. Perhaps some dreams must remain only a dream. But I’m not counting myself out just yet. You never know what adventures lie ahead.

Tonight we will be staying at the beautiful Odakyu Hotel de Yama in Hakone. I wish we were spending more than just one night here. Our dinner this night was probably my favorite so far. It was French cuisine and everything was wonderful. Even the view of the lake was breathtaking.

I don’t know how they made the Carrot Verine, but it make a very nice starter. I thought the grilled Bonito was a little dry.

Of course who doesn’t love pumpkin soup? The Roast Beef was something for which you wanted to go back for seconds.

Even the dessert was special, a 100th anniversary celebration for Collette Tours, started by Jack Collette in 1918.