The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Get to know the Hamptons of Tokyo
With a slow pace of life and views of Mt Fuji, Lake Kawaguchiko is where city residents spend the weekend, says Teresa Machan
At Lake Kawaguchiko’s 7-Eleven, it has all gone Fuji. Among the strawberry cheesecake KitKats and mugwort mochi dumplings, there are blue-tinged Fuji bath plugs, Fuji rice crackers, bottles of Fujisan Blue Cream Soda and boxes of mould-ityourself Fujisan Blue Curry Rice. The challenge with the latter is to make this edible version of the sacred mountain look like the picture on the box, which depicts a perfect cone of flattopped rice with radioactive turquoise stripes rolling down its sides. Should you be visiting and not see Mt Fuji, fear not; the mountain is at your local convenience store in myriad forms.
At 12,388ft (3,776 metres) tall, Fuji is Japan’s highest mountain. Many visitors first catch sight of it while speeding out of Tokyo on the Shinkansen bullet train. A few years back, on an exceptionally clear day, I saw it from a plane – an almost-perfect cone rising incongruously from Tokyo’s glass and concrete sprawl. I could just make out a semi-circular necklace of lakes around its base – and I vowed to visit.
I didn’t know it then, but the place I had spotted was Fuji Five Lakes (Fuji Go-ko), in Yamanashi prefecture, less than a couple of hours from Tokyo. It has long been a favourite weekend refuge of Tokyoites craving quiet and fresh air – much as Eastport and Sag Harbour have lured moneyed New Yorkers fleeing the city smog for a few days. Even on a clear day, wisps of cloud are never far away in Fuji Five Lakes – but in October, I got lucky. The day we arrived at Glamping Villa Hanz, Fuji was lost behind a curtain of clouds. Early next morning, though, a friend stuck her head into my tent. “Fuji’s out!” she whispered. It was as if someone had pitched up with a ladder in the night and painted its graceful slopes onto the sky.
You needn’t climb Japan’s highest mountain to appreciate its beauty or cultural significance. Spectacular views of Fuji and the five lakes that pool at its northern base can be seen from the foothills and a chain of smaller mountains. Lake Motosuko’s iconic view of Mt Fuji appears on the back of Japan’s 1,000-yen note. The area is laced with walking and hiking trails and a dedicated cycling path hugs much of the circumference of Lake Yamanakako.
Glamping Villa Hanz is about 10 minutes’ drive from Lake Kawaguchiko. We stayed in geodesic “pao” (dome tents) but there were also “glamping villas” with large Jacuzzis and a barbecue terrace, as well as a luxurious century-old guest house, restored and rebuilt.
This being Japan, the camping experience was full of quirky charm. Glamping life came with Grade-A kit, wash-and-blow-dry lavatories and instructions for everything. I am unashamed to say that stepping a couple of feet from my pao into a warm bathroom cabin with a multi-nozzle shower, and a loo that stood to attention when I walked in and warmed my thighs when I sat down, was a highlight.
An information booklet illustrated every item, from trivet and tongs to rice cooker, chimney starter, meat therare mometer and the brilliantly lost in translation “digestive organ”, or fire extinguisher – handy for city dwellers who have never learnt to put out a fire.
Our visit to the Fuji Five Lakes began with a trip to the Sengen-jinja shrine, set in Fuji’s forested foothills and approached via a “worshipper’s path” flanked by moss-topped stone lanterns and coppery-trunked cedars which oozed a cherry-red sap. For the Japanese, Fujisan is as much a spiritual totem as a physical one. Sengen-jinja is the starting point for one of four ancient ascent routes used by Shinto pilgrims, and climbers keen to take on the full 10 stages of the Yoshida Trail can join the trailhead at the “climbing gate” behind the main prayer hall.
The shrine is one of 25 sites around Mt Fuji to be inscribed by Unesco. In the Hall of Worship, Villa Hanz had organised a formal blessing – an expression of good luck for our visit. Swaddled in embroidered vestments, a miko (shrine princess) chanted prayers and we bowed our heads and double-clapped to acknowledge the deities. Blessing over, we huddled for a group photo with our Villa Hanz host, whereupon my socked foot found the edge of a lacquered object and the solemnity was shattered as two of us almost tumbled to the floor. I am certain I caught a twitch at the mouth of the miko.
Repeated volcanic eruptions (the last was in 1707) have created unusual volcanic features including lava tree moulds, wind and ice caves and a dense forest that took root on a lava plateau. Inside Aokigahara Forest, mossy roots grip the shallow soil like trolls’ toes. The air is green under a dense canopy. Our guide, Makoto, who had a small bell attached to his backpack, pointed to claw marks on a trunk. There are 30 Asiatic black bears in the area and probably three in Aokigahara, according to Makoto. “They are vegetarian but it is best not to provoke them,” he added.
The forest’s porous rock interrupts the magnetic field and, before leaving, Makoto held his compass over a rock so we could watch the needle spin. Porous rock plays a part in creating Fuji’s much sought-after water, earning it the moniker “water mountain”. Filtered through layers of basalt, mineral-rich meltwater percolates underground before being tapped at springs, wells and onsen. Local onsen sing about the water’s vanadium content, which is said to lower blood pressure. As a bonus, Villa Hanz has its own source of Fuji well water, as well as a small onsen.
Silky spring water feeds oversized vegetables and also flavours the sake and noodles. Somewhat chewy, the local noodles are a delicacy best slurped in a bowl of hoto. Each restaurant has its secret recipe but in essence it is a hotpot dish of fat noodles boiled in spring water and cooked with seasonal vegetables in a miso broth.
At the family-run Ide Sake Brewery, which has been brewing on the same site for 300 years, Fuji spring water is the elixir in a fine brew. On a tour, the present (21st-generation) owner told us how his 16th-generation ancestor made the leap from soy sauce production to sake brewing. It was a shrewd move. At Sengen-jinja, rows of its sake barrels presented as offerings to the gods. It’s just a shame they don’t get to try the sake ice cream.
Back at Villa Hanz, we visited the Kura to collect some kindling. A modern take on the traditional Japanese warehouse, the Kura is the place to book activities, plant an axe in wood (under supervision) and gain an insight into Japanese knife mastery.
Dinner ingredients were delivered to each pao’s outdoor kitchen at around 6pm. We unpacked a jar of seafood in oil – a starter that sizzled on the skillet – vegetables for grilling, rice, chicken, pork steaks and generous strips of wagyu beef. For dessert, there were bananas for cooking in their skins and caramel sauce to pour over the top. Thanks to our bossing-it “Kamado” ceramic barbecue and brilliant instructions (“lay the charcoal in a gentle slope” – who knew?), dinner was a resounding success.
Afterwards, we lingered at the fire pit under the stars before toasting ourselves in the cypress-wood barrel sauna. A group of four women, we vowed never again to relinquish control of the barbecue.
On our final morning, I wrenched myself from the huge squashy futon bed for a crack-of-dawn canoe paddle to find that, overnight, a miracle had occurred. Fujisan has its own lexicon for the natural phenomena that occur throughout the year, and our final night had coincided with hatsu kansetsu – the season’s first snow cap. Quite the event.
Toy and Hat, our canoe guides, arrived with tea, biscuits and homemade honey, and said it was propitious. Secretly, I was relieved my clumsy antics at the shrine hadn’t offended the deities. Our canoes slid across Lake Kawaguchiko until we could see the snow-dusted peak of the mountain reflected in the water.
To hatsu kansetsu, goraiko (meaning sunrise from Mt Fuji) and aka Fuji (a shade of red immortalised in a woodblock print from the Edo era) we could now add “upside-down Fuji”. In the inverted reflection, I could see, for the first time, the mountain’s flattened crater bowl.
Now, all I had to do was return to the 7-Eleven and complete my mission – creating this beautiful object in rice.