The first side trip of our journey took us to the city of Shizuoka. We caught the bus to the town of Shimizu. After that, we didn’t hold back and climbed the over a thousand steps to the Kunōzan Tōshōgū shrine. As a reward, we got to see colourful and richly decorated buildings.

Afterwards, we took the cable car to the Nihondaira viewpoint. We got lucky with the weather and were rewarded with a wonderful panoramic view of Japan’s landmark, Fuji-san, and the Shimizu harbour just in front of it. Mount Fuji was snow-free, which actually hasn’t happened at this time of year since records began back in 1894.