{"id":11480,"date":"2020-04-13T00:02:18","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T14:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/?p=11480"},"modified":"2020-04-13T00:09:57","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T14:09:57","slug":"japan-2016-part-3-gotemba-to-kawaguchiko-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/?p=11480","title":{"rendered":"Japan 2016 \u2013 Part #3 \u2013 Gotemba to Kawaguchiko"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gotemba Premium Outlets<\/strong>
\nJapanese retailers were really ahead of the curve, how do you get people to come to your stores? Make it a train station and they come right to your door, genius! The same goes for out of the way outlet malls like Gotemba, previously we spent a bit of time navigating a few different trains and a courtesy bus to get there but this time we tracked down a direct service from the Yokohama CAT station. For around 1700Y one way (discount for return trip) we didn\u2019t have to worry about dragging our luggage through stations and finding a seat on a train. Plus it was on the way to the 5 lakes area anyway so it\u2019s a win-win \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

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Travel tip: Bus routes, costs and departure locations for Yokohama can be found here<\/a>
\nTravel tip: There are storage lockers on site (to the left of the main entrance from the bus stop, near the toilets)
\nTravel tip: Remember to grab a coupon discount booklet from the information booth
\nTravel tip: Remember to check the departure times when you arrive so you can plan your day accordingly as services dwindle later in the day. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Photo tip: On a clear day, keep an eye out for Fuji-san when crossing the walk bridge between the two mall sections.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kawaguchiko<\/strong>
\nCoincidentally, the Outlets had a bus that goes to where we needed to be next, Kawaguchiko, luck or crafty planning? \ud83d\ude09 Same deal as before, door to door station service, no faffing about.<\/p>\n

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At Kawaguchiko station there are two bus services (red or green) which run in roughly clockwise and anti clockwise routes around the southern side of the lake. These cover most of the affordable hotels and some of the local attractions. They run every 15-30min for only a couple bucks but having arrived late afternoon amongst a couple busloads of tourists, the services were struggling to meet demand, so after about 45min of waiting we grabbed a cab to our hotel (Kawaguchiko hotel). The hotel is only about 1km from the station, easily walkable but not so much after a long day with luggage in tow.<\/p>\n

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Travel tip: If you did have to wait at the station, there are hot meals available from the small eatery inside.<\/em>
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\nFull Kawaguchiko Hotel review<\/summary>\n

Its rare that you can get the trifecta when it comes to hotels – good accommodation, good value, good location, usually one of those has to be sacrificed and its usually cost. Being out in the country side, with a lot less options, makes it even harder to score this so if you want the other two you need to pony up on the dinero. If not, manage your expectations, you saving money means corners are cut somewhere and in this case its in the general upkeep of the place.<\/p>\n

To me, it felt a lot more like staying at your friends\u2019 beachside place during schoolies, it was more the fact that you were there that mattered than the place where you dumped your bag and crashed out for the night. Sure, the carpet could use a steam clean (or just have new runners laid) and the window sills and the like could do with a vacuuming but the linen was clean along with the bathroom and for the double room we got, there was a welcomed amount of ample space compared with other places we have stayed at in Japan. In general, it definitely has a mum and pop store feel where they\u2019ve just done the same thing for decades, and its worked, so they haven\u2019t bothered changing anything…at all.<\/p>\n

All staff however were the usual Japanese kind of helpful even with minimal English but if you are after a more detailed response, track down one of the younger staff members. Rooms were quiet with minimal foot traffic, though being at the end of a hall helped. Bicycles and paddle boats are available for hire on the lake (not related to the hotel).<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t get to try the in house catering, the restaurant was booked out (and had to be booked in advance) but not to worry, there are plenty of eating places within walking distance. Exit the hotel and go right^, there are a couple buildings that look like they have or more so, HAD a restaurant but we couldn\u2019t tell for sure as they weren\u2019t open at all over the days and nights we were there. Further along there\u2019s a small Asian takeaway but keep walking along the scenic waterfront till you get to a large intersection where the road hooks to the right*, here you\u2019ll see a Lawson\u2019s amongst a string of restaurants and souvenir shops. We went with the Indian place across from Lawson\u2019s with no regret, good portions and reasonable prices.<\/p>\n

^ – look over your right shoulder, you might be lucky enough to see Fuji off in the distance
\n* – following this street with a couple back street zig zags will take you back to Kawaguchiko station which is about a 15min walk. Reasonably easy but some of the streets are narrow with no footpath so navigating this with big luggage could be a little difficult, a cheap taxi ride might be the way to go for some. This route also includes a couple smaller supermarkets if you want more than what a convenient store offers.<\/p>\n

Hotel staff actually recommended turning left out of the hotel and to go around the block for restaurants, which on a quiet night was a bit difficult to tell the difference between a hotel and a restaurant (the few along this street all looked like hotels). Eventually you\u2019ll reach a major road, turning left here will lead to a few Japanese style fast food restaurants and a convenience store. It\u2019s a much longer walk, about 15-20min but felt much long with no scenery. Google maps shows a short cut route through some very small \u201cnot sure if lane or someone\u2019s drive way\u201d kind of \u201cstreets\u201d but it was impossible to navigate these at night as most were poorly lit, if at all.<\/p>\n

Overall, the location and the surrounds more than made up for the short comings of the hotel, if we end up out that way again, it would definitely be considered.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n

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Travel tip: if you\u2019re going to air clothing on the window sill, don\u2019t open the opposite one ^_^’ but if you do, make sure you know how to use a tripod like giant chopsticks ;p<\/em><\/p>\n

Next we try to catch some pink moss (yes pink moss) and a glimpse of Mt Fuji at the Fuji Shibazakura Festival and Chureito Pagoda.<\/p>\n

Japan 2016 part #1 \u2013 Travelling with a plus one<\/a>
\nJapan 2016 part #2 \u2013 Yokohama<\/a>
\nJapan 2016 part #3 \u2013 Gotemba to Kawaguchiko<\/a>
\nJapan 2016 part #4 \u2013 Fuji Shibazakura Festival and Chureito Pagoda<\/a>
\nJapan 2016 part #5 \u2013 Fuji Q Highland<\/a>
\nJapan 2016 part #6 \u2013 Matsumoto, Alpine Route, Snow Corridor<\/a>
\nJapan 2016 part #7 \u2013 Matsumoto castle, Ashikaga Flower park<\/a>
\nJapan 2016 part #8 \u2013 Tokyo Skytree, Ueno<\/a>
\nJapan 2016 part #9 \u2013 Tokyo wandering, Odaiba + Disney Sea<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gotemba Premium Outlets Japanese retailers were really ahead of the curve, how do you get people to come to your stores? Make it a train station and they come right to your door, genius! The same goes for out of the way outlet malls like Gotemba, previously we spent a bit of time navigating a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2241,2837],"tags":[2731,2242,411,2792],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11480"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11480"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11509,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11480\/revisions\/11509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soulbridgemedia.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}