Day 5 - Ben

We leapt out of bed today hoping to see Mt Fuji, as it was dark when we arrived last night. But again the weather was against us and we had to make other plans. We decided to have a walk around Kawaguchiko lake instead and visited lots of souvenir shops.With no chance of the mountain emerging from the clouds we started back to the hostel, then decided there wasn't a lot else to do so we scanned our map for something else to see and set off in another direction.The man on reception had warned us the fag packet sketch of a map we were using wasn't exactly to scale, bit of an understatement, it was b******s.We headed off in the direction of a shrine, and after what felt like 10 miles we still hadn't found it. We'd come too far to go back so carried on and after stopping for chicken nuggets and chips we eventually reached it. Was worth it to be fair but was a long way and that's why we decided to go a bit further and find a waterfall that 'wasn't far' according to the map. It was starting to snow and another mile later we asked an old Japanese guy for directions. He didn't speak a word of English but pointed the way we were going up a windy, snowy mountain track, we carried on a little further and were passed by a few cars slipping and sliding past us on the way down. As we were just about to turn back our little Japanese friend turned up in his tiny open back truck. He said something, not sure what, but he was offering us a lift so we climbed into the back, probably not the wisest thing to do given the condition of the road but I figured he's a local he knows best. So we set off up the mountain, sat in the back, facing downhill, speeding backwards in his rickety van. After a good 5 minutes we reached the waterfall, we'd have never got here on foot.He showed us the half flowing half frozen waterfall which was amazing with a little shrine next to it and I got a picture next to my little mate, yes he was smaller than me! Then he took us all the way back and we realised his passing wasn't just coincidence he'd actually gone to get his car after giving us directions and come back for us to drive us round, wot a guy!