For our first holiday with Tora, Micha and Bart, we had booked a cottage at one of the five lakes surrounding mount Fuji for four persons that allowed pets. Luckily for us, Tora behaved very well during the two and a half hour long train ride to Kawaguchiko. We took him in his special backpack and were a little worried about how the train conductor would react. But when he came to check our tickets there was no reaction at all. It seemed he didn't even see him. When we arrived at Kawaguchiko we walked from the station to the lake. It was very sunny weather and quite different from the rainy days before. We bought some lunch at a store and took the 3 minute Kachi Kachi rope way to the top of mount Tenjo. This mountain gives an excellent view of mount Fuji!

Fuji itself was snow-packed down until about fifth station. That meant we saw the typical view that is alway shown on the holiday posters. Strangely enough, the sakura trees on mount Tenjo weren't even in bloom yet. In Tokyo the blossoms were already gone, so we hadn't expected this at all. There, with Fuji in the background, we took our lunch in the sun. Since it is a touristic attraction, we saw many people taking pictures and 'ooh'-ing and 'ah'-ing of course.

We went on foot down to the lake again, though there were no other nice views of mount Fuji along the way. And as spring hadn't started here yet apparently, it was mostly leafless trees. Back at the station we hurried to a convenience store for some groceries, since we had no clue what to expect at the cottage. Would there be dinner or breakfast? Just in time for the bus we got a 40 minute sightseeing tour before we arrived there.

We were greeted warmly and of course dinner was possible in the main building. The cottage itself was very nice. Two stories, with futons for in the living room and in the attic, reasonably clean, the occasional insectoid visitor and best of all, a kotatsu! (a low table with a heating element so your feet get warmed)

The surroundings were as we had expected. Completely in the middle of nowhere, no shops, hotels or restaurants nearby, but completely surrounded by nature with forests, mountains and a huge lake. Lake Saiko may be a small lake compared to Kawaguchiko, but it still is very big on its own.

We also really liked that it was completely dog friendly. They are allowed in the cottages, there is a dog run and it was clear that the owners of the cottages liked pets very much. They have several ones themselves too of course. In the main building they sold enough pet stuff as well, in case you had forgotten something. Anyhow, we had chosen a great place to stay.