Saiko Bat Cave

After checking out Shiraito Falls the other day, we drove back up towards Saiko Lake (one of the Fuji 5 Lakes) to visit the Saiko Bat Cave, which is the largest lava cave near the foot of Mt. Fuji (we'd checked out the Fugaku Lava Cave previously, but our kids were too tired that day for anymore exploring!).  

A little known fact about our family is that we LOVE bats!!!  I think it all started with a National Geographic easy reader about bats that Will got a few years ago.  That book is full of interesting facts, but once we learned that they eat mosquitos, we all became huge fans!  And, really, they are fascinating creatures!  So, anyway, we went to the Saiko Bat Cave with high hopes of seeing lots of bats.  However, and we knew this, but bats are nocturnal.  We thought we'd at least be able to see them asleep in their roosts, but they're too smart to hang out (hee hee) where the caves are open for visitors to crawl around, so we didn't see any.  We may try and go back this winter around 4:00-5:00pm when they wake up for the night and come flooding out of the caves.  Sounds exciting, doesn't it?!

We really felt like explorers in this cave!  And those silly helmets weren't so silly after all--the caves were quite narrow with low ceilings in several areas, making the hard hats quite useful in keeping us from banging up our heads on the rocks.  

After climbing through the cave, there is a small souvenir shop and a mini little museum-type room with pictures and more information about bats.  While this cave was relatively small and won't take too long to check out, there is a bunch of stuff to do around the area, making for a great day trip.  Check my other posts on things to do in this area: Shiraito Falls, Fugaku Lava Cave, Camping at Lake Motosu, Kawaguchi Asama Shrine, and the Chureito Pagoda!

GPS Coordinates: 35.494473, 138.671318

Fugaku Lava Cave

After a fun night of camping and hanging out at Lake Motosu, as we were leaving the Fuji Five Lakes area, we decided to stop and check out the Fagaku Lava Cave, also known as the lava ice cave or wind cave.  It was really cool--literally!  There were pillars of ice, even in the heat of the summer!  This cave used to be used as a natural refrigerator, and they still store silk worms inside today.  It was a short walk through the cave, and it was set in the beautiful greenery that surrounds Mt. Fuji.  There are several other caves in the area that we were hoping to explore as well (especially the bat cave!), but our kids were officially pooped after camping, hiking, and playing that we decided to save the rest of the caves for another day.

Sand Sledding and Cave Exploring in Shimoda

After lots of beach time in Shimoda we headed down to Toji Beach and Ryugu Park to check out the secret cave and try out sand sledding!  The cave in Ryugu Park was so cool--having been formed from a volcanic burst, it formed an enclosed, beautiful, little private beach with turquoise water.  It was serene and peaceful down in the cave, and then hiking up above and around the cave was just as beautiful, or even more so since we were able to see more views of the rocky, jagged coastline in addition to the cave!

After spending a while exploring the cave and admiring the views from Ryugu Park, we walked over to the Toji Sand Skiing Beach.  We hadn't planned on going there, so we didn't bring any of the little plastic sleds (they sell them at the ¥100 store) with us.  Usually the shops around the area rent them out, but because we were there during rainy/off season, none of the stores were open.  Luckily though, we had our boogie board with us and it worked just great!

The hill is really, really steep!  So, going down it on a slick boogie board can really get you flying!  It was so much fun!  Bennett LOVED it.  Andrew took him down the hill several times, and every time they got to the bottom of the hill, Bennett would start crying and refuse to get off the board because he wanted to do it again!  It was hilarious.

I've got a bunch of videos that I'll try and upload later, but we all had a blast sledding down the huge sand hill!

And again, the views were beautiful!  Shimoda is full of gorgeous spots!

While we were in Shimoda, we also ate at a couple of delicious restaurants!  The first was a conveyer belt sushi place, called Sakanadonya, with really great quality fish!  It was some of the best sushi we've had since we've been in Japan.  I was glad that we were able to eat there with Andrew, because he is a Townsend after all, which means that he loves sushi too! 

And Bennett loved the tuna roll!  He could hardly wait for Peter to give him more bites!

Another delicious, and very authentic restaurant we went to in Shimoda was Ue No Yama.  We ate fresh sashimi, katsudon, soba, ramen, and tempura, and it was all delicious!  I only have a couple of pictures; one pic of my awesome sashimi and this shot of a little sea slug that was in our miso soup!  There were a bunch of these little guys in there, and they weren't too bad, surprisingly enough.  Although, I hit my limit quickly and couldn't eat more than just a couple!  

Oishi!