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
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