We had the afternoon flight on the next day. That morning was our shopping time so I just went to Ginza to buy something.

That concluded my 17 days of 迎送生涯........

After the visit, I went to Tsukiji again to meet my friends for sushi dinner. I arrived early and had a walk to Hongwanji 築地 本願寺.

A rather western style temple.......

Now there are guards standing in different posts, after someone go there protesting.

Phototaking is prohibited in the shrine area. If you divide the shrine in 3 parts, you are free to take pictures at the first two (like my first and second picture here).

The third picture shows the boundary. After the Torii, you are not allowed to take picture. However, they forget that we can zoom in . I did not pass the Torii and took the forth one. You see the guard on the left ?

We were back to Tokyo after we checked out at Kawaguchi. In the afternoon, I went to quite a controversial place Yasukuni Shrine 靖国神社. I heard a lot about this from the news but had never been there, so I paid a visit when I had some time on my own.

To be frank, this one is tidy and decent. Long straight way to the shrine, large Torii 鳥居, simple colour tone with fine and clear architecture. I can feel how solemn it is.....

I walked back to hotel at about 6:00am. On my way back, some water activities were carrying out (1st picture).

Now you may know why I had to wake up early, the ripples on the lake surface was increasing......

I took the 2nd one at the carpark of my hotel.

The third one is the overview of the lake area. My room is next to the room on the right hand side of the picture

There is a walking path along the coastal line from my hotel (where it is almost the one end of the coast) to the bridge. I found that the water are still on both end but not in the middle. Therefore, it would be better to shoot the reflection at both end. The drawbacks are that the angle at the bridge are is a bit flat, while at my hotel area, the left side of the view is blocked by another slope.

In the middle, the reflection is not as clear as that in the ends. But a close up shoot is still nice.

Next morning had something fun to do. I was minded to take picture of Fujisan in the early morning, maybe at sunrise. There is a phenomenon called Reverse Fuji 逆富士, which is the reflection of the Fujisan on the lake. It requires a stable and flat surface so it usually appears during early morning as not many activities are carried out in such time.

Giving the cloudy sky in the previous day in Fujisan area, I did not expect much to have a clear sky. I woke up at 4:30am (dunno why, I did not set an alarm) and saw that the sky was clear. So I rushed down to take pictures.

I thought I was still a bit late, but I can still see the light from the rising sun. The following pictures show that the east side of the mountain was yellow in colour.

We stayed at a hotel in Kawaguchi of course. Most hotels there are built arond the lake facing fujisan. Their design is that almost all the guest rooms are facing fujisan and the other side of the hotel is used for back of house stuff. After all, the selling point of these hotels is the view of the mountain.

Here are the pictures of my room and its view.

After that we took a cable to Kawaguchiko 河口湖天上山公園, you can oversee the city of 河口湖 with a backdrop of fujusan 富士山.

Our next spot was  Fuji shibazakura matsuri 富士芝桜祭.