Day 5

 I can best sum this day up by saying that the day was a bust but the night was a blast.

We drove for five hours to see Mt. Fuji today and didn't even catch a glimpse of it. Some people were able to, apparently, but we could not. So that was unfortunate. One thing I did enjoy today, though, was a boat cruise on a ferry on Lake Ashi--I liked this a lot. I haven't been on a boat cruise since we were in Hong Kong back in 2018, And I will admit that it was fun to take a cable car up a mountain and get some beautiful scenic views: but nothing of Mt. Fuji. So I went home feeling supremely disappointed. And we had to listen to 2-3 girls giggle and meow at each other the entire three-hour trip home. I wanted to smack them so badly.

Things got better when we decided to go out for the evening. After one Uber cancellation (we couldn't figure out where they wanted to pick us up), I asked the hotel clerk to call us a cab. He got someone and we went to the gay district in Tokyo. There's a long alley that has one gay bar after another, which was VERY cool. We ended up at a bar called Eagle Tokyo (yeah, I know, really original), but the people were nice and the vibe unpretentious. It was just a social bar, so there was no dancing or anything like that. I had a drink called a "Kitty," which was red wine and ginger ale. Tasty stuff. Kerry had a red wine and Coke, which was even better.

After the Eagle, we decided to go to the gay onsen, which was a two-minute walk away from the bar. I went to Tokyo with the idea that I wanted to use an onsen while I was here, just for the cultural experience, so we figured....why not do it now? An onsen, for those who don't know, is a public bath. And, just to clarify, it is NOT the same as a "bathhouse" that we have in the USA and is almost fixated exclusively on sexual activity. It's very ritualistic, really. You have to put your shoes in one locker, right when you walk in. Then you get in a line to pay and they give you ANOTHER key for ANOTHER locker, along with a bag that has a robe, a body towel, and a face towel. You go to your locker, open it, disrobe, and then put on the robe that they give you and bring your towels into the bath area. In the bath area, you have to take off your robe, sit on a stool, and wash your body before getting in the public bath. (Yes,, everyone is completely naked in the bath.)  I might add that the public bath is VERY comfortable and feels like a bubbling brook. And there was nothing sexual going on in the bath itself, which was a very different approach from the American "bathhouse."  They also had a steam room, a sauna, and additional showers. And there were guys there from all over the world, not just Japan. So that was nice to see. 

Once we were done, we called an Uber, and this one came pretty quickly and we had no problems at all getting home. We didn't get home until about 2 am. So tired! And morning came early.

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