29 Jan 2011: Sneak peek into the pictures of Mt.Fuji's Yamanakako and Lake Kawaguchi 富士山の山中湖 and 河口湖 (Unprocessed original edition)

It's Saturday morning, it's 5:45am, it's cold. It's insane for a bunch of photographic enthusiasts to go out to catch Mt. Fuji Sunrise. Yes, and I was one of them.


Believe me, it's a mixed experience all in all. Best explained by the taste of a sip of Tequila sunrise. My body is warm and comfortable with layers of clothings. Yet, my hands are frozen and numb, very soon my feet and toes sent the same signals to my brain. Worse thing is, we set up the tripod, and wait and wait, sky is bright, but the sun is not in sight!

I kept running back and forth of the car to warm up the body, and rushed back to stand beside the tripod. Finally, the sun! Good morning Uncle Sun! You're overslept ~ a bit ~ but glad to see ya finally!

Here is a site along the Fujiyama Panarama Line, so called "Lake in the Center of the Mountain" 山中湖. We found some nice spots, thrilled, hopping back and forth to change lens, and got some really nice stuff!

And then off we drove to another site for yet another view of Mt. Fuji, basically called the Swan Lake, coz' it has all the little boats for rent to see swans in the lake...

Not to mention the hill top panaramic view, spectacular! Facing this view, seeing it through camera, I'm speechless, short of words to describe what I saw..."It's stunning, awesome.." I said more than 10 times...

We also drove by the Lake Saiko coz' it's the first day of the Winter Festival there:

Another nice spot is Kawaguchi 河口湖, in the right time of the year you can actually see the "diamond Fuji", where the shadow of Mt. Fuji falls exact right in front of itself on the lake, creating a diamond shape. Winter is not the time for it, but still we managed to get some Mt.Fuji reflections on the lake, here you go...

Finally, after our late lunch at 3ish, we rush for the final round - Sun set!

This trip is truely madly enlightening. I had loads of free time in between, where I'm in the car, along the coastline, on some grassfields, to think. Yes, I reckon coldness and nature do have great impacts on humans, especially at times when work is busy and life is running faster than you wish it to. Coldness cleanses your mind and nature pours spring water into it. Truely stunning and overwheming!