Tuesday 23 September 2025
The rooms at this hotel were supposed to be soundproof. I am guessing if you were in the front of the hotel you would not hear the trains. However, if you are overlooking the train line as our room did you heard the trains. Another poor night sleep for me.
Room with a view – Train tracks and the bullet train leaving
The breakfast was served from an adjoining coffee shop. We choose a Croque Monsieur and a coffee. We had to have two of them because the half croque monsieur was not going to be enough for our ride to Fuji today.
We left our panniers in the locker area and started to rebuild our bikes outside of the hotel. The new person at the reception told us not to leave our panniers in the storage area. Ralf very firmly told him we would move them after we have rebuilt our bikes. When Ralf says something very firmly even I do as I am told.
Locker Room – plenty of room for the bikes to have been stored here
While we were rebuilding our bikes a fella asked if we were on a bike tour. This is the first person who has spoken to us on this tour. His English was very good, well it would be, he was from Vancouver. Wouldn’t you know it the first person to chat to us was Canadian.
We knew today’s route was going to be a challenging start. A 5 km long hill with grades ranging from 7% to 14%.
“Der seine rad liebt der schieft” If you love to ride you love to push. Today started with the push. We took our time and by the time we had walked and pushed for 5 kms we were at the top and had downhills all the way to Fuji City. Fortunately, the wind was in our favour and on the push up the hill we were in the shade.
After the hills the route took us along the coast and we had a lovely tail wind. We had nice views of Mount Fuji along the route.
Fuji is a very industrialized city. As we passed the various factories we could smell paper pulp, steel smelters and rice production, what an assault on the nose.
These statues were part of a stonemasons yard.
We got to the hotel earlier than the three o’clock check-in. We were not allowed to check in early.
This hotel the Nishimura had some very strange rules, but the staff were nice.
When entering the hotel, you had to take your shoes off and put them into a locker, then put the provided slippers on – no shoes past the green carpeted area or in the room. All wheels on the luggage had to be washed – wipes were provided. Of course, we couldn’t take the bikes into the room unless they were bagged.
When we did check-in, the young staff were very helpful. One of them showed us where we could leave our bikes – in an open parking lot or underneath the hotel canopy for Y500, ($5.00). We didn’t bring our heavy-duty locks, so that was a no go. Back into the bags they went. The staff did allow us to use the luggage trolley to take all the gear upstairs in one go.
The afternoon staff spoke quite good English and provided the Information Sheet to us in English, one of them also gave us a sheet of recommended restaurants.
The room was the first room that had separate shower, toilet and wash basin. It was a bit crowded with all our stuff in there.
After showering we walked to a Japanese Ramen restaurant close by. We walked in and the waitress pointed to a Board with the menu, you ordered what you wanted and paid and then sat down. Of course, we couldn’t make heads or tails of it, even using google translate. We asked a young man if he could help. He pointed to the top three things and said Special of this place. O.k. then that is what we ordered.
Mine was pork ramen and Ralf’s was pork ramen with extra pork. It was so good. On the table there was a selection of condiments including chilli oil, garlic (cloves), soya sauce, red radish. I had noticed an older couple adding the garlic, there was a garlic crusher provided on the table. When in Rome….. we added two garlic cloves and it was even more delicious.
Back to our room and ready for bed. Although the staff at the first hotel were rude and we started our day by pushing the bikes, we had a good end to the day.
