We woke up early this morning and went down for breakfast at the hotel. The buffet was surprisingly good and gave us a solid start to the day.

When we checked the weather, we saw that it was going to rain all morning with no chance of seeing Mount Fuji, so we decided to just take it slow. The hotel staff came and cleaned both rooms, and then we swapped rooms with Bart and Ale so we could all experience both styles. It turned out that the onsen-style room was much nicer than the tatami room, so I’ll definitely keep that in mind for any clients I send here in the future.

Around 1pm we took the car out and started driving around Lake Yamanaka. The lake is quite small, and we made it all the way around in about fifteen minutes before realizing we’d almost done a second full loop. We stopped to check the map when it became clear that the weather wasn’t improving and saw that there was a spa about fifteen minutes away. We figured we could try to get massages there.

When we arrived, the setup was a little odd. You had to pay 1,600 yen, about $11 USD, just to enter, and the massages were another $55 per person on top of that. We were hoping they’d have multiple therapists so all four of us could get massages at once, but they only had one person working. None of us wanted to sit around for four and a half hours waiting, so we decided to skip it.

Not far from there was a shrine and a pagoda called Chureito Pagoda, so we drove over to check it out. The walk up the hill was steep, but the view from the top was worth it. Unfortunately, the clouds were still thick, and we couldn’t see Mount Fuji, which is usually the highlight from that spot. Normally you’d get the perfect view of the pagoda with Fuji in the background, but not today.

By the time we got back down, we were all hungry, so we drove back toward the lake where we’d seen several restaurants earlier. Unfortunately, when we arrived around 3pm, everything was closed except for one place called Dallas Village. It turned out to be a great find. Each table had its own little griddle, and we cooked our own food—some meat, vegetables, a pizza, and spaghetti. Everything was surprisingly good, and we left full and happy.

Back at the hotel, the girls took a nap for about an hour and a half, then went to the big onsen. I stayed in the room and worked on the website. After a few more hours of edits and testing, I finally finished and launched it around 8pm. InspireTravelDesigners.com is officially live, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. The site looks beautiful, and it felt like a big milestone to go live while sitting at the base of Mount Fuji.