Lake Yamanaka

LAKE YAMANAKA: Five Lakes of Mount Fuji

Japan’s highest mountain, Mount Fuji, presents incredible scenic variety in the region of the five lakes, including untouched nature, hot springs (onsen), heavily built amusement parks and many other, some quite unusual, attractions. The popular Fuji Five Lakes region is appropriately rich in spectacular natural scenery, with a number of the approach routes giving astonishing views of the great mountain itself. Certainly it is one of life’s great moments to first lay eyes on Fuji San, its noble white summit wind-whipped and pale with snow.

In keeping with an apparent Japanese penchant, themes rule the roost around the lakes: on Yamanaka the first thing I noticed was a colossal swan (then I realized it was the tour boat—or, more properly, ferry--- shaped like a swan with the slender, curved neck looming ahead of the broad-beamed vessel). Soon enough I caught sight of other birds, fish, and various lakeworthy houseware. All over the lake shore visitors are amused by this curious, themed stuff – kitsch it’s often called, a little brutally. Kitsch “a German term,” an on-line dictionary says, “that has been used to categorize art that is considered an inferior copy of an existing style.”

Well, the kitschy paddle boats and other rides aren’t really art, but they have been created in that charming, out-of-scale Disney-associated way. According to the web, “the term is also used more loosely in referring to [art or objects that are] pretentious or in bad taste,” (and you gotta wonder whose bad taste) it also refers to “commercially produced items that are considered trite or crass because the word was brought into use as a response to a large amount of art in the 19th century where the aesthetic of art work was confused with a sense of exaggerated sentimentality or melodrama.” Anyway, reminiscent of a carnival or the circus, many of the ride able or rentable objects here are colorful renderings of animals, fish, or household objects.

These 5 lakes so well known to the Japanese, Lake Yamanaka, Lake Kawaguchi, Lake Sai, Lake Motosu and Lake Shoji which seem to slumber so peacefully on the gentlest slopes of Mount Fuji’s base, get very little travel coverage in the popular media so are little known off the island. Each lake’s shore is pretty well developed as a commercial resort environment and all the trimmings -- for many travelers this means both good and bad. There’s lots of accommodation, and the already mentioned enjoyment of kitsch guarantees that there is a plethora of paddle boats and such in the shape of fish, fowl, and tea-cups. If you get a kick out out that sort of thing, it’s heaven; if not, you’re out of luck. [In general terms, it’s about 2 hours from Tokyo by express bus service to the lakes area; visitors can also take a bus from Gotemba or Hakone.]