Our university organizes multiple trips each semester. The last time people went to Ise shrine, but I didn’t as I slept in late and all places were already gone. Because the number of participants is limited and slots are distributed on a first-come first-serve basis, I hurried to the International Office as soon as classes ended to apply for the next trip whose destination was Shizuoka, a neighboring prefecture which is known for its tea and Mt. Fuji.
We all met at the other dorm (International House), boarded two buses and headed out towards Shizuoka at 8:30 in the morning. Shizuoka basically only consists of hilly forest, so we passed through a lot of tunnels and over a lot of bridges. Howl’s moving castle was being screened in the bus, but I preferred to listen to music and stare outside. The weather was beautiful too so you could see really far.
Shizuoka is known for tea. Green tea, to be specific. Our first stop was at a tea museum/plantation thingy where we could pick our own tea leaves. As soon as we entered the town, the only thing you could see was tea fields. Literally every household had at least a small tea field in the garden, but there were a ton of larger ones too. One thing that stood out were the countless small fans guaranteeing proper air circulation above the fields. Tea picking was interesting, but the quality of the leaves was bad as almost all of them were nibbled on by insects.
I bought some tea-related souvenirs in their gift shop, namely a coke, some maccha chocolate and some tea bags which’ll hopefully last me through this semester.
Because we arrived quite late at the tea plantation, we only stayed for around an hour before continuing our drive to Mt. Fuji for another hour. We stopped at a small service area with a ferris wheel from which you could supposedly see Mt. Fuji. The weather was really clear so our hopes were high, but the peak was still covered by clouds.
We didn’t have much time here either so after riding the ferris wheel, eating lunch and visiting the gift shop, we returned by bus which took around three hours. The bus journey itself was really relaxing as there was lots of scenic nature. This might have also been the best part of the trip as the tea plantation and ferris wheel were kinda boring. Overall, I’d rate the trip mediocre since there wasn’t much we experienced and 80% of the time was spent inside the bus.
