Fuji volcano workshop

Scenery from the hotel room (Hotel Noborizaka in Kawaguchiko town)

"International Workshop on Strategy of Volcanic Disaster Mitigation 2013" is held at Yamanashi Institute of Environmental Sciences(YIES). I went to the institute which located near Mt. Fuji because I am interested in the risk assessment of volcanic disaster.
I arrived at the hotel near the institute the night before. It was very dark and I couldn't see the scenery. Next morning, I opened the curtain of my hotel room and I was surprised with the beautiful scenery.  Wow, Mt. Fuji is very very close!!

Workshop at YIES

The workshop was interesting with active discussions. We raised many topics such as effects of volcanic ash, lapilli, collapse of volcanic edifice etc. Personally, I was happy to see my friend from New Zealand and talked about our collaboration. And I could see many important people for the risk assessment field in Japan and in the world.

After the workshop, I had a chance to go to the restaurant around. I found a Fuji-shaped croquette. I think that they are trying to make "Fuji-shape" products, for example cookies and cakes, after this area is registered as a World Heritage Site.

So, we have many tourists from various countries now. We went to the 5th station of Mt. Fuji next day. And we saw many tourists even though we can not climb up to the top during the winter and it was very cold there! (-4 C =24.8F).

Fifth station of Mt. Fuji (half height)

I heard Chinese and other languages. Nature guides told us that variety of tourists countries are increasing. Especially, Asian and Arabic people are coming more and more. Hmmmm, I think that it is very important to put some explanations in different languages. Actually, there have been already some guides and staffs who speak different languages at the 5th station and the visitor center. I was very impressed. The nature guide whom we talked with is a retired diplomat for foreign services and he speaks Arabic. I am so impressed!! 

Entrance  of Fujiyama Onsen

Finally, I was alone to wait for the bus to get back to my city. I had five hours and so decided to take a bath in Fujiyama Onsen. An entrance fee was a bit expensive, but it was good place to stay. They gave me towels and wears only for inside of this building. They gave me also a wristband with a bar code.  It means that we can store our luggage and clothes in the locker and only take a wristband. We can buy things with a bar code and pay everything when we leave.

Houtou of the restaurant in Fujiyama Onsesn

There is a restaurant inside and I ate "Houtou" there. You can find what this is in my old post (http://kaes-diary.blogspot.jp/2013_05_01_archive.html). This is one of my favorites!

It was tiring to come back to my home with four hours of bus + 30 minutes of subway. However, these two days were precious for me as a volcanologist and as a tourist.