My younger daughter, who lives in the U.S., is visiting us here in Japan now. She wanted to climb Mt. Fuji, but this isn’t the right time of year. Instead, we decided to drive around the mountain. On Monday, we drove from Nagoya to Shizuoka. We crossed Suruga Bay by ferry so that we could see Mt. Fuji rising up from the sea. That’s the best way to see how high Mt. Fuji actually is. We stayed at a hotel to the east of the mountain, and yesterday, we drove to the five lakes on the north side of the mountain. We came back along the west side. We couldn’t stop taking pictures of the many faces of Mt. Fuji, and I couldn’t stop taking pictures of my wife and daughter talking and laughing together.   (135 words)

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