Lake Shoji

Shojiko is the lake people drive past on the way to Motosuko, and that is its charm. It is the smallest of the five, about half a square kilometre, and the shore has a handful of old inns, campsites and boat rental huts rather than a resort strip. Stand on the north shore on a clear morning and Fuji fills the sky behind Omuroyama, a smaller, rounded cone on its flank in the Aokigahara forest. Locals call this Kodaki Fuji, Fuji holding a child, and photographers line up tripods for it. (This Omuroyama is not the Mount Omuro you ride a chairlift up near Ito in Izu.) Shoji, Saiko and Motosuko sit at the same height, about 900 m, and were one lake until the lava flow of 864 split them; they are thought to be linked underground still. A British visitor in the Meiji era called it the Switzerland of the East. The water is greenish and not very clear, unlike Motosuko next door, and people come for boating and fishing for wakasagi and crucian carp more than swimming. It is part of the Fujisan World Heritage property. Summer afternoons often hide the mountain entirely.