Mt. Fuji & Aokigahara ('Suicide Forest')

Hey there poopies,

As you maybe already saw on one of my older posts on Facebook or Instagram, I've been on a roadtrip with two of my friends from Germany.
Our goal was to see the Fuji from lake Kawaguchi and the Aokigahara.
The guys picked me up from my Sharehouse around 12:00 o'clock and we made our way through the busy streets of Tokyo. After around 2 hours we already saw the Fuji from the highway and made a quick stop at the convenience store to grab some food.
The weather wasn't that good and the Fuji was hiding behind some clouds, anyways the view was already amazing. Anyway we continued driving to Lake Kawaguchi. Honestly the weather was getting worse and we couldn't see the Fuji from there. But Lake Kawaguchi was a pretty nice place and we stopped the car once again to take some pictures.
Since our next stop was the Aokigahara our trip continued shortly after.
The Aoikigahara is a forest near to the Mount Fuji and besides his nice hiking trails known as the suicide forest. You might wonder why it's called this way? According to what I found on the internet, the forest got popular for people who want to commit suicide through the book "Nami no tō" (engl: Tower of Wave) from Matsumoto Seichō who made his protagonist commit suicide at the bottom of Mount Fuji. It's said that it is the second most popular place to commit suicide in the whole world (number 1 is the Golden Gate Bridge).
Since 1971 policemen and fire brigades search for dead bodies every year. The count is not getting published anymore to prevent more popularity and attention.
We didn't really know where the entry was why we drove along the road for quite a while until we reached the 'ice cave', Unfortunately, by the time we arrive it was a few minutes after 5 o'clock and the cave closed at 5. We really wanted to go there and looked around but the door was closed and a man that seemed to live there told us to come back tomorrow. But since there was another cave not far from the ice cave we decided to check out if this cave might be still open.
As we arrived at the wind cave it was already closed of course... but we found a side path that wasn't closed and leaded into the forest. On the internet we saw that there were signs everywhere that said things like 'please think about what you are about to do' when you enter but this part of the forest didn't have any of these signs, maybe because it was a side path, but if I was really about to commit suicide I wouldn't care if I entered the main entry of the forest or a side path and a few sings wouldn't stop me from what I am about to do. I also believe that those who want to commit suicide in this forest don't stay on the path anyway.
Well well. We entered the side track and after a few meters we weren't able to see our car anymore. All noises that came from the street were completely absorbed by the woods and the snow. You didn't hear a single animal and your own breathing seemed to be louder then ever.
My friend and me kept talking while walking deeper into the forest but as soon as we stopped it seemed to me as if the silence was eating us alive. It was a little bit scary because it seemed like time has stopped. The only sound that I heard was our feet that smashed the snow beneath us and my breathing.
I think we were all a little bit thrilled by the atmosphere and it was slowly getting darker. Maybe that's why when I tried to see through the woods thought I was seeing something hanging down a tree. It looked like a bag or something but I was pretty sure it wasn't anything special because if someone really wanted to commit suicide he or she would hide even deeper in the forest and wouldn't hang a bag in a visible place for other wanderers. But the guys were curious too and honestly I also wanted to know what that thing is now, that's why one of them left the path and walked closer to the black thing on the tree. Slowly but steady he distanced himself from us until he was standing right beneath it.
We were shouting at him what it was because we also wanted to know but he didn't reply. Instead he turned around towards us and was just like 'were are you?'. I'm not sure if he was joking at this moment but for a second it seemed as if he didn't find us with all the trees surrounding him, but as we replied to him he made his way back to us.
It turned out it was just a black excrescence of the tree and nothing special. We were relived even though I already guessed it was nothing.
Japanese are really superstitious and my colleagues had warned me that we might find something and should report it to the police if we see someone going into the forest alone. But as I already said, people who want to kill them self would handle it smarter and if you stay on the path the forest is absolutely beautiful and a nice hiking path in my eyes.
It was getting darker and darker and we decided to went back to our car and look for a restaurant to eat something.
In the end I was pretty sad that we didn't came to explore the caves and I decided that I want to come once again to explore them too.
But next time I might likely not take the car again. Renting a car is not that expensive and gasoline is also bearable but only the toll for the route to Mount Fuji and back was round about 50€.
Since the public transports are bringing you from Tokyo to there and back for around 40€~50€ it's recommendable to take them instead of renting a car.
Anyways the trip was a lot of fun. In the end we even drove across the Shibuya Crossing and played the Digimon Theme song Butterfly while crossing it. ♥
Yes we are weebs but we are living our dream, hehehe.

In the end I want you to know what you think about the Aokigahara? Do you think it's a thrilling location for dark tourism or rather just a beautiful place for hiking?

Yours,
Miharu ♥