Fuji-San (富士山)

I keep on being surprised by just how busy some of these places are in the middle of winter. And while it was actually a very acceptable temperature (certainly compared to Korea), you could actually see the occasional little hill of ice around that suggested that they did have a few cold days not too long ago. Possibly part of the Tokyo snow that was around on the day we arrived in Japan.

Our furthest destination was testing the public transportation network of even a country like this. It took us three trains and a bus, operated by three different companies, and the quality seemed to decline by the transfer. The last train in the connection was going around a rather wavy track, and it kept on jerking slightly at every rail gap, suggesting that they hadn’t been properly aligned for quite a while. The bus was then the icing on the cake considering that the driver was so erratic that I had to hold on with quite some force to not get thrown into the people around me constantly. The only positive, nobody dared to let go of the handrail.

As one of described: “You know how thing never look the same as they do on postcards? Well, Mt. Fuji does. It’s huge and it’s covered in snow.” And they certainly had a point. I’m unsure exactly how far we ventured to the mountain, but it was intimidating to be able to see the mountain for the entire 3 hour journey that it took us to get there. It’s hard to describe it more precisely than just … it’s hard not to just be in awe of it.

Getting home was a little bit more interesting. We missed one of our connections as our train was actually running a little bit behind. So instead of taking the express that takes an hour, we got the special rapid that takes two hours. One in normal Tokyo territory, we grabbed dinner and then walked around a bit. By the time it dawned on us to go home, it was kind of midnight, and the closer we got to the station, the more we noticed sections being closed off, trains parked at tracks, ticket machines closed. Our original information turned out to be correct, the trains do still run a little beyond midnight, but the train we caught (which usually operates on an infinite circle) terminated at the station we needed to get to.

I just keep on telling myself that everything is fine, we made it. It wasn’t actually the last train, but it might as well have been. At our arrival, there were plenty of people in safety vests that were obviously just starting the night shift maintenance of the station. Something new again I guess …