Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Another trip to mt fuji

I've been in Japan for two years now, and , while I 've had plenty of views of Mt fuji, or as good a view as can be had from Tokyo city, the cliched view of the icecap on the peak of Fuji san and a shinkansen running in front of it, has eluded me so far. In this quest of mine, I've been to Hakone and fuji city. So, when a few friends expressed a wish to go to Mt fuji, I jumped at the opportunity and suggested we go to Kawaguchiko.


And we're off. Or lets say we're on our way. A shot of the train that passed us by while we waited at the tracks for our connecting train .

And this shot was taken by Apy , while yours truely, tried to get some much needed 40 winks. Needless to say I could not grab those. And the whole day I tried to maintain a sunny disposition.

At Kawaguchi ko station 5. Our only view of fuji san. And we were able to enjoy it for all of approximately 3 minutes. The clouds took over , thereafter.

You can see them buggers close in here

And how? thats not the moon here. Its the sun at around 1 in the afternoon. joy! joy!


Can you believe that. Clouds and darker clouds. Wither the silver lining

But, all said and done, this cloudy day had its charms. For one, it wasn't way too hot. Second, we could see the clouds move and it felt like we were walking among them. As we said on the video we took, we were on station 5-cloud 9.

The returning trekkers. You'd think that at least on the mountain, you'd escape the crowds. No sirreee. You thought wrong. We chose the first day of the peak season to make our expedition and as a result, we got to jostle ( almost , not really) with some humanity.

The view , when we looked down.

And some more trekkers.


For all those who wondered about the lack of flowers in a post of mine, stop now! Its impossible for me to be out with a camera and not take pics of the flowers I see.

Since, I was unable to see the mountain, I was not about to miss the view of the nature around.

Even the bit of nature thats about to pick up its roots, pack up and go. I'd like to see it before it does.

And another pretty flower.


The view as we got back from our little bit of trekking. It had gotten really dark .

This old lady was playing and singing. And she was really good.

This was the view that awaited us in the souvenier shop we entered. The store actually sold icecream in the front. We'd grabbed our soft cones ( err, pun absolutely unintended) and ventured in. Right next to the postcards, was this tray filled with plastic boobs. I was like what the heck are those, and a look that said ,"she's finally lost it" was directed my way. Apparantly these are stress balls , though I must say using them would stress me out more . Oh well!

And here's another souvenier- A miracle towel.

Does one really need any more explanation on why miracle towel.

What really got to me was the fact that these were available in a store that sold icecreams and cookies. These were not in seperate corner, were displayed as any other normal thing and then the explanation for the towel was in english. I wish this kind of language support was available for more mundane things required for daily survival here in nippon.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

:D:D:D:D
Those japs have a pretty good outlook on stresss and busters of stress too. i thought it was my dirty mind at work but glad you explained it was indeed what i thought it was. :)

I still cant stop laughing at it... I certainly would've picked up two of them busters and posed and would've picked a couple for my boss! anyways :D anywyas:)

Mt. Fuji i heard was the highest climbed mountain in the world. Did you actually trek it up? Must have been cool!

Apy said...

hehehe.. that was a nice post.. n i was expecting those pics.... stress buster my ass... lol.... guess wat .. i tol a frn that i saw this towel.. he said he had actually bought one.. i was like wtf... he said but it din wrk n jus ended up makin a fool out of himself...heheehhe

El enigma said...

nice pics, bilbo :) liked the one with the rooted tree a lot!

enig

Rajavel said...

hey bily

your cup of Fuji luck runneth over !! keep trying keep trying so that you can come up with these photologs

pradz whats with "Mt. Fuji i heard was the highest climbed mountain in the world" Is that something like what they keep saying in Las vegas ? "Welcome to the Largest casino in the world in the Entire north America"

bilbo said...

Thanks guys
Pradzie, nope, did not trek it all the way up. more like a lit while. Am a founding member of the FAA ( fat ass anon.) .
Apy, well, you know what they say about suckers. And I agree about the stress busters my ass bit.
enig, The place was beautiful.
Chet, I should give up on the fuji view and just buy myself a bloody postcard. these trips are way too expensive for my grad stipend.
And abt the highest climbed, the Tshirts available claim it to be the most highest in Japan. Talk abt overkill. They don't know the meaning of the word

P said...

Love the pics!

K and S said...

we had a great climb up Mt Fuji a couple of weeks back. Did you climb up to the top?

Anonymous said...

chetz and bilbo,

i meant taht the mountain is highest in terms of number of people trekking it. Not that it is the highest mountain in the mountain. and the only reason i know this i coz i trekked the second highest 'climbed' mountain in the world a few years ago. Mt. Monadnock (NH).
and chetz if you think that's funny watch the World Cup Baseball in September and the SuperBowl World Cup in Feb/Mar :)
and bilbo,
is there an annual fee for this privileged club? I'd like to join in a few years.

Anonymous said...

Some Great pictures there!

Thanks a lot for sharing. Never been to Japan, maybe one day. Who knows!

And yes, feel free to blogroll me.

Santosh Namby said...

Love the stress busters, but for me the best stress busters are the pics of the flowers, great captures as always......