Mount Fuji (富士山)
is the quintessential icon of Japan. Not only is it a near-perfect
conical-shaped volcano, but its location, somewhat isolated from
other mountains and visible from the sea, leaves it in solitary
splendor.
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| The Great Wave off Kanagawa |
The Edo Period ukiyo-e painter
Hokusai (died in 1849) made Mt. Fuji famous with a series of
woodblock prints called
Thirty-six
Views of Mount Fuji
(富嶽三十六景).
The
pictures were designed as posters to attract the then flourishing tourist trade to the hot
spring inns in the Izu Peninsula and the Fuji Lakes region where the
best views of the volcano can be seen. The most famous of Hokusai's 36 Views is The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
With
this idealized image of the Mount Fuji region in mind we decided to
take a short getaway trip to stay at hot spring inns in Izu and the
Fuji Lakes region. Going east, Mount Fuji becomes visible from the
bullet train after the city of Shizuoka. You can see it in the
distance, sometimes in a fairly pristine condition (top photo), but more often with houses or
factories and other businesses in front of it. The gateway to the
area is the city of Mishima from which you can take local trains or
buses to go south into the Izu Peninsula or north to Lake Kawaguchi in the Fuji Lakes
region.
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| Lake Kawaguchi |
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| 1st view of Mt. Fuji from hotel room |
Our
son joined us from Tokyo in Mishima and we took a local train to a
lovely old hot spring inn near Shuzenji Temple on the Izu Peninsula.
The following morning we returned to Mishima to take a bus to Lake
Kawaguchi (above) where we had a hot spring hotel reservation. The bus
circles around the eastern slope of Mount Fuji which is mostly
characterized by urban blight in that you can see the volcano through
a thick haze of industrialization: factories, smokestacks, power
pylons and lines, and shops and restaurants. The view from the bus
window was a heavy dose of modern reality, but the icing on the cake
was the view of Mount Fuji from our hotel room. A picture (above) is worth
1000 words in this case.
With
Hokusai's Thirty-six
Views of Mount Fuji
in mind, the idea occurred to me of doing a more up-to-date series: Seventeen Modern Views of Mount Fuji.
From the Bullet Train
From the local train and bus
From the hotel
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| nostalgic Fuji |
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| Mt. Fuji's hat |
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| there's got to be a morning after... |
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