No glimpse shinkansen

late blogging of an August 1st glimpses

The only chance I was thinking that I would get to see Fuji, on this August trip, was from the Shinkansen heading to Nagoya. I could see on the morning of my departure from the hazy view of Tokyo from Andre's balcony that it was not going to be a great Fuji viewing day. But I was still pretty surprised at how invisible the mountain was, as it is pretty in your face last time I took the train south.

I consoled myself with a shinkansen snack-

The cheese was indeed crunchy, like it had been freeze dried, and very salty. It would probably be really good with a glass of beer instead of a mid- morning snack.

Shrouded

Heading back to Tokyo, today was sunny with clouds, so was not sure how Fuji will appear. But as there is still probably a fair amount of snow on the peak I thought it would most likely be shrouded in clouds, but as I had never seen this view I was pretty excited about being close enough to get that vista.

The first shot is of one of the rivers on the edge of Nagoya so you can see how the sky mostly was that day and appreciate the micro climate that Fuji produces with its height and snow expanse.

A speeding Bullet-

heading for Hiroshima. After staying up the whole night to pack up my flat and studio, I made a dash for the last possible connection to make the first Shinkasen for Hiroshima. The idea was to maximise my chances to see Fuji. It was pretty early and probably half an hour more would have given bluer skies but here is a lot of cloud around today so later might have been worse- I think the guessing and acquiring of the viewing knowledge is what fascinates me about Fuji –viewing.

Not far into the trip- just after the official announcements- one being that you could use wireless on the train- the first views of Fuji appeared after coming out of a tunnel.

I was so excited about the wireless, that I could blog seeing Fuji in the moment, that I almost missed the first viewing point. As it turned out you needed a Japanese account to use the internet- and I was so cross eyed with tiredness that I had to sleep.

The second view is again coming out a tunnel and the mountain profile at this point immediately reminded me of this Hokusai print- Fuji in the spring breeze (?) Not sure will have to look it up and correct this.

I didn't know that Fuji had a hump. One of the mysterious things about Fuji is its hard to orient where you are in relation to it, from it's profile- maybe this is just because I don't know it.

Pretty sure the last point is disappearing into a tunnel too- although I was pretty delirious so who knows.

Update: the Hokusai print is called Red Fuji or Mount Fuji in Clear Weather .