Cable car- Hakone

Starting a wordless wednesday thread.

From the archive: Cable car ride in Hakone, Feburary 2010

Arrival #2- air Fuji

I have been going over in my mind whether it would be possible to see Fuji this trip. I considered a trip to the Five Lakes National Park, but knew I really wouldn’t have time. So I was beginning to settle on one possible sighting, cloud and humidity haze dependent, from the Shinkansen.

When I was last in Japan I asked people where their favourite view of Fuji was and a lot of them said from the plane. I had struggled quiet a bit with my fear of flying last year and so I ruled that view out. I couldn’t imagine myself taking a cheap Japanese flight to the south of the island.

I have been feeling fine though these last months and unusually for me was happy to sit near the window and even look out and take photos. As I was thinking about whether I should fly to Nagoya to get a chance to see Fuji, the Captain came on over the PA system and announced that Fuji was visible.

How I love this mountain. It was just so incredibly beautiful to watch the mountain come closer as we tracked towards Tokyo.

And then just disappears when we descended into the haze. It was amazing and I feel very satisfied with this view, so now I can relax and just concentrate on finishing my work for Aichi.

magnetic glimpse- enoshima

magnetic glimpse- enoshima, originally uploaded by raquelmonkey.

I have been spending the day editing out cars and people from the background video for a new work that I am going to show at Aichi Triennale. Watching all those cars disappear made me wonder whether I really should have been adding them in..

This is the first time I have blogged a video over from flickr it seems to have compressed a bit- I just tried to view it in full screen and that was better. click here to view at flickr

Any helpful advice bloggers? Lucas?

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 .

Peter's meshi

I see Fuji everywhere.

I go to a contemporary art exhibition and buy postcards of woodcuts depicting Fuji.

At the first open day at Tokyo Wonder-site I meant Peter Bellars. When he offered me a choice of the various images on his business card, I choose this Fuji sunset. I think it's in Hakone (maybe Moto-Hakone?) near Lake Ashi. At this stage I didn't know how addicted I would become to seeing the volcanic mountain.

The first encounter

I arrived in Tokyo on an incredibly clear day. On the bus from Narita I had my first Fuji encounter. At one point the freeway went over a rise and in the far distance I saw Mt Fuji- snow covered from top to base, with no cloud on the peak.

The first photo is taken with a wide angle lens so Fuji looks further away than it appeared to me, however when I saw it, it was like it filled my field of vision. It seemed to take up the whole sky and horizon even at that distance of more than 300kms away. It completely took over my being, an emotional response I could not have predicted. I had read about the cult of looking for views of Mt Fuji in my Hiking guide book and thought it was an odd hobby.

It's a bit hard to see Fuji in that first shot- if you click here it will take you to Flickr where you can down load a larger image.

These pictures do not really capture the moment, but there are my first nori-mono (spotting Fuji from a moving vehicle) shots.