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.

Grey Kamakura- missed nori-mono

I started the day at Kenchoji, which is the oldest Zen temple in Kamakura and an impressive wooden temple complex. The trail started up behind the temple climbing steeply straight away via a long sequence of stairs to a temple which had a lookout to view towards Fuji-san. As you can see the day was pretty clouded over and I only got glimpses of the very base at points during the day.

The hike was a good long walk with some steep climbing. It was mostly through deciduous forests, so lots of bare trees. The trail gave fantastic panoramic views of the coast (which photos don’t quiet capture). That coastal view made me think of home and I thought about lots of people as I walked along. At one point I got a view toward Fuji with just the very base visible below clouds. I didn't think to take a photograph because at this stage I didn't realise the turn my work was going to take- collecting the variety of views and moods- also with so many clear January days I had no idea of the grey that was coming...

I have found that the weather forecast changes pretty rapidly here. Rain was forecast for Friday- which was why I had headed out of town on Wednesday and Thursday. It held off till I got to Zuisenji and then started to come down pretty heavily, making me head off before I wanted to really. It poured the whole way back to town and meant I took pretty straight route and didn’t see that many temples.

Of course half way back to Tokyo it cleared and the sky cleared as I passed Yokohama and I got a view of Fuji-san from base to top, much like the blue evening view the day before. Little did I realise on that day, that it would be my last view of Fuji in the afternoon and that it was going to take another 6 weeks before I would get a chance to photograph the mountain from the Yokohama JR line.