Seeing Mount Fuji was one of the most memorable moments during my first Japan trip. My knowledge about Mount Fuji came from studying brands at university years ago when our Marketing professor casually mentioned that Quicksilver uses it as its logo. Somehow that piece of information stuck with me, but that’s all I knew about Mount Fuji before my first visit to Japan when my friends added a day trip to Mount Fuji to our itinerary at the last minute.
On that day, we woke up early, got dressed, and decided to have breakfast near the bus station so that we wouldn’t miss the tour bus. As usual, the Japanese breakfast food we had was fantastic.
Mount Fuji Kami
Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan, is known as a Shintai. Shintai is a sacred body where Kami, the spirits or phenomena that are worshipped in the religion of Shinto, live. I get why a Kami chose Fuji as a Shintai, it’s pretty majestic indeed. On that day it looked a bit reddish, the colour of autumn, welcoming us from far away.
The bus ride uphill was fun, and the scenery was gorgeous. An unbelievable-but-super-cool thing happened – our bus drove through clouds! Yes, clouds, those white things in the sky that look like cotton candy. It was only for a few seconds, and I needed a few more seconds to realize what had just happened but WHOAA… I now know that it’s possible to literally walk on a cloud.
Hiker Pit Stop
We finally stopped at the Kawaguchiko fifth station because that was the furthest the bus could go on that day. It’s a hiker pit-stop point; they have a few shops and restaurants, a shrine and an inn.
We hung out there for a while. This area was considerably colder; I kept myself warm by roaming the shops and snapping a few photos. It was nice to see that Bahasa Indonesia is one of the languages they use in the store.
Postcard from Mount Fuji
Sending a postcard from there was considered unique because it’s 12,388 feet above sea level (kind of like sending postcards from the Vatican, which is located inside the city of Rome, it will be from the Vatican and not Italy), so I sent my parents a postcard from Mount Fuji.
Ps. In June 2013, Mount Fuji and its surroundings were registered as a World Heritage site.
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[…] about Kami was when we were on the bus on the way to Mount Fuji. After we finished singing the Mount Fuji song as directed by the guide, he told us that Mount Fuji is a Kami and proceeded to explain more […]