So at 8:30 we woke up, trudged out of our hotel and stumbled onto the subway, forgetting that it was still Friday, and still rush hour.
I don't know what kind of rush hour subway experiences you've had in the past, but I doubt they've involved being crammed into a subway car with 21,000 silent Japanese businessmen. Seriously – cans of sardines have made more noise and had more room than we did that morning. Leather hand straps dangled uselessly and silently from chrome bars, which was just as well since my arms were pinned to the suits on either side of me holding me up.
Now you might think that disembarking from such a crowded train car would be a challenge—far from it. Since we were getting off at a major transfer point, all you had to do was hold on firmly to your bag, and let the current sweep you out of the train and onto the platform like a deflating balloon. I don't even think anyone actually walked off the train—we were all just expelled from the difference in relative pressures or something.
We emerged from the subway, managed to board the bus that would take us to Mt. Fuji, and immediately hit a problem. Apparently Tokyo's super-futuristic silent highways still don't have an built-in accident prevention system, and in the morning rush, someone had an accident and blocked two lanes. Not to fear, our lovely tour guide assured us that our driver Mr. Akahira* was the best driver in all of Tokyo (that's a lot of drivers, mind you), and was taking us on a shortcut around the accident.
*(not his real name)
As our tour bus exited the city of Tokyo, our tour guide Mrs. Hiroko** regaled us with stories and legends of yore and yonder, teaching us a bit about Japanese culture all the while. For example, we learned that the Japanese believe that spirits inhabit everything around us: the rocks, rivers, trees, and fields. Particularly holy are the mountains, which due to their proximity to the gods, are much taller than regular lands (though I may have that backwards).
**(Actually her name)
Mt. Fuji, in particular is the domain of two goddesses: the beautiful flower princess (whose name escapes me at the moment and I won't even bother to try and fake) who controls the summit, and her ugly sister the rock princess, who controls the base of the mountain. Legend has it that the god of…farming was it??...saw the beautiful flower princess one day and decided to marry her. Her father, the king agreed on the condition that he marry the ugly daughter also. The god of farming agreed, but married only the flower princess anyways.
When the king heard this, he was as you can imagine, pretty annoyed. In fact, he banished the flower princess to the top of Mount Fuji and decreed that neither the god of farming nor any of his future descendants would be allowed to see her ever again.***
***Complete fabrication
Looking back, I suppose it would have been nice if Mrs. Hiroto had just told us this quaint legend upfront instead of an hour into our tour. The four of us could have asked for our money back, and everyone else on the bus would have had a nice trip. Because what my parents neglected to tell me while growing up (and what it took a trip to Mt. Fuji to figure out) was that I was some great-great-great distant grand-nephew to the farming god that so royally pissed off the flower princess' father.
Now, I don't know this for sure (though come to think of it, I have had something of a way with plants my whole life…), but it's the only logical explanation I have after what happened that day at Mt. Fuji. Never before in my life have I been so thoroughly toyed with, so maniacally manipulated, and so utterly abused by the forces of Nature.
If you haven't already heard, we didn't get to see Mt. Fuji. It rained, it was cold, it was windy, and there was fog everywhere. The entire way to the 5th station (the highest the bus could take us), our tour guide kept saying "She is a shy mountain," as a way of explaining the fog shrouding the summit. She evidently didn't know that she had an ancestor of the Fishing god in her midst.
She's up there somewhere...
We spent maybe 30 minutes on the mountain herself huddled together to protect ourselves from the driving wind and rain. In between gusts of wind and torrents of rain, we dashed to a small temple dedicated to the Rock goddess. It was a modest affair—just a simple shrine watched over by a monk hawking religious knickknacks. We snapped a few pictures of where the summit allegedly was. I dropped a hundred yen into a little box and a fortune dropped out. I asked the man behind the counter what it meant, and he gave me the thumbs up. I took that as a sign that the weather was turning and the sun would come out.
Up the hill to the Temple
Shortly after, we hurried out of the rain back onto the bus and departed for lunch. We enjoyed our meal in a hotel restaurant, and admired the greenery out back in the sunlight that was beginning to peek through the clouds. Finishing lunch, we reboarded the bus, feeling optimistic about our chances for the pleasure boat cruise. We shouldn't have.
Almost as soon as we departed for the lake, the fog rolled back. We spent the next hour or so either shrouded in mist or driving through rain as the clouds rolled over the dark green mountains next to the highway.
We arrived at the boat terminal, and ambled into the building. Across the lake, a pirate ship drifted to shore (we assumed it was another cruise ship, not a ship bent on wanton rampage and pillage) as the lush green mountains plunged into the water behind it. Fifteen minutes later, it was time to get on the boat, and the rain picked up again. At least the boat was covered, and we'd stay dry.
This is as far as we ever saw across the lake
The engines growled to life, the lines were cast and the boat disembarked. Before it had turned around to set sail across the lake, the fog rolled in, thick as whipped cream. We were on the top deck of the boat, and we couldn't even see the water below us. Hiroko told us that somewhere through the fog, the shy mountain was once again hiding her face.
Fifteen minutes later, the boat docked, the fog cleared, and the rain started up again. We shuffled back onto the bus, where Ms. Hiroko told us that unfortunately, due to the wind, the cable cars up the mountain next to Mt. Fuji were closed, but luckily, we'd be going to a wonderful art museum instead! (She always did know how to put a positive spin on things).
The art museum was alright, I guess. There was a kaleidoscope museum attached, which was amusing for about half an hour (admittedly, it was kind of cool taking pictures as the giant kaleidoscopes twirled). But by this point, the four of us were cold, wet, tired, hungry, and cranky. We hadn't paid to see the insides of a giant kaleidoscope, we'd paid to see Mt. Fuji from seven different angles, and hadn't caught a single glimpse of her.
Imprisoned by the Fog
An hour later, we trudged back through the rain and onto the bus. Ms. Hiroko tried to cheer us up by noting how the kind people at the museum had turned the escalator on in the other direction so we wouldn't have to walk all the way down the hill in the rain.
Later that night, in an Irish pub in Ginza, the four of us sat around, nursing pints of real beer, mulling over the day that had passed. We had only just managed to dry ourselves off and warm ourselves up, and were feeling pretty down at how the day had turned out.
"Well, look at it this way" I said, doing my best to channel Ms. Hiroko's unflappable optimism. "The day could not have gotten any worse. It really was quite impressive—we didn't see a single thing we were supposed to."
"I guess," my companions sighed, not really feeling what was so impressive about that.
"It's not like the day was lacking of things to see either. Look, this tour was a bust, no arguing that. But it was such a completely, utterly, devastatingly busted tour, that you can't help but feel impressed. For that many things to go that wrong – somebody really didn't want us to see that mountain today."
No comments:
Post a Comment