Fujiyama High Lights

Panoramic views of Lake Hamana Ookusa Mountain Observatory, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Friday (29/10)

Sri Hartati Samhadi executive summary by Darmansjah Godjali

over Gotemba viewed from Hakone Park

The air was cold and foggy morning greeted us in Gotemba City, a city located at an altitude of 450-600 meters behind the back of Mount Fuji, Shizuoka Perfecture region, central Japan.

 Shizuoka Perfecture region

This is the second day of our visit in Japan. Tomiyaua Yoshiko, our guides are very diligent to announce the latest developments weather forecast, has reminded the evening, the weather today will drop again and the opportunity will not rain 100 percent.

He suggested we put on a bit thick jacket or raincoat. Even mention the weather forecast, typhoon was approaching Tokyo and Shizuoka city the day before our visit.

Fortunately the storm was expected to be visited the places we visited that day by coincidence his position a little distance from the Pacific Ocean. However, cold air no doubt make body shivered too. From here we drove up to the Fuji Visitor Center to watch from the nearby snow-clad mountain peaks that are very famous.

 the Fuji Visitor Center

Unfortunately, the weather during the later is very unfriendly. That day we were supposed to go up to the fifth station Fujiyama which is the final limit for the access of vehicles to climb the mountain altitude 3776 meters. This place is the closest and most strategic post for tourists for a close look at Fuji which is said to have four different faces in four different seasons that.

the fifth station Fujiyama

However, suddenly in the middle of the trip was announced that the day was heading at an altitude of 2400 meters above sea level is closed to all visitors due to safety considerations due to hurricanes.

Suddenly instantaneous burst disappointment and grunt like a choir from the rest of the bus carrying a group journalists from Asia and Australia. Failed to have seen saruju (snow in Japanese) at the top of Fuji.

Although early November when we arrived there was still an atmosphere of spring, one of the best seasons to visit Japan, the outdoor temperature is rapidly changing our very unfavorable. On several occasions, temperatures drop rapidly approaching winter temperatures, accompanied by rain and cyclone. In fact, if there are no hurricanes, in fact we could see Fuji right in the front of our bus.

We were less fortunate. According to Yoshi (the nickname our guide), just two days in a year peak of Fuji could be seen with the naked eye from the position we were at that time. And by chance one of them while we were visiting there. We just saw a thick white fog that blanketed the entire stretch of the ridge, with visibility of only about 10 meters.

As a result, we have to settle for just looking at the pictures taped to the board of Fuji and Fuji Visitor Center wall, or through a projector that continues to play. We also never had the opportunity to see Fuji-Goka, five series of lakes that surround the famous volcano that last erupted in 1707-1708.

Fuji-Goka

Some of us even have to content themselves photographed with Fuji pictorial wall background. Perhaps, for evidence or markers that we ever set foot in this place.

Fuji Visitor Center the day the atmosphere was not as busy as usual. Visitors can be counted on the fingers, perhaps because of the weather. According to information at the Fuji Visitor Center, the best time to see Fuji is during the winter when the sky was clear and the air was too humid. However, Fuji is located in two perfecture, Shizuoka and Yamanashi itself, is only open to the public during the summer climbing.

Fujiyama become one of the attractions and Japan's premier tourist destination, with a number of foreign tourists visiting this place continues to increase from year to year. A third of Fuji climbers were strangers.

In fact, hundreds of years ago that is considered sacred mountain is virtually restricted areas for foreigners, but also for women.

Written documentation in one wall of the Fuji Visitor Center said, the first foreigner to set foot in this place is the British Ambassador to Japan first, Sir Rutherford Alcock, namely at the end of the Edo period in 1860. Ascent Alcock took a big mission related country and Commercial Treaty of Amity (Friendship and Commercial Treaty) Japanese-English. In addition, also to see for himself whether the Japanese citizens who live far from the hustle and bustle of the capital city of Tokyo (then still called Edo) still has a sense of hostility towards foreigners.

However, historical events that apparently angered the Japanese who regard it as a form of defamation against Fuji who had been their great-glorifying. Local mass media do not want to miss, it also lowers the report that describes the wrath of gods ruling the Fuji due to the invasion of foreigners in the place and the coverage of the strangers who disappeared while trying to conquer the sacred mountain.

Today, Fuji is no longer taboo for foreigners. Through various promotional incentive, this place is like calling all travelers from around the world to visit, of course, do not forget to disburse foreign exchange prosperity of local communities that participated.

Natural Carpet Overlay

Until we climbed back to the bus and the bus slid back into the city-this time toward Takeyama-fog would not go as well and drizzle would not stop as well. However, our disappointment somewhat relieved by the panorama of nature surrounding the back of Fujiyama.

Along the way for 1.5 hours on a bus that took us up and well on our way back down to town, we the opportunity to watch the slopes of the mountain like a carpet covered expanse of trees with leaves that started to change colors like a painting of nature, spread out like colorful carpet that blanketed the mountains of bodies. The difference is, this is much more beautiful than the painting.

Some of us do not have time to sleep because the previous sleep on the plane, but my eyes kept awake since Yoshi story who would not stop along the way too good to pass up. Timber forest we passed was not as dense tropical rain forest in Borneo or Sumatra first, but turned out to save a long history of the triumph of the Japanese rulers of the past, which sometimes may be bitter for the majority of ordinary Japanese citizens.

The entire stretch of forest at the foot of Fuji, according to Yoshi, formerly under the authority soghun Takugawa. The wood in it is a wealth of valuable and well guarded by the shogunate. No one shall be cut down or cut the branches once. For those who dare to violate, no mercy, the death penalty has been waiting for. Although the soghun long gone, the forest is sustainably maintained until now.

Our disappointment is fully cured when the dream to see Fuji with our own eyes finally accomplished as well. This time of the Shinkansen window on our way back to Tokyo from Nagoya on the final day visit to Japan. Fuji spectacular body size, with the peak of the snow-capped symmetrical cone-shaped silvery, gray glistening under a clear sky and blazing sun. It's not fun to look closely at his back, but okay.

I promise, someday will come back here again ....