Upon Fujiyama
A week has passed since I last posted here. If I've remained silent that long it's not because nothing has happened, but because many things have, which tessellated so efficiently as to leave few crevices of time in which to write them up.
First, let me mention the very pleasant evening I had in Fuse, less than 15 minutes' walk from my Osaka AirBnB, with my friend Irina and her fresh-minted husband Marko. Marko, an excellent cook as well as an Olympian kendo contestant, rustled up some delicious pumpkin pasta, and Irina read tarot for me - oddly enough, the first time anyone has ever done this, despite my having so many witches among my acquaintance. Altogether, a good evening.
Shortly after that, though, I was on my way (via Mishima) to Fuji-Q Highland, where I stayed a night in search of Thomas the Tank Engine memorabilia - for Fuji-Q is home, not only to one of the world's most intense roller coasters, Fujiyama, but also to Thomas Land, a theme park within a theme park.
On the way there, I celebrated the Tokaido Shinkansen's 60th birthday by way of a commemorative ekiben:
The day was rather wet when I arrived, and my window (orientated towards towards the mountain) showed nothing but grey. Fuji was not receiving visitors:
View of Mount Fuji from my hotel window
I comforted myself that, should the Big One happen while I was there, at least the drizzle would help put the fire out. (I know that's not how volcanoes work.) Meanwhile, I had a very nice pizza at the hotel's Macaroni Restaurant (I recommend the fennel sausage). According the hotel website, the pizza was cooked over wood harvested from the slopes of Fuji itself, but honestly it was hard to tell.
The following morning, Fuji had decided to show herself, and did so in various modes and moods over the next few hours:
As you can see, Fuji has many cloud coats, but unfortunately no snow at all. It's the latest in the year that it's been snowless since records began, apparently. Meanwhile, I didn't have to wait for Fuji-Q Highland to see Thomas merchandise. The convenience store in the hotel (which contained an alarming instruction at the bottom of its shopping baskets)...
.... also had a stock of such typically Sodorian items as Thomas chopsticks and Thomas furikake.
Most excitingly, there was even a Thomas-themed room directly opposite mine, which I was able to sneak into the following afternoon when they were doing the cleaning. Don't you yearn to stay here?
(Okay, me neither.) I won't spam you with the many, many Thomas-related pictures I took inside the park itself. I'll just add, for variety, that despite not being by any means a roller coaster afficianado I did have a go on the notorious Fujiyama - largely because you're only allowed to do so if you're under 65, and with just 3.5 years left it seemed necessary to give it a go. Also, I'd paid for a ticket, after all. No loose objects allowed on board, of course, so no photos, but this is what I was up against:
I can't pretend that no pang of regret assailed me as I crested its perilous ridge, but despite the 3.5 G-force and a few rattled bones it wasn't as bad as the numerous warning posters had suggested. I'm glad I did it once and have no desire to do it again, as the wise are supposed to say of climbing Fuji itself.
I then spent five days in Tokyo, based in a budget hotel near Shinjuku station, which suited me well enough despite its budgetness. I'd love to tell you about it all in detail, but essentially it consisted of meeting various people (academics and ex-lodgers, primarily) for lunch or dinner, as well as giving a couple of lectures - or rather the same lecture twice. (It was on giants in Victorian children's fiction, if you're interested.) Here's a breakdown:
30th: Dinner with Haruka and Yuko in an Omotesando izakaya (mostly seafood, but also chicken thighs of miraculous softness)
31st: Lecture at Taisho University in Sugamo, lunch there (fish) with Yoshiko and her publisher Manabe-san, dinner with Satomi (meat 'n' mochi gratin) in Nishiogikubo
1st: Meeting and lunch with Hiroe in Yokohama University's bright and shiny Minato Mirai campus (salad and Provencal friands), tea with Yuki in Iidabashi (just coffee for me), dinner with Miho, Hiroshi and their dog Chubby in Nakano (oden and yakisoba)
2nd: Lunch with Rei and Shuzo in Kanda (moussaka, blue cheese and apple pie), catching up with conference and attending reception at Kyoritsu University in Jimbocho (various).
3rd: Keynote at Kyoritsu, lunch with Hiroko in Jimbocho (chicken curry), lavish post-conference party back at Nakano (various and plentiful)
.
On the morning of the 4th I caught the shinkansen back to Osaka, and went straight to the suburb where my friend Caron Cooper was giving a scone-making workshop. Caron owns Fosse Farmhouse, the B'n'B near Castle Combe that was used as the model for the anime Kiniro Mosaic, and many of her guests over recent years have been KinMoza fans on pilgrimage. This event was especially for those fans, and she was using my former lodger Ayako as an interpreter. Two of her other helpers were nieces of my friend Noriko, to whom I'd also introduced her, so I felt I had a bit of a stake in the event. Anyway, Caron did a good job of recreating rural Wiltshire in suburban Osaka, and the scones were excellent.
And so, "home" to Higashiosaka and my own little AirBnB. Today, I did almost nothing at all!
First, let me mention the very pleasant evening I had in Fuse, less than 15 minutes' walk from my Osaka AirBnB, with my friend Irina and her fresh-minted husband Marko. Marko, an excellent cook as well as an Olympian kendo contestant, rustled up some delicious pumpkin pasta, and Irina read tarot for me - oddly enough, the first time anyone has ever done this, despite my having so many witches among my acquaintance. Altogether, a good evening.
Shortly after that, though, I was on my way (via Mishima) to Fuji-Q Highland, where I stayed a night in search of Thomas the Tank Engine memorabilia - for Fuji-Q is home, not only to one of the world's most intense roller coasters, Fujiyama, but also to Thomas Land, a theme park within a theme park.
On the way there, I celebrated the Tokaido Shinkansen's 60th birthday by way of a commemorative ekiben:
The day was rather wet when I arrived, and my window (orientated towards towards the mountain) showed nothing but grey. Fuji was not receiving visitors:
View of Mount Fuji from my hotel window
I comforted myself that, should the Big One happen while I was there, at least the drizzle would help put the fire out. (I know that's not how volcanoes work.) Meanwhile, I had a very nice pizza at the hotel's Macaroni Restaurant (I recommend the fennel sausage). According the hotel website, the pizza was cooked over wood harvested from the slopes of Fuji itself, but honestly it was hard to tell.
The following morning, Fuji had decided to show herself, and did so in various modes and moods over the next few hours:
As you can see, Fuji has many cloud coats, but unfortunately no snow at all. It's the latest in the year that it's been snowless since records began, apparently. Meanwhile, I didn't have to wait for Fuji-Q Highland to see Thomas merchandise. The convenience store in the hotel (which contained an alarming instruction at the bottom of its shopping baskets)...
.... also had a stock of such typically Sodorian items as Thomas chopsticks and Thomas furikake.
Most excitingly, there was even a Thomas-themed room directly opposite mine, which I was able to sneak into the following afternoon when they were doing the cleaning. Don't you yearn to stay here?
(Okay, me neither.) I won't spam you with the many, many Thomas-related pictures I took inside the park itself. I'll just add, for variety, that despite not being by any means a roller coaster afficianado I did have a go on the notorious Fujiyama - largely because you're only allowed to do so if you're under 65, and with just 3.5 years left it seemed necessary to give it a go. Also, I'd paid for a ticket, after all. No loose objects allowed on board, of course, so no photos, but this is what I was up against:
I can't pretend that no pang of regret assailed me as I crested its perilous ridge, but despite the 3.5 G-force and a few rattled bones it wasn't as bad as the numerous warning posters had suggested. I'm glad I did it once and have no desire to do it again, as the wise are supposed to say of climbing Fuji itself.
I then spent five days in Tokyo, based in a budget hotel near Shinjuku station, which suited me well enough despite its budgetness. I'd love to tell you about it all in detail, but essentially it consisted of meeting various people (academics and ex-lodgers, primarily) for lunch or dinner, as well as giving a couple of lectures - or rather the same lecture twice. (It was on giants in Victorian children's fiction, if you're interested.) Here's a breakdown:
30th: Dinner with Haruka and Yuko in an Omotesando izakaya (mostly seafood, but also chicken thighs of miraculous softness)
31st: Lecture at Taisho University in Sugamo, lunch there (fish) with Yoshiko and her publisher Manabe-san, dinner with Satomi (meat 'n' mochi gratin) in Nishiogikubo
1st: Meeting and lunch with Hiroe in Yokohama University's bright and shiny Minato Mirai campus (salad and Provencal friands), tea with Yuki in Iidabashi (just coffee for me), dinner with Miho, Hiroshi and their dog Chubby in Nakano (oden and yakisoba)
2nd: Lunch with Rei and Shuzo in Kanda (moussaka, blue cheese and apple pie), catching up with conference and attending reception at Kyoritsu University in Jimbocho (various).
3rd: Keynote at Kyoritsu, lunch with Hiroko in Jimbocho (chicken curry), lavish post-conference party back at Nakano (various and plentiful)
.
On the morning of the 4th I caught the shinkansen back to Osaka, and went straight to the suburb where my friend Caron Cooper was giving a scone-making workshop. Caron owns Fosse Farmhouse, the B'n'B near Castle Combe that was used as the model for the anime Kiniro Mosaic, and many of her guests over recent years have been KinMoza fans on pilgrimage. This event was especially for those fans, and she was using my former lodger Ayako as an interpreter. Two of her other helpers were nieces of my friend Noriko, to whom I'd also introduced her, so I felt I had a bit of a stake in the event. Anyway, Caron did a good job of recreating rural Wiltshire in suburban Osaka, and the scones were excellent.
And so, "home" to Higashiosaka and my own little AirBnB. Today, I did almost nothing at all!