Five views of Mount Fuji

Hi I am Rafe. You know, the nine year old with the terrible hairstyle. The silent one with the death stare! Anyway, lets get on with the post.

One of the most famous and iconic and Japany things about Japan is Mount Fuji. The 3776 metres high one. Hokusai made a book called Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji, one of the most famous being The Great Wave off Kanagawa. We attempted the same but failed miserably with only five, and most of those are not very good!

Here is the first one. We are on a boat across Lake Ashi in the far background you might catch a glimpse of an incredibly clouded Mount Fuji. We were on this boat to the other end of the lake to get the cable car.

This second view of Mount Fuji is from that cable car. Probably the best photo. I hope you didn’t have high hopes! The cable car runs up a valley between Mount Daigatake and Mount Kami. There are four stops and the gap between the first and second had this photo. Over the third and fourth you can see the hot steam bubbling from the fumeroles. Be glad that the cable car is smell tight as the sulphur smells like rotten eggs.

This one is even worse! You don’t even need to use the word ‘arguably’ – it is the worst! We took this from near the pier which the pirate ship departs from. Not much else to say, you can hardly see the mountain.

This was from the Skywalk. The longest suspension foot bridge in Japan with a length of 400 metres. You can just make out the outline of the inclining slopes in this one.

After we left Hakone on the train we got this final view of Mount Fuji from the bullet train. The bullet train was really fast and hurt my ears in the tunnels.

Seeing real original Hokusai Mount Fuji prints in Osaka

We found out that there is a gallery in Osaka that has a collection of real Hokusai prints from the 36 views series! It is called the Osaka Ukiyoe Museum and it is in a shopping mall above a restaurant which was weird. But seeing the Hokusai prints was amazing. They have fifteen and my favourite is called “Mishima Pass in Kai Province”. This is what it looks like: