Mount Fuji - climb Fuji or admire from a distance

When it comes to filming, Mount Fuji can be as difficult
to work with as Val Kilmer!

Could Mount Fuji be erupting right now? See what kind of state Fuji-san is in right now

One late winter's Saturday morning, I purchased the cheapest JR train day pass (¥4,000) at Nagoya station with the hope of a leisurely clickety-clack to the Yamanashi prefecture to photograph and film Mount Fuji in what I believed to be one of the best times of the year. The local JR trains are great if you seek transportation which don't require you to personally brake, accelerate, have any sense of direction or fork out hundreds of dollars to get from here to there. Sure, the Shinkansen is the closest thing Japan has to a teleportation device, but it teleports money from your bank balance even quicker, so keep an eye on that...back to the story...

Four hours later and itching with anticipation not only to see Mount Fuji, but eager to get off the wonky standing room train car, a middle aged woman excitedly broke society's unwritten no talking on the train rule by pointing and exclaiming about what could only be Mount Fuji. I leaned my 186cm frame down to the window and I wasn't prepared for what I saw; covered in a light fog and appearing as an impossibly massive apparition, Mount Fuji had unveiled its ghostly self only a few kilometers from the JR train line. No sooner had I switched on my camera to capture this incredible scene than the Fuji train station blocked my view: Oh well, there will be plenty more where that came from.

After inhaling lunch, it was time to board some more public transportation and head to a prime spot for filming and photography. Sure enough, a park with unusually early blooming cherry blossoms provided an ideal location. In only an hour later, the ghostly veil of fog had lifted, leaving the world's most recognizable volcano to stand tall against a sky blue background...

...for a while.

Thirty minutes after setting up and shooting film it was as though Mount Fuji had grown tired of camera lenses and awestruck eyes, and seemingly turned its summit crater into a giant vacuum, drawing in thick cloud in which it enveloped its entire self. Upon my return to the bus, I saw numerous aspiring Fuji photographers with a look of disdain on their fresh eyes as they absorbed the scene before them: Fuji-san had tucked itself in for the night with a futon made of clouds.

Mt Fuji: Nature's very own Prima donna!!! Unreasonable, temperamental, a little egotistical (being numero uno mountain in Japan) and although frustrating at times, cannot done without.

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