Club Chaos, Tokyo, Japan (Feb 2006)

It is Saturday night in Tokyo and we are going out on the town. I planned this weeks before we got on the plane, laboriously poring over tourist attractions, maps, and train schedules, to route us here on a Saturday night while still being in Kyoto for the flea market and having time for our jaunts to Hiroshima and Mt. Fuji. I’m tired, we’ve been here a week and go go go, out like a light every night when my head hits the pillow, or the floor as the case may be here in Taito Ryokan, up before the sun and out the door to see what we can see, do what we can do. I may not have much gas left in the tank but I’m determined to hit the Tokyo club scene.

Carefully planned and timed, as always, we are headed out to the train station at 11:40pm. The trains will stop running at midnight and not begin again until 5am, and we are going to Roppongi which is all the way across the city so we are going to stay out until the trains go again. There’s a Canadian couple at our ryokan, they are going out too, we have both selected goth/industrial clubs to visit from fragmented internet information and word of mouth referrals. Different clubs, but in the same district, the nightlife is mostly in Roppongi and Shinjuku, so we are headed to the same station at the same time.

The five of us foreigners are the only people in the station, elaborately attired in crenellated shades of black. Two lines intersect at this station, the red and the mauve, a train pulls up and we get on. The Canadians question us briefly, are we sure this is the right train they don’t think so, Debi assures them that I am fantastic at this, Navigatrix Extraordinaire, I have not led us astray once in my untangling of the various transit systems.

They get on the train with us, we go one stop and it’s the end of the line, I have led us astray and it is nearing midnight, the witching hour or perhaps it should be called the taxi hour here in Tokyo. We got away with it, the last train of the night pulls up and off we go, a smooth ride across and around the sprawling, dense, alien city, picking up more passengers as we progress, everyone is headed to Roppongi on the last train of the night.

Disembarking, midnight. In our calibration of transit timing and disco napping, a few salient details got missed, like bathrooms and cigarettes, but we have time, lots of time, we will be out until 5am. The train station in Roppongi is surrounded by slick clubs and restaurants, seems to be mostly geared towards tourists but this is not for us, we are wending our way further out to the edges to a local club but first we need to find a bathroom. There’s a Starbucks here, there’s a Starbucks everywhere and I have thus far refused permission to Debi and Chris to stop in one despite their desire for familiar coffee, it’s bad coffee in Seattle and it’s still bad coffee in Tokyo, they are consistent that way. However, Starbucks does have a very lenient bathroom policy, so they are going to get their lattes this time as we visit what I have dubbed Bathrooms Around the World.

Caffeinated anew, we set forth again, we just need to find cigarettes on the way to the club. We walk, and walk, and the clubs and restaurants peter out, thinner on the ground, the stores are all closed and strangely not a cigarette vending machine in sight, surprising in this country of whiskey, beer, condoms, cigarettes, porn, and small plastic totems all available for a quantity of yen coins inserted in anonymous slots.

We are almost to the club when we see a convenience store, rush towards it only to determine after a great deal of pantomime that they do not sell cigarettes. It’s a nightlife district, and we are puzzled by the lack of readily available implements of sin, isn’t that kind of the point? There is more gesturing, there is a place further down, we will overshoot the club and go there and then retrace our steps.

A deserted block or two later and we see the sign for the club, discreet but present, and at least I was right about that, I have not led us astray twice in a row. We keep walking and there is nothing out here, past a small park, over a highway and I think we are no longer technically in Roppongi who knows where we are and this is taking a long, long time but we have time tonight. Victory, and we climb the steps and walk back through the rattling cage of the pedestrian overpass, this is not glamorous at all, there are no beautiful people here revelling but we will be there soon.

Now it’s after 1am, a perfectly appropriate time to arrive at a nightclub in Tokyo. Back to the Cube, and down the stairs below the discreet sign. We can hear the pounding music but it’s a wall of noise, not sure what’s playing but hoping it will be stompy and weird and crunchy industrial. We pay the admission fee and receive drink tickets in exchange, push through the curtain and then stop dead in our tracks, a clot in the flow of the club.

This is not goth/industrial.

It’s Japanese Pop.

But we are here, and we have drink tickets, and mostly we are here, dammit, we have committed to being out until 5am and so we shall, we can make this work but it is going to take a lot of booze so let’s get started on that as soon as possible and hopefully I can ignore the techno remix of Chumbawumba long enough to get so drunk I don’t care.

Fruity cocktails in hand, and we are hovering in a corner of the smoky, foggy dance floor, there’s a projection screen and a disco ball and some flashing lasers illuminating the giddy teenage girls in candy-colored clothes. Finish our drinks and even dance a little bit, or try to, not finding my groove here, float to the other side of the dance floor and look who’s here, our Canadian friends. It seems their club selection has also gone awry, not even open anymore, so they followed us here and I have led them astray again, the next song sounds so familiar and for a moment a brief bubble of hope rises through me, perhaps this is something I know, something I want to dance to, something to get my party started for real, this the night that we experience Tokyo nightlife dammit.

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. I recognize it, allright; oh, it’s familiar. It’s a dance remix of “Under the Sea,” from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.”

Time to go.

I collect Debi and Chris, we leave our Canadian friends behind they are going to make the best of it and we are off to prospect for new frontiers, it’s a nightclub district after all there has to be something else, somewhere else to be, somewhere that we are not dancing to Disney in our stompy boots and short skirts and elaborate eyeliner. It is a little after 2am, three hours to go and I am sure we can find something.

We start walking.

Pass through a more populated area, but the patrons heaving in and out of these clubs are certainly not our target demographic so we keep going and eventually the crowds subside. We stop after a few deserted blocks, do we really want to keep going this way? Well, we know there’s nothing back the way we came, nothing we want closer to the train station, so we will walk along the train line underneath the tracks to the next stop and see if there’s anything there, it’s on the way to Shinjuku, the other club district, there’s got to be something between the two.

There’s not.

We have been walking long enough to sober up and are still far from Shinjuku. We could hop a cab, but we haven’t seen a cab in a while and who knows what we would find in Shinjuku anyway, Roppongi was supposed to be a foolproof night out and has failed us despite detailed research. It is right about then that we see a small neon sign: Chaos.

It’s not the dance club we’re seeking, but it’s somewhere and it probably has booze. We beeline for it.

Inside the unassuming door and it’s a lush lounge, red banquettes and velvet everywhere, a long, immaculately polished bar. There are a few Brits at the far end and a smiling Japanese bartender. He speaks English, thank god, and we settle onto barstools and order Manhattans. I am peering about after we order, fortunately Debi is keeping an eye on the bartender and nearly shouts, lunging across the bar to prevent whatever sin he is about to commit on our innocent drinks. There follows a brief multilingual lesson on how to make a Manhattan, as Debi mentors the eager to please bartender.

They don’t turn out so bad, and it’s nice to sit here, so tired after days of touristing, it’s comfortable and warm and welcoming. We chat with the Brits a little bit, have another round. It’s after 3am now, we’ll get going again soon, there’s still a chance for tonight although it’s narrowing quickly, we are approaching 5am and I am starting to lose the equilibrium between being tipsy enough to keep going and being too drunk and exhausted to stay awake, I need the adrenaline of the dance floor to moderate that delicate chemistry and let’s have another round. The bartender can’t hide his shock that the gaijin want yet more, bad bartender your job is to pour not to judge and we have to keep going until 5am the trains won’t run again until then so more Manhattans and make it snappy.

Sitting on the stool and slumping into it, I spill my drink on the bar. I am still chatting lazily with Chris and Debi but my eyes are closed, I am resting my eyes I am not sleeping, just leaning my head on my hand a little because its so heavy and I’ve been holding it up all day and its not 5am yet and I am so tired, go go go for a week and always alert, always navigating and taking charge and determining vectors and leading the charge and its nice to rest my eyes for a moment, still awake, game on, see I’m still sipping my drink just resting my head a little bit in between sips. The rests are lasting longer but its still to early for the trains so maybe I will just close my eyes for a few minutes more and lean my forehead down on my arm on the bar, just a few minutes.

I am vaguely aware of voices above my head, Debi saying “Kate do you want to go,” I mumble back something like “No trains yet, just gotta make it another 20 minutes” but I think it probably comes out as “shtrains….shoon…” More voices over my head, and then clearly I hear “I think it’s time we got her home,” they are in charge now I have ceded all tour leader responsibility, they don’t know what they’re doing, they are not Navigatrices but they are going to have to work it out.

Apparently they do, because a few minutes later I am being led out the door, Debi’s arm around my side, and poured into the back of a cab. I give up all pretense of being awake and sleep instantly, missing our late night ride across the entire city. They shake me awake when we reach the ryokan, I start up and plunge towards the door, towards the pillow or the floor as it may be here, must be horizontal, but I pull up sharply in the vestibule. After a week of culturally insensitive stomping into various temples and museums and forgetting to remove my shoes, it has finally sunk in here, now, at 5am, drunky drunk and wearing boots that lace up to my knees. I sway as I lean over, clawing the laces out and ripping the boots from my poor tired feet, toss them on the pile of shoes. Stagger forward, fingers trailing on the walls but can’t lean on them as I’d like to, they’re made mostly of rice paper, end of the hall and fumble with the tiny lock, Chris takes it from me and opens the door I nearly fall onto the thin mat that passes for a bed and I am probably asleep already while falling.

Understanding the Bomb, Hiroshima, Japan (Feb 2006)

I have planned an excruciatingly timed and precise itinerary for our trip to Japan, with train schedules mapped out weeks in advance and hotel reservations in place, there is no wiggle room. All of this information, web printouts, excel charts, confirmation numbers, directions, and train schedules has been painstakingly pasted into my travel notebook, so that all I need to at any given time is consult The Book to know where we are headed next and when we have to be there. Today is slated for a day trip from Osaka to Hiroshima to visit the Memorial Museum, just an afternoon and then we train back to Kyoto to spend the night, there is no time allotted for an overnight stay in Hiroshima.

The trains in Japan are amazing, they arrive precisely on time at the appointed track and these schedules are mapped out months in advance, the obsessive precision of Japanese transit meshes perfectly with my obsessive need for advance planning. We arrive in Hiroshima laden with backpacks, we will deposit them at a train station locker while we wander about, who wants to carry that crap around town and into the museum. We find the lockers, they take 100 yen coins which is about a dollar, perfect. Perfect, except we can’t manage to decode the mechanism, it takes several attempts of depositing coins and then trying to take the key only to get it stuck and then popping the locker back open and down yet another 100 yen coin; by the time we have successfully conquered the seemingly Byzantine but likely quite simple lock mechanism we are down about fifteen bucks, and I have forgotten to put my day bag with my computer in the locker but we are done fucking around with this thing, if I pop it open to stash my computer bag it is probably going to cost us another twenty bucks to get it locked again so I resign myself to carrying my computer, we have spent too much time here anyway we need to get moving.

Out of the train station and consulting The Book, we are to take a tram and Japanese precision, the tram pulls up right on time and we board, hoping that we will be able to figure out where to get off, that it will be obvious. The Japanese schoolgirls in their stereotypical pleated skirts and knee socks are openly staring at us, giggling and whispering behind their hands, and I wonder what they think of us on the tram with them in the city where our country annihilated their cousins and parents.

It’s obvious where we get off after all, step off the tram with my awkward bag bumping under my arm, it wasn’t designed as a computer bag it’s actually modeled on a bowling bag and I’ve probably overstuffed the thing. The first thing we see is the A-bomb Dome, a skeletal structure of rebar by the side of the river, the only structure remaining after the bomb leveled the city. It’s stark and ugly, it lacks all the beauty of traditional Japanese architecture, architecture that was too delicate to survive the blast. We contemplate, uncomfortably, and take tourist pictures, also uncomfortably, we are here to contemplate and take tourist pictures but it seems a little shallow and trite while our feet are stepping on ground that was covered in human ashes.

We walk along the river bank, stopping at various peace statues and memorials, there is one to all the children who died and then another huge structure with a stylized human figure on top crowned by an origami crane, the base of the sculpture is covered in long chains of delicately folded origami cranes. This memorial is for a little girl that survived the first blast, and as she slowly died of radiation poisoning she made origami cranes nonstop, there is a legend that anyone who completes 10,000 cranes will have their wish granted and she was wishing not to die, folding tiny pieces of paper over and over trying not to die, trying to have faith in a legend of 10,000 paper cranes.

She had reached something like 7,000 when she died. People from around the world send their folded paper to this monument to honor her determination and optimism, and there are tens of thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands of cranes piled up here and none of them made her wish come true.

We are somber approaching the Memorial Museum but I am still trying to maintain a critical distance, I do not want to be overwhelmed with the cheap emotional kneejerk reaction, not to say that its cheap that this girl died folding cranes after my country dropped a poisonous bomb on her city but the picture is bigger than one person and I am here to see the whole picture, that is why we came here. We take pictures of the eternal flame in front of the museum, it will burn until all nuclear weapons have been eradicated from the face of the planet, and then we go in.

The museum is a long, low U-shaped structure, its construction screams 1950s America. The first exhibit in the main entry hall consists of multiple dioramas of Hiroshima, before and immediately after the bomb. In the after diorama, there is only the A-bomb Dome and a tram snaking across a wasteland of ash. I am staring at this silently when I am approached by a smiling docent, he offers me a small paper crane. I’m not sure if I should accept, I’m not sure what’s going on here, he asks me where I’m from and I flinch a little inside when I say “America,” we are the ones we did this to them.

He welcomes me, and explains that he is one of many volunteers at the museum, they are very happy when Americans come here, and that his role is to explain the exhibits. The crane is a hospitality offering representing the desire for peace for all people. He tells me that the people of Hiroshima are very fond of their tram, it was the only thing other than the dome that made it through the blast and in the aftermath, the sight of the tram chugging across the city gave people hope that they could rebuild. We walk through the first hall together, he shows me the letters from Einstein begging the American president not to use the bomb he built, the military memos detailing potential target cities. I find it really interesting that Kyoto was stricken from the list, because someone pointed out that as the center of thousands of years of cultural history, if we bombed it the Japanese would never forgive us, there would never be peace. So Kyoto was spared, and the list narrowed down to three locations, three places less important and who makes these decisions, who decides which city will be spared and which will be obliterated. Until the actual day of the bombing it was still uncertain which city would be targeted, and a clear beautiful day sealed Hiroshima’s fate. Think of it, a day of clear skies and sunshine, when everyone is a little happier to see such crisp weather when they roll out of bed, smiling up at the sky and knowing it will be a good day or at least a little better than it would have been if it were raining.

We move on and my guide shows me other documents, he is explaining that while the bomb was an abomination that it also stopped the war, a war that would have involved a invasion of the Japanese mainland with a huge attrition factor. I knew this already but I certainly wasn’t going to say it out loud, not here, and I’m not sure if I’m comforted or saddened to see that the people here can have enough critical distance to understand that this horror visited upon them out of clear sky had its benefits, he says that yes, the Japanese culture had created a situation where the A-Bomb was the only way to end the war without a greater loss of human life, it took a nuclear blast to bring the Empire of the Sun into the reality of 20^th century warfare, the reality too that they would lose this war one way or another, that the Emperor and the Empire were mortal after all.

I thank my guide, he will stay in the main hall and I very carefully pocket my crane. He has said over and over that they are happy to see Americans who want to be educated about the bomb, Americans who want to understand the consequences of our country’s actions and its reasons, and I guess they have had 50 years or so to get here but I would hate us if I were him.

I continue through the museum, Debi, Chris and I have separated and we are moving alone and each at our own pace. I move through halls of information about nuclear proliferation and the science of an atomic nuclear explosion, a reproduction of the plane used to drop the bomb, films about all of these topics showing all the different aspects of this story, the how, the why, the when, the where, the who, the what. There are answers to all of these questions, even the why question, that’s what my volunteer guide was telling me about, there is an answer to why but I am not sure walking these halls if any why is ever going to be good enough, I guess that is the point of this museum and I am still keeping my critical distance I am not going to let this get to me.

There is a huge reproduction of a photo of crying bomb victims with their skin peeling off from the burns. Another volunteer steps forward to tell me that the Japanese people treasure this photo, it is one of only two photos taken on the ground in the immediate aftermath of the blast. The photographer was away from the main center of the blast and rushed to the site to try and help, and stopped to take two photographs of the victims before putting the camera down to try and treat the burning children. “We are very proud of him,” the volunteer says, “Because if not for him we would not have this memory,” this a place not about judgement but about memory and remembering and they will never forget this and that flame will burn for eternity until all the weapons are gone and the world can finally forget the atrocity that humans rendered on its surface.

I am not going to cry.

Into the next hall and it’s shadowy somehow, the lights are dimmer and I see the famous wall fragment with the shadows burned into it, and there are scorched and melted clothes and other small household items, this is what an atomic blast does to a pocketwatch. A lunch tin. The food inside the lunch tin. A belt. A knife. A plastic bowl. The next few cases of charred remnants puzzle me, but then. This is what an atomic blast does to skin. To fingernails. To hair.

The next hall goes beyond the blast to the aftermath, the survivors who weren’t liquidated leaving only shadows behind. Here there are pictures and relics of radiation sickness victims, an alcove exhibit about that little girl with her cranes. The cancers and mutant growths are pictured in all their anatomical detail. And here, in another alcove, there are drawings, stark crayon sketches. I move closer to one of them, it confuses me, the stick figures are dancing, they look happy or as happy as a stick figure can look. There are black puddles on the ground, some stick figures are kneeling by them and some are raising their hands to the black drops coming out of the sky, what is that blackness anyway, ash? If it’s ash, why are they so happy?

The plaque on the wall: this is a drawing from a child who survived the blast, a picture of what happened after, these people are happy because it is raining and all the water has been blown away and evaporated and they are so thirsty and now there is rain again.

The rain is black because it is poisonous with radiation and the ashes of the dead.

There is no more critical distance left in me, I am crying helplessly and I can’t take any more of this I can’t look at any more, I’m sorry so sorry and the docent told me that it was our duty to look, our duty to learn and see and not look away so that this can never happen again so that every person who leaves this museum leaves determined that this will never happen again never never never that we will always find another solution to our problems and our wars and our fights and that people will die yes its inevitable but they will never die like this again, they will never dance in the rain that is poisoning them and drink water that is filtered through the ashes of their families and be grateful for it.

I am not quite running but walking as fast as I can, head down through the rest of the museum and then outside in the clear, beautiful sunny day. Chris and Debi are still inside, I will wait here for them I can’t go back in. I am sitting on the wall by myself for about 15 minutes, and I calm down, the tears dry up, and I am composed when they emerge. We are all somber now, for the first time for all of us we are unable to be flippant. We don’t say much, we move slowly from the museum courtyard.

As we are walking back through the park, we cross paths with a couple of Japanese men. They stop us, smiling hugely, can they take our picture? Sure, that’s fine, so they snap several shots of the three Americans. They ask us where we’re from, New York and Seattle, how exciting, Ichiro and Matsui! They ask me if I am an artist, or a rock star, I am tall and blonde and wearing big boots and aviators I guess this is what they think artists and rock stars from New York look like. No, I’m not a rock star, they don’t believe me can they take another picture just with me, the incognito American rock star?

We are no more than 100 meters from where the bomb hit when they demand my autograph.

Mt. Fuji Does Not Exist, Fujiyoshida, Japan (Feb 2006)

I am not leaving Japan without seeing Mt. Fuji.

As my plane traced its trajectory from Chicago to Osaka, the pilot’s disembodied voice crackled over the speakers, “And if you look out the window to your right, you will see Fuji-san poking out from the clouds.” I’m on the left side of the plane, but I know I have 9 days ahead of me and at least one of those is fully devoted to Seeing Mt. Fuji so I don’t worry about it too much.

On the train from Kyoto to Tokyo a few days later, we are peering out the windows to the left, knowing from our guidebooks that Mt. Fuji should be visible from this particular track. We can see the mountain range, but the peak of Fuji-san is shrouded in mist and cloud, just that section. That’s fine, my Fuji day is coming soon.

And now, in Tokyo, the manager of our ryokan is very politely trying to dissuade us from our day trip. He suggests Nikko instead, a temple complex just outside of Tokyo. I am firm in my refusal, I will not be swayed from my mission despite his gentle warning that the weather is not good and it may be snowing, we may not be able to see anything. “I am not leaving Japan with seeing Mt. Fuji!” I declare with all of my touristy righteousness. “I did not travel 5000 miles to not see the mountain, we are going, I don’t care if it’s snowing I am going to Mt. Fuji.”

I’m traveling with two friends, but we’re not particularly friendly anymore at this point; relations are strained to say the least. Nonetheless they are following biddably, this has in fact been part of the problem as they blindly trust my notes and research. On the one hand, this means they don’t know when I screw up and get on the wrong train or get lost, they think I’m infallible. On the other hand, this means they can’t get us onto the right train or un-lost if I screw up, and I have slowly come to feel that I am a tour guide not a friend.

This tour guide has a dislike of buses, so I didn’t even tell them that there’s a direct bus from the Shinjuku station to the 5^th station on Mt. Fuji that is a little less expensive and an hour less travel time than the torturous train route I’ve mapped out. Before even leaving Tokyo we are already having trouble as friendly passerby try to help us decipher what train we need from the Shinjuku station, completely ignoring the itinerary that I have laboriously routed from the online train schedules. The bible of train schedules comes out, thick like a phone book and with the same thin paper, tiny print and smeared ink, except it’s all in kanji characters. This becomes a group conference, everyone wants to help the lost gaijin, and maybe too everyone wants to be the one who can.

We are firmly directed to a different platform than my itinerary indicated, told that this is really where we want to be. We follow instructions but once we get there and our smiling guide leaves us, I backtrack. This isn’t right and I know it’s not, but I don’t know what is. We go back to the man with the train bible, he’s surprised to see us again but amiably turns to help us. Again. We go over the plan again, we are going to Otsuki and then on to Fujiyoshida. “Otsuki!” He exclaims. “Not Atsikki?” or something like that. Turns out the transcription from kanji to roman characters is a little flexible, and we had indeed narrowly avoided going in exactly the wrong direction.

Now we’re on the right track, but it’s taken us almost an hour and we’re still in Tokyo. The first train is familiar, it’s a Shinkansen like the ones we’ve been on so far, the sleek bullet trains that are one of the modern icons of Japan. First transfer, and this train is a little grubbier and a lot slower, it’s more like a subway train than a commuter train, with dangling hoops for those who are standing rather than a seat assigned for each rider.

Next transfer, and we’re getting close. The air is thick and opaque out the window, a storm front moving in. We board the Fuji Express, and there’s nothing express about it; the ride is about 45 minutes and really we probably could have walked faster. I am castigating myself internally, but the other two haven’t caught on yet that I’ve made this way more difficult than it had to be. It’s easier to hide it, too, because we’re not really speaking to each other; I’m angry at them and they know it, and also know how dependent they are on me right now since they have no idea where they’re going and I do.

Staring out the window of this train that’s a joke really, not even a commuter train, it’s like a train in Dollywood or the monorail in Disney World. If we’d taken the bus from Shinjuku we would’ve been there an hour ago. I’m still keeping silent on that one.

Arrival at last, we pile out at the Fujiyoshida station. It’s cold here, about 20 degrees colder than in Tokyo. I turn around in a circle trying to orient myself, figure out which vector to travel down next, and finally see the tourist information booth. My friends are huddled together a few feet away from me, passively waiting for me to tell them where we’re going next. Up at the plexiglass window with a hole cut in it, I smile and ask the lady if she speaks English, knowing that she will. She confirms this, and my next question is,

“Where is the mountain?”

She points directly behind me. I turn, and see just that solid field of opaque air. “It’s snowing,” she explains.

I am not leaving Japan without seeing Mt. Fuji.

She helpfully hands me a sketched tourist map of the town, indicating that since we’re here we can at least go check out the shrine. We’re nearly shrined out from Kyoto, but she’s right about one thing—we’re here. And it’s in the same direction as the mountain, so off we go to the shrine.

Snowflakes are starting to swirl around us, we’re ill-garbed for this weather and shivering. We’re the only people on the sidewalk, or in the street; the town, we have learned, pretty much shutters up from October to April, it’s role as jumping off point for Fuji a moot point in the off season. Nobody comes here in the winter, nobody except this trio of particularly stubborn American tourists. No, that’s not true; it’s not three of us that are stubborn, it’s just me. I am not leaving without seeing Mt. Fuji.

All the way through town, and we find the shrine. The snow isn’t really coming down yet, it’s just thinking about it, a few flirty flakes that dissolve before they hit the ground. This temple is where the Fuji Fire Ceremony will start in the spring, and it’s all but abandoned now, just one young woman staffing the souvenir booth who seems as surprised to see us as everyone else has been, and limply gestures that we are free to look around as much as we like. It’s best to give crazy people their way as long as it doesn’t harm anyone.

Through the temple grounds and one of those iconic orange gates, that’s the trailhead. There are nine stations on the way to the summit, and I know we won’t get there for a few reasons, the snow but also the altitude, it’s too high for me and I won’t be able to breathe. I start up the trailhead anyway, I can’t see the mountain but at least I can stand on it. Up a slowly curving path, a rather mild ascent as such things go. I am pushing through this white air that wants to be snow but isn’t quite yet there. Trudging, and we pass a small shrine to the left, maybe that’s the first station? Or maybe the second, maybe the temple was the first, we didn’t ask and it doesn’t seem to matter that much. Another ten minutes and the ascent is steeper, and now I’m gasping for air, we’re not anywhere near the top yet but we’ve gone high enough that the altitude is starting to slow me down.

I stop and sit on a fence post. Debi and Chris join me, worried expressions creasing their faces, they knew this was going to happen, I warned them about it. They gently suggest that we turn back. Panting, my face flushed, I look up the path into that wall of snow, I can see the ground rising, going up to that peak I can’t see. They’re right, it’s time to turn back, we need to start our slow way back to Tokyo soon anyway. I stand up, swaying a little bit, and face away from that ascent, backtracking down past the shrine, up the deserted street, and back to the station to wait for that slow train that will take us to another slow train that will take us to another faster train that will take us to a subway train that will take us to another subway train that will take us back to our hotel.

When we leave Osaka, the pilot says, “And if you look out the window to your left, you’ll see Fuji-san coming out from behind the clouds.”

My seat is on the right.