52 Fujis # 11 - Fujiyoshida & a slight problem…

From Fujikyu Higland, its only a 3 minute ride to Fujiyoshida. You can’t see the town from the theme park - at least, not from any vantage point I dared to take - but once you get to Fujiyoshida, its hard not to miss the curls and twirls of the rollercoasters. Its almost as though the theme park has sucked any excitement from the town itself, leastways round the station. Not much was happening, there wasn’t much noise (this is astonishing in Japan, especially near a station) and a gentle, relaxed atmosphere was all pervasive. Almost like a ghost town.

I made my way towards where I guessed the Fire Festival would be taking place - the Sengen Shrine to the north of the town, a direction that was bizarrely reversed on the town map outside the station. North was down. Which was kind of cool to me, because I’m from North Down; it didn’t help my orientation much though. The sleepy ghost town feeling continued, but, as opposed to some of the other Fujis I’ve been to, I didn’t feel like I was intruding on anything. There was no possibility of hearing “Duelling Banjos”. Maybe I’m getting used to doing the 52, or more likely, the fact that there was an event taking place made me feel like I had visiting rights. Either way, I enjoyed the stroll up hill to the shrine honouring Fuji, and was fascinated by the preparations taking place for the festival later that evening: it was only 1 o’clock and people were lazily putting stuff on the street. Stuff that would be burned later, put on the pavement or in the road, and no-one seemed to mind. I love festivals.

Actually, strike that. I love cool festivals, and I haven’t been lucky enough to see nearly enough of those. Most of the ones I have been to are just like the shoddy funfair that popped up in your backwater hick town every year round November. The kind of place where botulism and getting fleeced were both on the menu of fun. Fujiyoshida’s festival on the other hand, smacks of sincerity and barminess. I’m not quite sure which one informs the other most; the basic concept is that they carry a portable shrine down from the temple and show the goddess of Mount Fuji the town ablaze. She - hopefully - rates this experience so much that she doesn’t erupt that year.

Unfortunately for me, I missed this exciting part of the day, as the last bus home left at 5.30. Which was a bit crap. I did get to have lots of strange fun at Sengen Shrine though. I was asked to be in a commercial for Dydo drinks, which I turned down. Not for the reason I told the production staff (shyness). The truth of the matter is that I don’t like Dydo drinks; they don’t have a decent coffee, and their juice options are horrendous, so I didn’t particularly want to get on stage and say, “I love Dydo because it rocks!” or whatever they wanted me to say (we didn’t make it to that stage of our relationship.) I did hang around and watch for a while as plenty of other tourists were roped in to being on telly, for nothing more than the price of a bottle of fizzy pop, sugary coffee, or bland green tea. That whole 15 minutes of fame deal can be bought for next to nothing nowadays.

On a more touristy note, I got to see a fair few of the teams who would be carrying the shrines down the streets. The blue team comprised of a lot of guys wearing traditional footwear with a decidedly modern twist:

If you want to learn more about what actually happens at a Fire Festival, check out the Fujiyoshida City Homepage - link.

On a more selfish note - (drum roll….) There’s now a 52 Fujis Map!!!! (Map Link.) And a problem : one of our Fujis is missing! I’m VERY puzzled. Did I mess up? Did the station close? If you have information on Fujinami Station in Ishikawa Prefecture, do let us know via email or in the comments. Ta!

Fujis remaining : 41

More pics at Flickr : link.)

Don’t know what the 52 Fujis is about? Check this out.

Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 52 Fujis, Japan, Japanese Culture, Japanese Products, Japanese Traditions Trackback URL for this entry