52 Fujis #30 - Fujimicho

May 12th marked the thirtieth year of my existence on this tripped out ball of dirt and water, so I figured there would be no better day to clock up the thirtieth Fuji. I like my birthdays low key, and as it turns out, Fujimicho is about as low key as they come. Like a dozen other Fujis done and to be done, Fujimicho is a part of somewhere bigger, somewhere more important; Ofuna, which is itself part of somewhere bigger, somewhere more important, Kamakura. Nested like a bunch of Russian dolls, you’d be expecting some kind of pay off by the time you’d made it to the centre, something to make it all worthwhile.

Fujimicho station was hardly it - a small, narrow platform that extends to tightly wound stairs, all dressed down in the dullest & most functional grey. Not much to get excited about really, except - the narrowness of the platform and the tightness of the stairs reflect the kind of station Fujimicho is. It’s the first stop after Ofuna terminal on the Shonan monorail, named after the coastline that stretches out at the furthest end of the line.

The first monorail of its kind in Japan, the Shonan monorail opened for business nearly 40 years ago. If you’re into your monorails at all, you might be interested to hear that it’s a SAFEGE monorail: I forget what that stands for, but I know it means that the whole train hangs suspended, swings into the curves and generally feels very much like a commuter coaster. Despite the curves & sways and narrow corridors carved through hillsides, the monorail had an unblemished safety record until recently, when a driver in his first week had a bit of a bump. No-one was hurt and the damage was minimal, but it highlighted how tight the schedules were - the track is a single rail for a lot of the way - with the result that makeshift schedules have been taped over the previous ones, so there’s more room to manouevre, literally & figuratively.

It takes three minutes to get to Fujimicho, so I figured I’d get off there and walk back to Ofuna station, take in the sights. If there were any. There weren’t really, although I did find myself in yet another aquatically themed underpass - just like way back in time at Fujine.

Ofuna’s the last of the great commuter towns that serves Tokyo, a fact I found out the hard way after getting on a commuter express in Shinbashi at 10:30 one drunken Friday night. It’s a commuter express, I told myself, expresses always stop in Yokohama. I managed to convince myself that the train announcement was wrong right up until the train thundered through Yokohama station. Ofuna’s always been better known to me for the large alabaster head of Kannon looming out of a hillside beside the train tracks, a beatific smile on her big white lips. You know you’re getting close to Tokyo when you see it. I’d wondered for the longest time what the deal was with the statue - I’d imagined a body among the trees, something to support the head of a goddess of peace. Some kind of a robed white figure, rounded off with big white feet in big white sandals, poking out of a well-trimmed border of hydrangeas or something. Turns out she’s just a disembodied head and shoulders kind of a girl, watching over the station below, where a myriad trainlines converge and the crowds never quite disperse, even on a weeknight.

Still, the town wasn’t so busy that I wasn’t able to get me a table at the Korean Barbecue restaurant.

Score.

Fujis remaining : 22
More pics at Flickr: Fujimicho.

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Monday, May 19th, 2008 52 Fujis, Japan, Trains Trackback URL for this entry