As a reward for all our hard work and late hours at the office, Kato-san (My boss) gave us all a present by taking us to see Mount Fuji. Now to adress the fact that we did not go (to) Mount Fuji, just seeing it was more than enough of a reward. We did not climb Mount Fuji due to bad weather conditions at the mountain. I wish to revisit and climb it one day, with a good friend to share the experience.
I have been studying Japan for many years, that may come no surprise to some of my friends and family. I must have seen Fuji Mountain at least couple hundred times by now from internet through pictures and videos. I thought I could not be surprised by this famous mountain, which already felt like something I had almost visited myself. But seeing Mount Fuji in person from a distance made me blow away by how humongous this mountain truly is. Words can not begin to describe its size, and no picture can ever make you understand the feeling it gives in person. To put it in a nutshell: Mount Fuji is the biggest thing I have ever seen in my life, thus far.
The mist made Mount Fuji look like a mysterious mountain which only few dare to climb. The city around it made it look majestic and more appeling for the eye. This was the best picture I could take of it in its entirity, but no picture can ever make you understand how beautiful it actually is.
Seeing Mount Fuji from a distance and understanding how big it is made me realize how I have been living in a lie my entire life, thinking I have known things simply because I read about them from internet, or saw a picture of something, or someone close to me told me something. This was a turning point in my life. If Mount Fuji is bigger and more beautiful than anything I ever imagined by reading about it, what else have I missed? What else have I learned wrong? I swore to never trust a word of others before my own judgement. I can listen once, but I will be the judge of things for myself from now on.
Let it be marked here and now, that coming to Japan was the best decision of my entire life, and that traveling truly changes a man. There are things here to be found that they will never teach you in Finland, things that will open up your mind and make you realize that life is amazing gift worth living to the fullest without fear nor hesitation. I only have one life on this Earth. Seeing Mount Fuji and the day I experienced throughout made me realize I have nothing to lose in my life, so why not go all the way with my goals and dreams without letting anyone or anything stop me, and I welcome you to do the same. If you lack the courage or you haven't found your dream yet, search it, explore the world and see what's out there. Find your purpose and never let anyone's opinion rule over your own. We live in shadow of other people's opinions, but all that fades away and becomes nothing but ash once you begin to realize how big this world really is and what life can offer - you just choose your desired experience and go and do it, it is really that simple. If you don't have the necessary resources and skill, make them, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year - till you have accumulated the necessary resources and skills to do what you want to do. It may be hard and long lasting, but in the end it's all worth the pain and struggle. Once you are there, the life will never be the same again, and you reach enlightenment, for you have walked a path like no other has walked before, and now you truly are unique individual who will leave a legacy to this world.
My biggest dream over everything else is to be a professional digital artist, live in Japan and speak the language. There are many more to my dreams, but those two have been living inside me for so long now since I was 13 years old. To think I have come this far is a shocking point which can not be described by words, because there has been so much pain and struggle in my life trying to get here, but finally here I am. There is still miles to walk, but maybe for the first time in many years, I feel like I have achieved something big, something that I set myself to do and actually got there. I no longer recognize myself from the man I was before I came here - seeing Mount Fuji made me realize that.
I don't try to be melodramatic by saying all this, but I feel this is a longtime coming for things I should have said years ago. The truth of the matter is, I was too afraid to speak up my mind in fear of other people laughing at me. I'm done with rubbing elbows with other people, hoping they will stop calling me weird for the things I want to do. Japan has liberated me from all the fears and doubt I ever held in my heart. This was the ultimate experience I wanted to experience by coming here, and I got what I came here for.
There's lots of pictures to be shown, but I picked only few to describe the entire experience. This was nothing more than a simple coast with lots of yellow to color it warm and beautiful. At the end of the coast stood a lonely wooden stracture, some kind of holy ground where people threw money while praying for good luck to come.
As we approached the stracture in the distance, I could not help but embrace the environment around me and appreciate all its details. The ground, air, and mountains in distance, and water around us, made the scenery ever so beautiful to look at, I think I could have stayed there for hours.
We went to see two of the local caves: Ice cave and Bat cave. The forest is also a start for the infamous Suicide forest, also known as Ocean forest, I learned. As you can see, the forest around us is very thick and deep. But this is only the beginning for the actual Suicide forest about to come. But before we went through the constructed path around it, we visited the two caves mentioned earlier.
The caves truly felt like the ultimate excercise. For the first cave, we did not wear any helmets, and we had to watch out for our heads constantly for the low ceiling. Most of the time we had to walk crouched while looking at the beautiful natural occurances formed in the cave, like ice and cool rock formations.
These are metal boxes filled with insects, Silkworms to be exact. They were used to make silk, hence the name Silkworm. There were a long row of these boxes. To me they looked pretty disgusting in a cool way, thinking there's a large pile of insects ready to be released upon us while traped in a tight space in cave, like in some horror movie.
The ice cave had many cool ice formations creating the most interesting-looking "statues" if you may call them that. The natural glimmering light from the surface peeking in to the cave through tiny holes gave very beautiful lighting for some of the ice, like seen in the picture. The ceiling was dripping from time to time, making you think: "my God it's coming down! Run!" - Not really, but the cave did not feel like it could withstand an Earthquake or something. Though what I have learned, underground is the safest place to be during an earthquake, but then again, I would take my changes on the surface hiding under a table or something.
Here marks the beginning of the infamous Suicide forest. Ogawa-san had told me, that Kato-san had once joined an yearly search party to find corpses of those who have committed suicide in the forest for a reason or another. People come to this place to end their life, I don't know why. It may have something to do with the fact it's a place of calm and quietness where one can lose himself, never to be found, forever to be forgotten.
I learned that the government actually funds and organizes search parties (how to say this delicately) to go collect dead bodies from the forest each year. There are some herendous-looking corpses out there which I have seen from internet. Not to go in to any details, but the nature will do its job for a rotting body, and when you see the result of it, you realize that in the end we all will end the same eventually.
It was very clear to me, that if anyone were to step outside the clear path leading in and out of the forest, one could truly become lost, the forest is so deep and thick you can not see much else but trees and vegetation. At night it would be mere impossible to see anything, and a flashlight would not offer any help either.
We also visited an old town filled with very old-fashion lifestyle and houses. It was very beautiful place in my opinion, one that I wish to see again and more of. There were Koi Fish swimming in lakes, people could feed them, and I did, too. Street markets sold all kinds of good-looking Japanese snacks and foods, and the smell was heavenly.
Grilled green beans smushed together to form a dumpling, filled with some kind of sweet brown paste inside.
There also was an old wooden house with a machine made of wood that powdered beans for its job.
Next we visited a shrine, most beautiful I have seen yet. It had many giant trees and special-looking divine grounds filled with relics of the past. Ogawa-san teached me, that there are many spirits in Japan, and there is a spirit almost for anything there is to be: like for toilet, kitchen, even kitchen sink itself has its own spirit in Japanese folklore.
I went to pray for the spirits, wanting to learn how Japanese people do it excatly. They first bow twice, clap their hands twice, make a wish, and bow again. I see this happening everywhere I go in Tokyo where there is a shrine. People really take this thing seriously, but no one seems to be serious about religion itself. Do not get these two mixed, Japanese praying for health, wisdom, wealth, and good luck at the shrines has nothing to do with religion. What I have learned thus far, Japanese people don't much care about religion, but rather spiritual things which can bring people together to understand and appreciate both humans and nature. Now that I can respect. Religion in my opinion has brought nothing but problems to this world, while spiritual understanding of oneself and appreciation for life and nature has showed tremendous positive results in history.
Kato-san treated us a meal at Big Boy restaurant. The meat served there was amazing and very filling for the stomach. On top of that there was a salad buffet: all you can eat. I could get all kinds of amazing salad, soups, and little snacks. To top it off, there was also a drink bar, all you can drink. I could select from large variety of soda drinks, coffees, and of course my personal favorite: Hot chocolate.
I did not take this picture, though I very well could have, there's lots of these kind of setups in Akihabara at anime shops.
During the feast we engaged in conversation in Japanese, and overall the experience was so fun it reminded me of One piece and the great big feasts the pirates do in that show from time to time. Now that is the way to live! Good people + good food = good times.
This is a picture of Fuji-Q highland onsen. For obvious reasons I could not take pictures inside, so this is the best to describe how it looked all around.
To end our trip, we went to Fuji-Q Highland theme park's hotspring. I could have had a chance to go to the actual theme park itself, but I am no longer so excited about roller coasters and such like I used to be as a kid. Though this theme park happens to hold one of the world's biggest and most famous horror houses, I could not visit it, for that attraction was already closed for the day. I was happy to choose hotsprings over the theme park, for it proved to be life changing experience.
Japanese hotsprings are freaking amazing! The temperature of the water reaches all the way to 40'c and more. It's freaking hot, but feels good. There is also a cold pool for those who can withstand its low water temperatures. Of course we all went in. I was surprised to see Kato-san and Ogawa-san lasting in the cold pool for so long. I felt I could have sat there for hours, but then again, I have been taking cold showers so often that I have built a resistance for cold. The Japanese sauna was nothing amazing, I do prefer Finnish saunas over this one, which was just a hot sauna without the electric heating stove, kinda like infrared sauna which you may have experienced in some 24/7 gyms in Finland - they are becoming more and more popular, I have noticed.
Japanese people seem to be very open minded about their nakedness, though of course there are some who shy away from showing their private parts even among the same gender. There was a man well over his 50 who literally held his tiny towel in front of his genitals trying to cover himself everywhere he went, while other men proudly and without shame could walk around the place with towel on their head. There are mixed baths in Japan, where both women and men enter the same area, but this one was not like that, it was more of a family resort spa experience.
Literally sums up the experinece in one picture, except there were no monkeys with us in the hotspring.
Two weeks left before coming back to Finland, and I am rich with all sorts of amazing experiences. I never thought I could have this much fun in my life, nor did I think I could pull off something like this and actually be brave enough to do the things I have done here. Now I feel like the next two weeks will go by before I even realize it, but I will enjoy my remaining time here to the fullest. I have already got what I came here for, but there is no reason why it should end so short while there's still time.