2 November 2023
Delayed and confused
Onoyama from Yamakita to Yaga Station
Today I had an all day battle with trains.
First of all, I made a mistake I have made before. If you have a Suica/Pasmo/Icoca/Toica/Kitaca etc. then you will know that they are interchangeable and work all over Japan, despite being issued by a specific region of Japan, e.g. Suica in Tokyo and Icoca in Osaka. However you can not board a train in say, a Suica region, and get off in a Toica region, as I did today. If you plan to cross regions you are supposed to buy a paper ticket. The region boundaries are generally in the middle of nowhere to prevent this, but for some people who live in these remote areas it annoys them every single day.
Of course, Japan knows people will do what I did, and have ways of dealing with it. The first way is that the stations near the border have no ticket guard. So when you get off you try to scan your card, it won't work and it marks your card as locked... and you go on your merry way. Then when you return to a real station, your card is locked and you have to explain to the gate guard what happened and he adjusts it all on a machine and gives it back to you. So it is no big deal, but it does beg the question, if I can tell the guard I rode from Kanda to Yamakita and then from Yaga to Matsuda and he can put my card onto a machine and type that in and deduct the fare, then why cant the gates at the stations do the same?
So that was part one of train issues, the second was considerably more annoying. On what was already a 2 hour journey in each direction, on my way back the Odakyu line I was on had a fault of some kind, and I had to figure out what was going on when the Japanese announcements caused everyone to run off the train and go to another line. After a bit of googling I figured out the way to get back to Tokyo was to back track a couple of stations, transfer to a Keio line, and then transfer back to a JR train near Shinjuku. So my journey back involved 2 private train companies as well as JR.
As for the hike itself, it was all about the view of Mount Fuji. I knew the weather was clear so I went to a hike with a view especially. It was a good view, but a bit hazy, I have had clearer views from elsewhere. There were a few other people on the trail, mainly coming up the way I came down which is the side that has considerably better views. I will describe the hike more below as there are a lot of pics and my train rant did go on and on.
The view from Yamakita station. This is past Yokohama, near Hakone. A rural station, but there is a convenience store nearby.
The first part of the hike is up a road, which goes under a lot of roads.
The view was pretty good early on.
Although I had walked along a trail for a while, it came to a road with a farming village, and these painted figures. Big deal you may think?
Well apparently they think it is a big deal because they installed a vending machine selling nothing but miniature versions of the same figures for you to take home and paint yourself.
This little farming village was built here for the view. The is the last view spot of Fuji until you get to the summit of Mount Ono, sometimes written as Oono or Ohno (I saw all three).
Obligatory trail pic.
Still no real coloured leaves. I think Hiroshima where I am going tomorrow is a bit cooler, so might be more colourful there already.
The trail is in woods for an hour or so, then comes out at this spot, with fields of wheat or similar.
And a giant staircase. I bounded up because I could hear furious mooing.
My hike had cows on it. They are fenced in by a piece of string only.
Nice view down to the ocean from amongst the cows.
I have climbed most of those mountains, this is looking back to the north east. At least one of them is Tanzawa from where I got the best Fuji shots ever.
Bonus hazy view.
There is a dam and a lake down there with hotels around it.
And then you come up around and over the summit, and its all Fuji views for the rest of the hike. Wide view first.
Zoom view.
Head shot.
The path down had much better views all the way down than the path on the way up.
More wheat.
And Fuji plus wheat.
OK, last Fuji shot.
I reentered the forest. Very well maintained path on the way down.
Almost back.
I came out of the forest in a very picturesque area. A small man waving a red baton by some roadworks was very excited to see me. I suspect no cars came past him all day, just a few hikers.
A really nice area.
It was not too late at this point, the hike was 12km and only 4 hours, but I did not yet know it would be 3 hours on the train to get back to my hotel.
One last shot as I head up the hill to Yaga station.
And finally, the tiny unmanned station at Yaga.