As a follow-up to the Akaike lecture, I was hoping to summit Fuji-san for my 65th B’day but it did not work out, thanks to a rain storm (remnant of a typhoon) keeping Fuji-san out of reach that day (and even blocking the access road for a few hours by causing a landslide). The warden were strongly discouraging all entries including mine’s, with reasonable arguments (that mountain rescue would be unavailable). I thus only experienced the less appealing aspects of Fuji’rism, from the predictable, gaudy souvenir shops at the stations, to some Western summiteers walking (and loudly talking) like decorated war heroes, to the crowded buses to access or leave the 5th station—I got stuck next to two French speaking Swiss boasting of their hike and travel experiences in Japan, entitled, obnoxious, and entirely oblivious to the fact that they were the loudest people on the bus!, to the noisy hostel where it seemed a group was departing every half-hour of the short night (even though in the end only four people got access to the trail and ended up turning back). With no glimpse of Fuji-san the entire stay. The title is a traditional sentence hoping for a clear day when summiting Fuji-san.
Our last day in Japan was wrecked by Japan Airlines, as our JAL flight from Sapporo to Tokyo Haneda got delayed by five hours… The worst part was being kept in the dark about the delay till the initial departure time and then more as the actual departure time was only given hours later. An opportunity to find out that EU rules about flight compensations and passenger rights do not have a Japanese equivalent..! The only plus side of spending the day at the airport was enjoying a sashimi meal at the Sapporo airport. The next day, the erupting Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamtchatka caused a slight change of flight on the way (North!) back to Paris but Air France still managed a 45mn gain on the planned arrival time. And hardly any jetlag in the following days, as opposed to the unusually long accustomisation through the nights in Nagoya and Tachikawa.
