52 Fujis #1 – Fujinomiya & #2 – Nishi-Fujinomiya

Don’t know what a 52 Fuji is? Check out this page.

The very first Fujis were visited on the 5th of May, 2006. It was the middle of Golden Week, a week in which a lot of national holidays fall all at once. There are also a lot of festivals and fun things happening.

14 years ago, Fujinomiya was a pretty rundown rural Japanese city. There was a new shopping centre near the main train station which hadn’t helped the health of the high street much. The only way in or out by rail was on the Minobu line, which was typically a one or two car train running every 30 minutes or so, to one of the two train stations in Fujinomiya city centre – Fujinomiya on the east side or Nishi-Fujinomiya on the west.

Wikipedia tells me these old 123 series trains were actually converted baggage cars. Explains a lot. I rode these twice a day back and forth to work for a year and a bit, they weren’t exactly high class.

Then one day, out of nowhere, we got shiny new ones. Nothing like that new train smell, let me tell you.

On this particular day, there was a yabusame festival taking place in Fujinomiya. Yabusame is horseback archery and it is very impressive, but I couldn’t get anywhere near the actual display on the day because of the crowds. (If you’re curious take a look at this YouTube video.)

The festival was at Sengen Shrine in Fujinomiya, a shinto shrine that venerates Fuji itself. There are Sengen shrines all over the country but, as you might expect, quite a few more around Fuji itself. The one in Fujinomiya turned 1200 years old this year and the celebrations were lavish as a result. The shrine had even been treated to a fancy new torii, the big red gate at the entrance to shrines across Japan.

I wandered around the stalls at the festival, treated myself to yakisoba, fried noodles with pork & vegetables. This was a dish that Fujinomiya was already known for but in the years between then and now, I’d say it’s gotten much more recognition.

Other than food stalls, there were stalls selling anime masks, stalls selling fans and stalls where you could take your chances throwing balls, scooping balls or shooting balls. The universal fairground in other words, although here at least we had Godzilla in attendance. All in all a grand day out.