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We find ourselves down Osaka way with these Fujis. Osaka itself literally translates to ‘Big Hill’ and Fujisaka means ‘wisteria hill’, so there’s a nice piece of symmetry. At the top of the hill in Fujisaka? A big park. A swimming pool. And a weird monument to something, although upon many years of reflection, I suppose it could be an antenna trying to broadcast a message to the universe. Or perhaps an attempt to receive messages from other worlds.

Back in 2006, the area outside Fujisaka was dominated by a pachinko parlour. This is a nationwide addiction, the most popular form of legalized gambling in Japan. Imagine pinball crossed with a fruit machine and you’ve got pachinko. I often see people queuing up in the mornings, waiting for their local parlour to open. I do not see the attraction myself, but you know, different strokes and all that.

Perhaps the pachinko place has perished in the years since, unlike the shrine on the other side of Fujisaka station. A monument to resilience, this little place survived a railway being built right through its entrance way, much like Engaku temple in Kamakura. This shrine, however, had its very own underpass beneath the tracks to allow visitors to come and pay their respects.

As if to reinforce the lesson of how some things endure where others fall when I finished my wander round Fujisaka, Mother Nature decided to muck about with all the train times. “Its very windy, and the trains aren’t running,” apologised the disembodied JR employee on the speaker. Repeatedly.

Eventually, I get onto a train and trundle across Osaka to another suburb, Fujiidera, former home of the Kintetsu Buffaloes baseball team. I’m sure I read somewhere that Fujiidera had also once been the capital of Japan at some ancient point in history but I can’t find confirmation of that.

Mind you, the 14th and the 19th emperors of Japan are both buried here so perhaps I’m on to something.

What I definitely wasn’t on in 2006 was the correct path. 14 years ago, having Google Maps in your pocket wasn’t standard practice, unless you’d printed something out. Which, admittedly, I had but still somehow managed to get utterly, completely lost, in a humid, grey skied suburb of Osaka, while trying to find those self-same tombs. The only picture I have is of a pond in a park I took while trying to get back to the station.

This may very well have been the day I decided to get all my pictures of the station and its signage at the start of my rambling. Sometimes the little things can make all the difference.

FUJIS LEFT AT THE END OF JUNE 9th, 2006 : 54/59