52 Fujis #17 & #18 – Fujimatsu & Fujikawa (Aichi)

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The final two Fujis in Aichi find themselves thrown together, once more through necessity rather than any real link. Although, one could argue that as they are both to be found on the Meitetsu line between Nagoya and Toyohashi, and neither of them are a stopping point for the express trains, that this would be connection enough.

The second of our two Fujis this time is another name sharer – although in Japanese, the Fuji of Fujikawa means wisteria & not the mountain.

Oddly though, Fujimatsu does use the mountain’s characters, for reasons I have yet to fathom – there seemed to be nothing to connect this place to the mountain whatsoever.

Fujimatsu is that interesting blend of rural that is terribly Japanese – in other words, it is rural in Japan and it isn’t rural to someone from a tiny part of the United Kingdom. With express trains barreling through the entire landscape every 4 minutes, you’d think that pretty much disqualified it from the rural category. And yet… A sleepy Sunday morning, kids out with their dad walking the dog next to rice fields, the old folk making their way to temple on dilapidated old bicycles, a monk calling the faithful to worship with some incomprehensible chant in the most frightening of voices.

The whole town has this feeling that, while the modern world may have cleaved a path through it, it’s a clean cut with no dint to their traditions. Which is all well and good.

Onward to Fujikawa, which I had been informed might prove interesting, as it used to be a stop on the old Tokaido road, which linked Tokyo to Kyoto once upon a time. Nowadays, the Tokaido line refers to the train line that stretches between the two, both the shinkansen and the local trains, a route which eschews the traditional route through Hakone and the mountains in favour of a coastal path for most of the way.

Sadly, there wasn’t much in Fujikawa. There were some monuments to the glory days hither and thither (much like its namesake, in Shizuoka prefecture) but the station didn’t even have a toilet, unlike Fujimatsu, which has a special 100 year anniversary of Meitetsu lavatory. (Yes, really.)

This lack of a loo was of particular concern to me as I needed to go. I was planning on hanging around for a couple of hours, but was a bit burdened by my bladder & so I curtailed this. I’m not sure I missed much, it looked to me like there was nothing to do in the place other than perhaps go hiking.

Oh well. If only there had been a place to turf my bags, I might have stayed. And gone for a pee in the woods. Who knows what I would have found.