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Another Fuji with the same kanji as the mountain (富士) but Fujioka means ‘fuji hill’, posing some complex questions for someone like me, who’s not really up on much. Does this mean you can see Fuji from a hill in the area? (Not today, you couldn’t.) Does it perhaps mean that the 1000 warriors of legend who swarmed up the actual Fuji to burn a letter for Princess Kaguya, made a stopover here first then looked around and decided that the hill just wasn’t big enough?

There was, unsurprisingly, little to do or see in Fujioka, so I found a small clearing beside the road and sat down to eat my lunch. Just a little bit further away, the new Tomei expressway was being worked on, and people were probably doing overtime in the Ricoh factory, but all was still and not very exciting in my world.

This was a grand state to be in, because, truth be told, I’d been a little bit on edge as I wandered aimlessly around the eerily quiet town of Fujioka. I was half expecting to hear a Japanese rendition of Dueling Banjos at any minute (which would, I suppose, be called Dueling Shamisen). I’d been set on this path to paranoia by a very nervous cashier in the supermarket, who, for reasons best known to her, was utterly terrified of me.

Maybe I’d been frowning more than usual, or maybe she just assumed I was the Reverend Bob Dodds, who, apparently, has a tobacco store in Fujioka:

FUJIS LEFT AT THE END OF JULY 8th, 2006 : 52/59