Fujinal Odors
Mount Fuji. The very name conjures up images majestic beauty with a serene unchanging form. On a clear day, it can be viewed from over 100 kilometers away, and I found out first hand that perhaps it's best viewed from that distance.
After making a grueling bicycle trek to the base of Mount Fuji, I was greeted by a stench eminating from the urban landscape around. I couldn't read the kanji, but judging by the smell, it appears that the city at its feet is actually one of the larger rotting carcass boiling centers in Japan. I can reasonably fathom that they've discovered several dozen rotting whale carcasses in the advanced stages of decay and have begun boiling them to no end. I'm not sure what motivation anyone might have for continuously boiling rotting carcasses, but after inhaling the Fuji city air, there is no doubt in my mind that those factories could possibly be doing anything else.
When I first looked down from Hakone pass, 843 m above the coastal towns, I could see clear across the bay. About half way down the coastline, a huge plume of smoke rolled across landscape. I thought it must be a fire. Thick white smoke erupted from a huge swath of land and drifted across the land for what seemed about 2km long. I later found that it was just clear that day. The plume seemed less than 10km away. In actuality, it was over 30km from me, and the errupting plume of white smoke rolled across the landscape for over 10km. The smoke was none other than the rotting carcass boiling steam that would soon become all too familiar to me. And lucky me, my road went right past ground zero.
The stench was a cross between rotten meat and bitter overcooked vegetables: overcooked by three or four days. The massive chimneys were nothing more than a gesture. The strong winds pushed the steam leaving the 70m smokestack right back down to ground level. Rotting carcass boiling seems to be a local industry, and rotting carcass boiling plants are everywhere. No corner of the city was spared the stench.
Although the lower elevations were very clear, Mt. Fuji was cloaked in heavy clouds. Here is a photo from the other side of the bay. I am directly and blissfully upwind of the city, so you can't see the long, drawn out steam clouds. The large, sloping section behind is the base of Mount Fuji. Even from 20km away, the base still takes up the whole photo. The smoke stack on the far right is the champion I was talking about earlier. They seemed to have cut back production today.