Fuji in hiding and marquetry

The next day we went on a tour to Mount Fuji, then on to Hakone and finally dropped us off at the station in Odawara.

It was a very wet day, raining from the time we were picked up and therefore it was also very misty so we never even saw an outline of Mt. Fuji. Also we were only able to drive to the first station on the mountain because there was a risk of an avalanche. It seems that this year the snow has lasted longer than usual and now the rains have started earlier! After this rather anticlimactic morning we were taken to a hotel for lunch – at last I could take a picture (of a picture) of Fuji! Others saw me doing this and thought it a good idea. I suspect that is why the picture was hanging there.

From there we drove quite a long way to the district of Hakone – there is a mountain of that name as well as a town but it is also a region where there are many hot springs so that it is the ‘wellness’ centre of Japan.  Hakone is well known for marquetry. First different coloured woods are stuck together making a long rod with a cross section of the different colours. From this then very thin strips are planed off and used to decorate the well known puzzle boxes.

This post is an extract of my mother’s travel journal written during a tour of Japan in 2014.

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