Once a Volcano, Always a Volcano

Here is the Fuji Sancho post office box in which to mail postcards to friends. (sancho = mountain top) The post office was crowded; the only shelter at the top. (The white light is the reflection of the flash of my camera.)

To an American, Japan is full of juxtaposed contradictions. The portable toilets and vending machines at the stations and the post office at the peak led me to think Fuji somehow wasn't a real mountain or a tough hike. Yet the trail is still 6,000 feet of vertical hiking at high altitude, and the broad caldera at the top reminded me of the magnitude of this active volcano.