These were my last days in Japan. I went to an observation deck to see Mount Fuji. The best part of this trip was the weather: all 14 days were sunny, except for the last two.
I chose an unusual route and decided to walk. Instead of taking a bus from the train station, I walked 10–14 kilometers through the city. I wanted to get to know the place, to feel it step by step. My camera weighed its usual five kilos, but felt more like five hundred.
The architecture surprised me. The city is small, yet the buildings look like little architectural experiments, each with its own quirk and character. The contrast was so striking that I still remember those shapes vividly.
I reached a bus stop near a university on a hill. The bus took me to the observation deck. It felt a bit like when your parents bring you to an amusement park and you’re waiting for the moment you can finally go on all the rides. Only here, there was just one “ride” — the view.
Nearby there was a funicular, which I later used to go back down, and a small shop where almost everything had a mandarin flavor. Apparently something local and important. I got a mandarin ice cream cone.
The observation deck was wonderful, and I was genuinely happy that I managed to find it at all (I picked the place randomly, following Google’s suggestions). The only downside was that a cloud never moved away from Mount Fuji, hiding its peak. But it didn’t bother me — the day was beautiful anyway.
On the way back, I took the funicular down, walked around a temple and then descended a long staircase toward the waterfront to return to the train station. At some point I got lost — the map kept leading me toward a bus stop that didn’t exist. My phone was dying, and it became clear that I needed help.
And then, as if out of thin air, a small schoolboy with a neat backpack appeared. He smiled and approached me — apparently my lost expression said everything. He hardly understood any English, so we communicated with gestures. He mimed the movement of a train — a tiny charade. That was exactly where I needed to go, but I had no idea how to get there.
So he simply grabbed me by the sweatshirt and led me to the nearest bus stop. When he saw a bus approaching, he suddenly took off and started waving at the driver to stop. I ran after him, got inside, and we both started waving to each other as if we were old friends.
It was probably the warmest memory of the whole trip. A scene straight out of a film: sunset, a quiet street, an unexpected little helper in a funny uniform. As soon as the bus started moving, I thought about how much I wished I had captured that moment on film. I regret not asking to photograph him, but I hope this story — and his face — will stay with me for a long time.