As we all know, the Snowdon climbing - while good in itself - is part of a bigger thing; the plan to climb Mt. Fuji (a little rant related to that coming up at the end). Tonight I made a comparison between Fuji and Snowdon. Now I have experience of a real mountain, it makes more sense to work in relative terms just as I compared Snowdon to the Cat+Fiddle walk.

Here it is:

click for readable version

You’ll notice the red line is where altitude sickness can kick in. That’s quite near the start of the trail. I think a little more practice will be required before the trip.

And on to the rant… do you know how many times, I’ve seen the phrase “affectionately called ‘Fuji-san’” during my research? Many times. That’s how many. And do you know why this is a rant? It’s because there’s nothing affectionate about the name ‘Fuji-san’. The characters making its name are 富士山 - that’s 富士 ‘fuji’ and 山 ’san’. You see ’san’? That’s the character for ‘mountain’. It’s a picture of a mountain. Look… 山. A mountain.

I think it’s all those people who watched the Karate Kid who noted that Mr. Miyagi calls Daniel ‘Daniel-san’. In that case, yes, it’s moderately affectionate (but mostly just polite). And the characters for ’san’ in this case are さん.

It’s like saying Durham is so called because of the stupid pigs there.

San 山. It’s the word for mountain.

And while we’re on the subject… yes ‘yama’ is also a word for a mountain. And the character is also 山. However, Fujiyama is all wrong. So don’t do it, ok? It’s complicated.