Good Evening, Fuji-san
Fuji-san is big. I grew up living on a mountain along the appalachian trail, so I thought I knew what made a mountain. But Fuji is in a whole other class. It is mind-numbingly, inconceivably huge. The first time I saw Mt. Fuji, my wife pointed it out to me through the train window. I looked out at a group of impressively tall and craggy peaks and picked out the large central one. "That's tall and impressive, " I said. She laughed, and told me I was looking at the wrong mountain. It was the one behind that other range. Looming over them, above the clouds, and extending out sideways as far as the train window allowed me to see.
A few days ago I took a walk down to the Tamagawa river with a friend and got a reminder just how big Fuji is. You can see her from my neighborhood. You have to get the timing right of course, waiting for the sun to sink down behind her. The less humid the day is, the clearer you will be able to make her out. Regardless, she's always there, keeping watch over all of us tiny mortals crawling around beneath her.