* This essay column is written by a longtime foreign resident of Japan.

Although the majority of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans, there is plenty of land left for us to wander around on. Of all the hundreds of countries in the world, I have only visited or lived in around 10 of them.

And of these, I have spent most of my time in Japan -- the majority of that in Doshi Village, Yamanashi Prefecture. But even after more than a dozen years here, I wouldn't pretend to know the village and its surroundings that well.

In books on intrepid explorers or hunters, we come across assertions like, "He knew the vast African savanna like the back of his hand." I think we can take such claims with a pinch (or handful) of salt.

But frankly, I don't know if I would recognize a photograph of the back of my hand!

The world is vast and we are never going to see much of it.

Against that rather bleak backdrop, however, I have enjoyed exploring this tiny corner of Japan, which is usually erroneously described as "a small island nation."

As I've mentioned before, Doshi is a long, drawn-out village squeezed into a mountainous valley. As such, there are hamlets I have never set foot in and plenty of hills or mountains that have never been under my large hiking boots.

Years ago I glued together four detailed 1:25,000 maps of Doshi, which I framed and hung on the bedroom wall. I thus have an overview of almost all the valley, so I am not blundering around blindly in the boondocks. In other words, I know roughly where I am trying to go when I get lost.

The villagers tend to head for the hills for a specific purpose, such as felling trees, collecting edible plants or hunting animals. Hiking for the sake of it is not a priority. As a result, I've tended to explore the hills on my own and have had to work fairly hard to reveal their mysteries.

One effective technique is to climb a hill by going straight up to the summit through trees, bushes, bamboo grass or whatever, without the benefit of any paths. On the way up, one may cross some paths, which are mentally earmarked to be later checked out and added to the network of known paths and tracks. Once at the summit, there is almost always a trail that can be followed back down to "civilization."

The other week, I decided to climb Akiba-sama Yama (Autumn Leaves Mountain) an 887-meter foothill of the 1,207-meter Tori-no-Mune Yama (Bird-breast Mountain), which I'd scaled numerous times and offers great winter views right up the valley to Mount Fuji. The smaller hill was visible from the main road and some trees appeared to have been felled on its summit.

I parked beside Doshi River and started to climb the hill, without the benefit of any path. There was no undergrowth below the dense hardwood trees and I made good progress on the loose soil.

The hillside, however, soon became steeper and steeper until I was clambering carefully from sapling to sapling on steep rock lightly covered by soil. Descending didn't look too promising an option so I continued climbing somewhat nervously until I finally reached the top.

There I found a small wooden shrine inside a bigger box that had been tied down with wires to anchor it on a man-made stone base. After stopping briefly to give grateful thanks for my safe arrival, I headed into the felled area to admire the view.

Sure enough, there was a broad path and even small signposts indicating that Tori-no-Mune Yama's summit was straight ahead and the downhill trail was bound for the main road, which was where I headed.

Another chunk of terra incognita bites the dust.

If you have any comments please e-mail me at jtweekly@japantimes.co.jp

The Japan Times Weekly: Feb. 7, 2004
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