Red Bull looking forward to Fuji

We know you are all worried about leaving good old Suzuka to come to Fuji Speedway which last hosted a grand prix three decades ago. You have heard horror stories about spending several hours on a coach with no toilet and that very annoying journalist who tells non-stop non-funny jokes. You are concerned about spending an extra four hours a day with colleagues you don't like and no decent restaurants in the evening.

But don't worry, because Fuji has lots of good points. Suzuka has a fairground with a big Ferris wheel, while Fuji is a holy mountain which is the most painted and photographed in the world. On the down side, Fuji, which is a dormant volcano, has erupted over 75 times in the last 2,200 years, but not at all in the last 300 years. You could therefore suggest a big bang is imminent, which is why Mount Fuji is the most closely watched volcano in the world.

Suzuka has several shops and even a French-style bakery. Climb to the top of Mount Fuji and you will find a Post Office, but it's only open in the summer. If you do plan to climb the mountain while we are there, then this is not a bad time to do it, as in summer, it turns into a less sanitised version of well known theme parks, with queues forming to reach the summit. But bear in mind this often quoted cliché, "Mount Fuji makes its own weather" and if you have ever been to a dinner party where the hostess has "made her own bread" you know how dangerous anything home-made can be. The only thing you can be sure of is that it will be colder and wetter than Suzuka. But whereas Suzuka is a just an industrial town, Mount Fuji is a place of pilgrimage for followers of both Shinto and Buddhism. Unlike many religions that attach significance to mountains, its followers are actively encouraged to climb Mt. Fuji and the resultant people pollution has led to the mountain being denied UNESCO recognition as a World Heritage Site. For many centuries it was forbidden for women to climb the mountain, which may inadvertently have led to this pollution, as there would have been no one around to shout, "Oy! Pick up those plastic bags. You're not going out until this volcano is tidy. This mountain is a pigsty!"

At the moment, Mount Fuji is the tallest mountain in the Japan, but there is a threat to its height status from something called "X-Seed 4000," a man made building in the shape of Fuji but around 300 metres taller, designed to house between 500,000 and one million people on 800 floors. Apparently, the technology already exists to build this Japanese monster at a cost of several hundred billion dollars, but please don't show the plans to any F1 team bosses as it will give them ideas for even crazier factories and paddock hospitality units.

Naturally, as one of Japan's most famous landmark, many Haikus have been written about Mount Fuji. What is a haiku? It is a Japanese poetic form made up of 17 syllables in three lines that do not rhyme containing 5 syllables in line one, 7 in line 2 and 5 again in line three. For example: Falling mist…-The day when Mt Fuji is unseen - Most fascinating Let's hope the circuit designers have done their job, otherwise this one might be more appropriate for the weekend: Fuji Volcano - Asleep for some centuries - Just like F1 fan