Part1 is here.
I heard that the hidden route will be open to tourists this summer and the website for it has already been launched. Here's the link.
I might go there, so I myself don't see much of this website avoiding spoiler. According to my friends, it's quite intense. You have to go through a very dark, narrow tunnel riding on steep trains and vertical shafts before you get the panoramic view, and that scares me a little. Furthermore, the website states that the opening date was postponed due to the New Year's Day earthquake, but it doesn't go into detail about what happened. I don't even want to imagine what would happen if an earthquake struck while tourists were in the tunnel.
By the way, Kyoka Izumi, the Japanese writer I mentioned in this post, spent a few years in Toyama where he wrote the fantasy novel Black Lily, which is set in Tateyama. He described it as an unexplored location like the deep sea. Actually, it's been considered a sacred place, and only spiritual practitioners were permitted to climb up in the distant past.
I'm not religious, but I always try to be humble before nature, so I'm not sure if the idea of exploiting it as a tourist attraction is a good one. However, sooner or later, my curiosity will probably get the better of me and I may find myself heading there, too.
@CocoPop @Akiko I absolutely hate the present perfect😒. It doesn't make any sense to me. I've consulted many grammar books and they all recycle the same lines. At one point, I got so fed up that I read a linguistics book; who on earth reads a linguistics book except linguists?! The author basically concluded that the present perfect is completely context-dependent. I thought, Yeah, I worked that out by myself. Thanks, I guess. But that's not going to help me! The author gave this particular example, which has stuck with me ever since: She's been to the Bank.
The author explained that the use of the present perfect can imply things like she has some money or the cheques are deposited. At that moment, I had an epiphany, but not a positive one. With sheer horror, I realised that when I use the present perfect, I might be unintentionally implying something else. I'm sorry for the rant. I just needed to let it out😭😭😭.
I agree completely with the author of that book. The thing is that the simple past is quite direct: someone did something in the past and that's that. However, the present perfect is open-ended; it basically means: someone did something in the past and now... And that's the problem. Native speakers interpret that now instinctively according to context. For instance, if you and a friend are trying to decide on a movie to watch and she suggests one, you can say I saw that with the simple past, and then supplement it with an explanation ...and it was good / ... but I'll watch it again / ...It sucked. Let's look for something else.
But if you use the present perfect and say I've seen that, you don't need to supplement it with anything because in that context, it always means I saw it already and I don't want to see it again. That's why it infuriates me when books try to give clear-cut, definitive interpretations of the present perfect because except for a few cases, it's totally context-driven.
@Simone- Your comment is amusing 😂 Honestly, your English is indistinguishable to me from that of a native speaker, I'm surprised even you're not confident in the present perfect. Nothing to say about me.
@CocoPop The example of a movie is really understandable. I learned that the present perfect can convey a variety of meanings and is more ambiguous than the simple past.
@Akiko I don't want to sound modest, but if I spoke to a native speaker in real life, I'd definitely start stammering. Also, I almost always check what I write before I send it out. All in all, my English is good enough to get my point across.
Edit: Nine times out of ten, I get the present perfect wrong. So, yeah, I hate the present perfect.
@CocoPop I agree. Grammar explanations about the present perfect should be descriptive rather than prescriptive.
@Simone- Anyway, your question to Uly has piqued my interest in the topic. Thank you!
And I'm very clear on the present perfect, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask me.
@CocoPop Thank you as always! I put some questions in a new post.