Post Offices at Mt. Fuji, Jungfrau Mark 20th Anniv. of Partnership

Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, July 16 (Jiji Press)--Post offices at Japan's Mount Fuji and Jungfrau in Switzerland celebrated the 20th anniversary of their partnership on Tuesday. An event to mark the anniversary took place in Jungfraujoch, a tourist spot near Jungfrau, a 4,158-meter peak in the Alps. The partnership has helped bind people together, Kobo Inamura, adviser at Japan Post Co., a unit of Japan Post Holdings Co., said at the event. The bond between 3,776-meter Mount Fuji and Jungfrau, both UNESCO World Heritage sites, is "a strong symbol of friendship" between Switzerland and Japan, Swiss Post Vice Chairman Andreas Schlapfer said. The post office at Mount Fuji is located at the fifth station of the tallest mountain in Japan. It sits at a point 2,305 meters above the sea level and is thus the post office at the highest place in Japan. The Jungfrau post office is at the height of 3,454 meters, higher than any other post offices in Europe. The two post offices concluded the partnership in 1993. In the following year, a red mailbox was sent to the Jungfrau post office from Japan as a token of friendship. Mount Fuji was inscribed into the list of World Heritage cultural sites last month. Jungfrau and surrounding areas in the Swiss Alps were first listed as a World Heritage natural site in 2001 and the areas covered were expanded in 2007. Japanese account for the largest part of tourists to the region. In 2012, the number of Japanese tourists stood at 120,000, or 17 pct of the total tourists to the areas. More than 500 postcards bound for Asia including Japan are put in the Jungfrau mailbox every day, according to Swiss Post.