Hakone
Trip Start
Aug 24, 2010
1
4
6
Trip End
Sep 01, 2010
Where I stayed
Hakone, Kanto, Japan
Friday, August 27, 2010
Tokyo is hot. And humid. The fact that I haven’t mentioned this already is an egregious oversight on my part, because sweating through my clothes and then trying to cool off/dry my shirt of visible sweat marks have been my most common activities since I got here. Even early in the morning on our way to Tokyo station with our two suitcases and various Freitag bags, I was dripping. The one thing I was hoping to see (and get some pictures of) while we were out during rush hour was the Tokyo subway employees and their white gloves shoving passengers into the trains, like in the youtube videos that I’ve seen. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see that this morning. Fortunately, that meant that our train wasn’t that crowded and I didn’t actually drip any sweat on anyone. But it was close.
We got to Tokyo station and set off to find the luggage storage. It was marked on the map, so we made our way there. It was a long way, and construction made it necessary for us to go outside to get there. We finally found an elevator on the outside of the building, under some stairs, with a sign that had maybe 45 Japanese characters on it, but in English said simply "Parcel Storage", and we went down. When that elevator stopped, we got out and walked down a hallway only to find another elevator, which we got in, and went down again. It seemed to take forever and we weren’t even sure the elevator was moving not to mention whether we were even going the right direction, or if the extra 43 Japanese characters on the original sign had said something like “Just leave the bag here and we’ll take care of it. Whatever you do, don’t go down the second elevator. That’s where we keep Godzilla.” After we had plenty of time to exchange increasingly nervous looks, the elevator doors finally opened directly into a storage area. Four employees immediately greeted us with “Moshi moshi” (or however that should be spelled), which is the common greeting here. Behind them were rows and rows of completely empty shelves. I think we may be the first ones to successfully navigate our way to the Tokyo Station luggage storage in quite some time, if not ever. The employees seemed very excited that we were there, and all four of them helped in some way as we arranged to pick the suitcase up when we get back on Monday. (At least I hope that’s what we arranged. These guys spoke only marginally more English than we speak Japanese.) After we’d ridden the two elevators up and made our way out of there, we looked at each other and started laughing uncontrollably. We agreed that it was one of the stranger experiences we’ve had.
We rode the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Odawara, which was nice and easy. I had my first unpleasant fish surprise when I bit into a bagel only to discover that what I thought on glancing at it was some kind of tomato was actually a fish paste. I did not like it, and not expecting it made it considerably worse.
After we got off the train, we took a bus for an hour and a half on a winding road through the mountains to Lake Ashi and the Prince Hakone Hotel, which was very nice. It is a resort on the lake, but there is no town here, so it’s quite isolated and night and day from what we had yesterday in Tokyo. After dropping our bags, we jumped back on the bus and went to Owakudani, which is an active venting area for the gasses coming from the ancient volcano underground, or as the translation on the map says “Sulfurous gases area”. There we bought some black boiled eggs, which is their specialty. As you can see from the picture, the shells are black, but the insides are completely normal, and eating one will extend your life by seven years. (Munro extended her life by 14 years today.) They are somehow made in the sulfur hot springs on the side of the mountain and taken down to the parking lot and store area by a special egg gondola. We tried to figure out how they were made when we went up there, but the signs were all in Japanese and it stank incredibly once you got close, so we decided to google it when we got back to an internet zone instead. It was cool to see all the smoke coming from the various pools and vents. We would have had an incredible view of Mt. Fuji from there, but it was covered in clouds. We took pictures of the clouds anyway.
After that we rode a cable car down the mountain, which was fun. We had great views of the lake and smaller incredibly green mountains around the lake, but still no Mt. Fuji. Maybe tomorrow on the train to Kyoto.
On our walk back to the hotel, we came across an ice cream store with a wide variety of crazy flavors and Munro told me that it has been her habit for the month she has been here to try new ice cream flavors that she hasn’t had before. (Munro wishes that all of her cross-cultural experiences could somehow involve ice cream.) We looked at the board and selected the flavor translated as “Tiny rice crackers and peanuts”, and we watched as the girl behind the counter took tiny rice crackers and peanuts and mixed it with ice cream in the manner of a flurry or a blizzard. To both of our surprise, the ice cream was delicious, and we scarfed it down.
After we spent some time relaxing in the natural outdoor hot springs at our hotel, we ate at a traditional Japanese restaurant for dinner. I had the “Pork Boiled Food Japan Style” and Munro had Udon Noodles. The pork boiled food was actually some delicious fatty pork belly, with a sweet sauce on it. I enjoyed it very much and took a picture for posterity. We also had our fist sake of the trip there, which was also good.
Then it was 9:30, there was no internet (I wrote this in word to be posted whenever we can find somewhere), no English TV, and we left the backgammon in the suitcase that’s in the bowels of Tokyo station. So we jumped in the hot springs again, read for a while and called it a night. Moving to Kyoto tomorrow, for our fourth different accommodation in four nights.
In the morning we awoke at 7:00, our earliest morning after our tamest night, to a beautiful day and a sweet view of Mt. Fuji, so we hiked around a bit before out 9:45 bus to take some pictures of it. By the time we were up in the mountains on the bus where we could have had an even better view, it was shrouded in clouds again. We were glad we got the chance to see it after all.
