Mark's Email from Hakone

We* just cannot get off the to bed at 7:30 and up at 4 routine. It's like clockwork. Since there is no TV to watch and after traipsing around all day followed by sitting in the onset (hot springs), followed by a gin and tonic, followed by a meal we just fall asleep.

It does have its advantages though for example this morning. The sky was nearly without clouds and Mt. Fuji slowly came into view and changed constantly as the morning light changed. It was wonderful. Plus that time of the morning is great for writing and reading.

Following breakfast we got into the onsen before heading down to Lake Ashita. We took a boat ride across the lake and strolled along a cedar lined road. The story goes that one of the first shoguns had cedars planted along side of the road that stretched to Tokyo in 1618. This was done to protect the travelers from the rains and snow. It's beautiful and to think we are walking down a road that was traversed countless times by the famous Shoguns and their Samurai. 

Then we strolled through 2 towns and ended up at the Hakone Shrine founded in 757 as a Buddhist Temple. It was stunning. The red Toris and lanterns contrasting the lush green of everything. It reminds me of the Pacific Northwest where there is moss growing everywhere. Then the boat ride back across the lake and up the hill to our hotel.

*Mark sends email reports to his family and a few friends. I am starting to include them here so that they will be preserved in the same location as my posts. I will be going back and inserting the two emails that he sent from Tokyo.

Hakone: Of Lakes, Cedars and Shrines

I’m going to cut right to the chase. Yesterday’s winner of the “English-ism” Award goes to the boat that Mark and I took across Lake Ashinoko. But before I present the winner, I have to set the scene. 

Mark and I started our day by going out to the bus stop just down the road to catch the bus to the lake, which is only a 15 minute walk (we had on good guide-book authority), but the bus was due to arrive in three minutes. And Japanese buses are always on time. Well, almost always, apparently. Fifteen minutes later we were still standing there thinking that perhaps the world had come to an end. 

But the bus being late enabled us to strike up a conversation with a young man and a woman whom we presumed was his mother. He started speaking to us in near perfect (well, pretty darned perfect) English. I assumed he was Japanese-American and had come back to his homeland for a visit. I asked where he was from. “Korea,” he responded. I hadn’t seen that one coming and I felt so stupidly, provincially American because I couldn’t tell the “obvious” difference between Koreans and Japanese.

It turns out that he had spent 10 months in – of all places – Burlington, Vermont. That, he said, is where he had learned English. Mark and I strongly suspected, however, that he had been taking English in school and in university well before he headed to the beautiful town on Lake Champlain. He was now in Japan for a year, doing additional studies in public policy. His mother had come over for a three-week visit.

I wish I had taken a picture of them. I’m going to start being more out there when it comes to pictures. Because it’s encounters like this that make trips so interesting.

Well, the bus finally did come, and we – and the Koreans – took it down the hill to the boat landing. Now, for some reason totally unknown to mere mortals, the powers that be had decided that it would be super fun to build a fleet of faux pirate ships, equipped with the latest radar and – of course – spotlessly clean, to travel the length of Lake Ashinoko.

And so, we boarded HMS Ashi-san for a trip across Lake Ashi.

Which brings me back to yesterday’s winner of the “English-ism Award.” As we were traveling up the stairs to the higher decks, I came across this door:

First, please note two things. First, the door is closed. Second, if one looks carefully at the bottom left-hand corner, you will see yesterday’s English-ism winner, which I have reproduced below for those with sight issues (like me).

Enough said?

The trip across Lake Ashinoko was uneventful. As we looked at the incredibly lush hillsides around the lake, we thought how beautiful this all will be in about a month as the leaves change color. But it was beautiful yesterday, too. This picture, if you look carefully, shows how the trees come right down to the lakeside, and the branches reach gingerly over the water, creating a line that almost – nay does – look … fabricated, as if one is looking at the edge of a small pond instead of a huge lake. How … beautifully Japanese.

Upon our arrival in Hakone-Machi, we disembarked and started exploring. One of the first shops we came upon was run by a couple who, shall we say, missed their calling as California bikers. They were so cool. Mark and I each bought a bracelet there to add to our collection. It was yet another time when I wish I had taken a picture.

After browsing through a few shops and buying stamps to mail our long-overdue thank you cards to all those who so beautifully and wonderfully contributed to our commitment ceremony and left us with gifts, we headed out toward the other community at this end of the lake, Moto-Hakone. Along the way, we encountered the “cedar road” – a stretch of the old Tokaido road than ran from Kyoto to Edo, the seat of the Tokugawa shoguns (now called Tokyo).  

The story goes that one of the early shoguns decreed that cedars be planted along this road to shade travelers in the summer and protect them from snow in the winter. This stretch of a mile or so is all that remains of this road. Mark and I came upon it and traveled under the boughs of trees that had been planted in 1618 and had sheltered commoners as well as samurai and perhaps even the Shogun himself.

Although walking the Cedar Road was arguably the highlight of the day, rich treasures still awaited us at the Hakone Shrine on the other side of Moto-Hakone. This site, before the Meiji Restoration of the 1860’s-1870’s, was a Buddhist temple, founded in the year 757 by the priest Mangan. The new Meiji government, however, declared a sort of war against Buddhism and converted this site to a Shinto shrine.

Whatever.

It was beautiful, regardless of whether it was Buddhist or Shinto, and there was a marvelous, beautiful, peaceful spirit there.

To cap off the day, we had another exquisite dinner last night in the lodge's dining room. This time, I ate nearly everything. It was delicious, and it's specialness was added to by a bottle of locally produced plum wine.

Today, we leave Hakone and head to Kamakura, where we will spend three nights. As luck would have it, it is raining this morning. Visibility of Fuji is nil. We are so pleased that we were able to experience yesterday morning's spectacular view. 

This map gives a general idea of where we've been and will be over the next few days.
 Metro Tokyo is in the top right corner, Lake Ashinoko and Mount Hakone are in the bottom left corner,
and Kamakura is toward the bottom right corner.

Fujisan and "English-isms"

Picking up from my last post, when we got back from our gin expedition, we changed into the yukatas provided by the lodge and headed down for our first thermal bath here. Despite being warned how hot the Japanese like their bath water, I found the water both here and in Tokyo to be very tolerable. We had the etiquette down pat by now, having gone through the same process in both San Francisco and in Tokyo. One sits down on the stools at right and uses a little hose shower to shower after cleaning oneself with body soap and shampoo. Only after one has done this and made sure that no soap remains is one allowed in the bath.

This photo of Lodge Fujimien is courtesy of TripAdvisor

After our baths, it was time for cocktails and writing. This picture of Mark on our “ante-balcony” says it all.

At 6:00, it was time to head down to dinner. Those this is not a big place – I imagine they have 40 rooms tops – they go all out with their meals. This was the spread that greeted us when we sat down at our table.

I have to say that I think I did pretty well with my first multi-course Japanese meal. I will admit to being a bit squeamish at the sashimi (raw fish, pictured below), but otherwise I think I at least sampled everything else. I particularly enjoyed their plum wine. I may just have to buy a bottle of that before we leave. 

There were a group of older ladies seated at the table behind us who were chatting up a storm, laughing and obviously having a very nice time. Mark made a comment in jest that these were the wives of the men we saw at our hotel when in Tokyo having a good time with women who weren't their wives. I chimed in, and before you knew it, we had fabricated a whole story about these ladies.

We saw these same ladies this morning at breakfast, then later as they checked out. Mark and I were sitting in the lobby, me working on this post, him working with his pictures on his computer. As they entered in the lobby, they all said good morning to us (in Japanese, but one woman in English as well) and were all smiles and laughter. Then as they left, they all chimed in with "Sayonara," again with the big smiles. I felt badly about the story we had made up (which might have had some truth in it) and was genuinely warmed by their warmth and happiness, and I wished I had asked them if I could take a picture of them; I'm sure they would have been delighted.

We woke up around 4:00 again this morning, as usual, and were rewarded, shortly after 5:00, with a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji. The skies were almost clear, and as the sun rose, the mists escaped from the valley below us and Fuji became even more beautiful. We felt very fortunate to have seen it. Within an hour or so, clouds had moved in, and it was obscured from view the rest of the day.

Breakfast was another buffet feast. I started taking pictures of the foods as I went through, but I felt a little pressure from the guy behind me to move along. I probably should have just stepped out of line and indicated for him to go ahead, but I rolled with it. 

The first of these pictures is my first entry in my offering of what I have dubbed "English-isms"- i.e., rather humorous (mis)translations of English. 

One last comment about breakfast. I picked up a roll, some butter and what I thought was grape jam. When I went to take the lid off the jam packet, however, I found that it was a packet composed of two pockets. Then I looked at the instructions on the lid. "No way," I thought. But yes, there was jam on one side and soft butter on the other.

Thus, as the picture on the cover demonstrated, when it is creased in a certain way, you can simultaneously squirt jam out of one opening and soft butter out of the other, as demonstrated by the following photograph. Japanese efficiency ... even in something as insignificant as a jam packet. Cool.

The picture below, of a box of confectionary on sale in the lobby, is my second "English-ism" entry and, so far, the clear leader. I appreciate the effort to translate, I really do. It's just that, well, sometimes its a little funny.