Parshat Noach

Large suitcases dispatched the evening before to our third stop Hiroshima, we packed light with hand luggage only and set off for the Shinkansen. For a mere 33 minutes we sped past beautiful traditional coloured wooden houses in the hills, mountain ranges and the countryside. Arriving in Odawara we needed to get a Hakone pass before getting a taxi to the Motakahone Port. Tourist information told us the pass included a shuttle bus to the port so we didn’t need a taxi and for a further 400 yen (£2) each we could make it a 3 day pass and then get the shuttle bus back to the station on Sunday morning. She said the shuttle bus took an hour. We had plenty of time today and the bus started early enough Sunday morning for us so we paid up. The shuttle bus took one and a half hours stopping 38 times. There was absolutely no way we were using that on Sunday. Even “Race across the world” contestants use taxis. We’ve added Japan to India and Italy on our “gotcha” list

I’d purchased a couple of vacuubags with a little pump to extract the air to maximise our packing space. Steven had scorned them. At one of the 38 stops on the journey the driver picked up my bag from the luggage space waving it in the air asking whose bag it was as it was making a noise. There were so many bags rammed into the luggage space that somehow the button on the pump had been pressed. Suitably chastised and pump repositioned and silenced Steven put the bag back and we continued on. “Not one of your greatest buys” he said.

As you might have guessed from the title of this post on arrival in Odawara it had started to rain. Nil points for the weather apps that I had praised in my previous post! As we trundled around bends and up hills the sky darkened, the rain closed in, the windows steamed up and Steven likened the scenery to Wales – lush green countryside, meandering rivers . . . and rain. By the time we arrived at Motakahone port we were just a tad fed up and it was bucketing down. Steven had got off the bus at the back and so I grabbed Steven’s blue bag and the only black one next to it and got off at the front. “Excuse me I think you’ve got my case” I heard, and indeed I had. Thankfully I found my bag on the bus in a completely different place to where Steven had put it, so crisis averted.

Luggage deposited in lockers at the port we were ready for our boat trip on Lake Ashi and our cable car ride. The tourist coaches had arrived so we joined the end of a long queue that was of course outside in the rain. Despite the rain, we avoided the hard sell of upgrading our ticket to first class with its “USP” of being able to queue inside and being guaranteed an inside seat on the boat. It is a sad indictment of today that in dispensing with the personal touch of a live tour guide that talks you through your journey we only get the one recorded message pretending there isn’t a grey rain cloud in sight obscuring the view.

To be fair, the rain had eased to drizzle for both boat journeys and the cable car ride and whilst we couldn’t see a lot of what we were supposed to from the lake or the cable car we still enjoyed ourselves. We have to remember that Japan has its fair share of volcano’s with Lake Ashi filling an old crater and the geological park at Owakudani monitors another less dormant one. The area smelt like sulphur as expected, and the white steam rising from the land stood out against the grey clouds descending from above. As the sign said, it did feel as if you were on the edge of the sky and it made the cable car ride and walk around the top more atmospheric and very different to Hverir.

Owakudani is not just famed for its geology – they use that geology to make black eggs. And those black eggs are marketed extensively – black egg and chips in a box to take home, black egg curry to take home, black egg cuddly toys and obviously fridge magnets. Of course you can’t buy a single black egg. They come in 4s for 500 yen and there is a whole production line for getting these into a bag, into your hand and money extracted as quickly as possible. I feared they would smell and taste like the geothermal park. However, despite the lengthy process to make one of these, they smell and taste like an ordinary hard boiled Yorkshire egg and with no ill effects after eating one we are very grateful for that!

Even though it was prime taxi weather, on arriving back at the port there wasn’t a taxi in sight so we looked for the bus. It was raining so hard that the piece of paper from tourist information disintegrated as we asked for directions. On boarding the driver took pity on us and turned the fan heater on full and motioned for us to huddle next to it and on arrival at the hotel we were greeted with towels for both us and our luggage.

What a hotel – it was beautiful and the view from our room showed the lake with the mist/cloud rolling over the hills. The whole point of this stay was to be in a traditional Ryokan – including the traditional Japanese clothing and footwear for us to wear in our room and around the hotel including the restaurant. The traditional Futon for sleeping was kept in the cupboard and the room was miraculously changed from day to night (and back again) whilst we were out. The beds were low and there are no videos/photos of us getting in or out in an ungainly manner so sorry to disappoint some of you.

This place was all about relaxation and we got into the swing of that really quickly. We wore our Japanese clothes and used the Onsen natural thermal baths. It’s separate bathing as we have to be as natural as the water! I was a little disconcerted to find a man coming out of the female changing rooms when I arrived and it was a bit weird with the huge glass windows by the side of the pool so that we could see the picturesque woodland and presumably the woodland could see us . . .

The restaurant at our Ryokan served a set menu of traditional Japanese food using traditional fish/chicken/meat stock for their dishes to make the whole experience authentic and would now not change this for vegetarians. This came to light in the couple of weeks before we left the UK so it had been arranged for us to eat our meals at their sister hotel next door. This was far more westernised in its style and catering as it had both English and Japanese menus, clearly showing the “hidden” ingredients for every dish. My favourite being the pumpkin and lotus root salad with peanut sauce that I had on my rice. It also had some really weird Halloween stuff!

Despite the weather throughout our time in Hakone and the inconvenience of going to another hotel to eat, we wouldn’t have missed this stop or stayed at a different hotel.

Here is the view from our window – I have no idea why they use pirate ships before anyone asks . . . .