HAKONE HAS STOLEN MY HEART:
Hakone-Yumoto, Hakone, Japan.
October 17th, 2013, 11:01pm.
Hello all! Today has been awesome! We woke up at a decent time. The sun was pouring into our Japanese-style room, and the sound of the neighbouring river flowed through the area. It was a great way to start the day. The times of all the restaurants around here are hard to follow. They all say 8:00 - 11:00, but they don't have any pm or am signs on them. We tried going for supper to one of the nearby restaurants at only 9:00, but the streets were silent. There wasn't a single person to be found. Not even a car that drove by. The only place that had anyone there was the 7 Eleven, only a 5 minute walk away from the Hakone Senkei. (Our Hotel.) We tried looking around, but the abandoned, deserted feel of the area at night time sort of spooked us out. I mean, there were towering mountains and forests surrounding us in every direction! And it was all pitch black! How could we not be a little scared? On top of that, the stupid Japanese horror film, "The Grudge," popped into my head. The movie is set in an apartment that looks exactly like our room! Ugh! Why did my mind have to go there? Luckily I was with Real! We decided to "dine" at 7 Eleven that night, and maybe buy some breakfast there, too. (Just in case we had the same issue in the morning.) Turns out, it was a good idea! Because we were in a slight rush to catch our bus in the morning! We had... yup, you guessed it! Noodles for breakfast!!! Oh how I miss Canadian bacon... And eggs... And toast. Mom and dad, will you make me an all-Canadian breakfast when I get home? Pretty please? :)
Anyways, we finished our breakfast and headed out the door. First up, was a train ride up to an open-air museum. Never heard of one? It was a beautiful large area filled with sculptures and designs everywhere! Real was in Heaven- again! Even I enjoyed it. At the first station, we had bought something called the "Hakone FreePass." It provided access to many different modes of transportation, and even gave us discounts on certain tickets. Like the admittance fee for this museum! Score! We saw many interesting things. Way too many to explain here. My favourite sculpture was a massive white head of a woman, who's head was covered in plants. Her head was laying horizontally in a shallow pool of water. There were tear ducts on the sculptures eyes, so it looked like she had been crying for eternity! It was awesome! Real's favourite was in a small pond. Where everything was surrounded by very green plants. There were bright orange koi fish swimming around in the pond, and a bridge hung along the pond, about 10 ft above it. What caught Real's attention were two orange, abstract shapes placed right in the middle of the pond. It offset the whole scenery! The stationary sculptures in the pond contrasted the fidgety fish in the pond- but they were tied together due to their colour. Orange is nearly a complementary colour to green, so it stuck out in the natural setting. He spent more than 20 minutes just photographing this thing from a hundred different angles! I mean, I liked it, but not that much!!!
After we made our way out of the jungle, we walked through fields and fields of sculptures. We ran into a couple interactive ones, too. We went through a "star maze," and even attempted to play in a children's play area. I made it in about a foot, and the surveillance guy started yelling at me in Japanese. Oops. He said something like, "for children only!" What was he talking about? We're all children at heart!
We saw things like egg yolk benches, mirror spheres, naked sculptures, and Picasso Galleries. Many of the art pieces reminded me of my Auntie Kari! Lots has been reminding me of here lately. I think she's due for a trip here one day! Sohsuke and I could be her tour guides!
We left the open air museum after about 3 hours. That's how intrigued we were with this place! I think we had had enough of it though. We continued up the mountain in a cable car. We got front row seats, baby! I took a video the whole way up! I'm hoping to edit it into a sped up movie to show a time lapse of us going up! We'll see how that goes...
One we made it to the top, we decided to explore a little first. Everyone else just continues along the path! We, on the other hand, like to EXPLORE! It was good that we did, because every time we decided to, we found something new and amazing. At the top of the cable car, we found a beautiful balcony where you could look out towards all the mountains and the ocean. Unfortunately, today was a really cloudy, unclear day. The sun had peaked through a couple times when we were at the gallery, but it was no where to be found anymore! This saddened us a little bit, since this round trip we were doing was supposed to be an excellent Mt. Fuji sightseeing experience. Oh well! "The Joy is in the Journey," remember?
We took a few photos and were on our way. This time, taking a gondola up to the "Hell Valley." It was an awesome view from the gondola! It felt a lot like home! In the Rockies, at Lake Louise, my family and I used to go skiing a lot. It reminded me of them! The view was a tad different, though. Instead of a snow filled environment, everything was green! The leaves were tinted with shades of brown and orange, so I think if we had only pushed our vacation back a couple weeks, we'd have the perfect autumn tour. It was still a great way to travel though! I felt like I was soaring above the mountains! The gondola wasn't busy at all, too! So Real and I had the whole gondola all to ourselves! We sang together and I tried to teach him harmony the whole way!
Once we arrived at our next stop, we took a detour and explored the sulphuric environment. This was the "Hell Valley" I was telling you about earlier. I didn't read too much about it, but apparently it was formed thousands of years ago during a volcanic eruption or something. There was steam billowing out of scattered locations up the mountain. It was quite high up, and looking at it from down where we were made it seem like an impossible journey to the top! Especially with a 15 Ibs backpack and a 10 Ibs camera case... Oh well! THE JOY IS IN THE JOURNEY! It was a 20 minute hike up to the main viewing area. We didn't mind though, as there were many awesome shots to take on the way there. Everything looked amazing. Even the stairs themselves were beautiful! We finally made it to the top, where quite a few people were walking around, taking pictures. The nasty smell of the sulphur really hit me! It was almost unbearable! The polyester-like jacket I have didn't block out the smell, so when I stuffed my sleeve up to my nose, I could still smell every whiff of stink there was! There was no escape! The worst part was that steam! It had the most wretched stench I have ever smelled! Worse than the poop and fart smell from the streets of Tokyo! It was actually so bad at one point that I nearly threw up. But I guess it was worth it. Real said that it was the most spiritual experience of his life. It was like, "The Earth was speaking," he said.
Near the sightseeing area was a building. The theme for the entire area seemed to be "black eggs." I had read about them prior to coming on this round trip. Apparently, according to ancient Japanese legend, for every black egg you eat, you gain 7 years to your life. And they sell them in packs of 5, for 500 yen! ($5.) That's 35 years added to your life for only 5 bucks! What a deal! We went in to buy some, but sure enough, they were sold out. Just our luck. Oh well! All the green tea I've been drinking might make up for it! Did you know my mom can't have green tea while she's taking chemotherapy? That's because it can actually counteract the drug! That must mean that green tea is REALLY healthy! Drink up, people!
So we made it back down to the gondola safe and sound, and headed towards our last part of the trip. "The Sightseeing Cruise!" It's a pirate-themed ship that takes you across Lake Ashi. We got there... and, well... It was closed already. We had spent so much time at the open air museum and the Hell Valley that we missed our ship across the lake!!! Luckily we were able to catch a bus back to Hakone-Yumoto, free of charge with out FreePass. It was the worst bus ride of my life. Like the taxi drivers from yesterday morning, this guy drove like a maniac! And it was even worse because this road was on a mountain, an made a sharp curve every few seconds. I was so scared we were going to crash into the barrier and plummet down the mountain! By the end of it, Real and I were so car sick we nearly had to lay down on the side walk once we got off the bus. It sucked. We walked back to our hotel and relaxed a bit in the WiFi room.
That's when I decided I wanted to go to a Onsen (Japanese Hot Spring) again. There were two at this hotel, indoors and outdoors. The outdoor one alternates between men and women- and today, it was women! Yay! I had never been in an outdoor hot springs before... Well, I have- just not a naked one! Oh my goodness, I was going to have to be naked OUTSIDE! That's like public nudity! I just kept thinking to myself that it's a normal thing here in Japan. There were two women in it already, but they left fairly shortly after I got there. I don't know if that makes me feel relieved or more self conscious... Oh well! I was there all alone! In this peaceful, warm hot spring. I felt like I was the only person in the world. The only light I could see was the dim light from the surrounding lanterns, and the shimmering lights from the buildings in the distance. It was a relaxing experience. I shortly got bored and lonely, so I decided to get out.
I went up to our room and grabbed my camera. Then I took it back up to the hot spring. I mean, I was alone anyways! I took a couple pictures of myself (you can't see anything!!!) so that I could remind myself of how I was not afraid to fit in with the rituals and traditions of Japanese society. I guess you could look at it two ways, either weird and disgusting, or artistic and beautiful. I decided that no matter how anyone chooses to view it, it was a significant experience and milestone in my life that I achieved: I am no longer ashamed of my body and of who I am. No one has to see the pictures, obviously. But I know now that I won't ever forget this time in my life. I went back to our room and told my uncle what I did. As you may or may not know, my uncle is a very "free spirited" type of guy. He likes to express himself in ways that others could view differently. For example, he's snorkelled naked, swam naked, posed naked, everything naked! And he's always documented it with photos! He believes that no one should judge a person for anything else but their actions, and they should only be concerned if these actions negatively affect someone or something. And I thought that was a beautiful thought. He's truly been inspiring to me in the past week... (Dancing on the Subway, singing on the streets. He even danced in that kimono-like house coat I wrote about in my previous blogs!) I admire his ability to shut everyone else out, and just to be in the moment. He said he was very proud of me for achieving the mindset that I did, and that I should never be ashamed of who I am. What do you all think? Let me know in the comments! I'm so curious to hear all the opinions!
After our little chat, we got organized for tomorrow. We said our goodbyes to Hakone, and prepared ourselves for trip to Kyoto tomorrow. We might try and catch the Sightseeing Cruise in the morning, since we missed out on it today. But who knows? Real and I aren't too good at being on time for stuff in the morning...
Good night everyone! And good bye, Hakone! You have been good to us!
Love always,
Lindsay Lehr