To Hakone

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We leave Tokyo and head for Hakone which is in the mountains to the south of the capital.

The train trip gives us a good appreciation of exactly how vast and densely populated the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolis really is. Although our Shinkansen bullet train is very fast, it still seems to spend a very long time going through continuous suburbia. This also gives us a bit of a taste of how the majority of ordinary Japanese people must live. If the strip along the train line is anything to go by, it looks like most of them live in small apartments or very small houses. I'm not sure how representative this is. If travelling along a train line was the basis for assessment of how a community lives, a visitor to Melbourne could be forgiven for thinking that all Melburnians were graffiti vandals.

We see members of the train crew regularly walking up and down the carriages to make sure that everything is in order, and to answer any questions that any of the passengers might have. Politeness and respect is well in evidence yet again. Whenever a crew member reaches the front of a carriage, they turn and bow to all the passengers before moving on.

We reach Odawara station which is the gateway to the Hakone region. We see a sign in the station with a picture of a tsunami wave, and the words "10.6 metres" above it. It seems that this is the height of the station above sea level, and is presumably intended to provide some guidance as to whether or not you might drown here in the event of a tsunami. I’m pretty sure that "tsunami" is a Japanese word, and we suspect that the Japanese are way ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to planning for anything associated with earthquakes.

We transfer to another train which takes us up into the foothills, and we then transfer onto a bus. The road is very steep and windy, and the views are spectacular. Everything is very green, and we catch occasional glimpses of a large mountain stream deep in a gorge below us. We see lots of steel netting draped over the steep slopes above us, and suspect that this is probably meant to stop the mountains from collapsing onto the road during an earthquake. I’m starting to feel very nervous about earthquakes and tsunamis. I wonder what you’re supposed to do if there’s an earthquake. Staying put in a multi-storey hotel while it collapses on top of you wouldn’t seem to be a great idea, but we neglected to bring a tent with us so I’m not sure we’ve got a lot of options.

We catch a glimpse of a snow capped Mount Fuji towering above all the other mountains to the west of here. It looks spectacular. It looks so spectacular that I get very excited and can't stop pointing at it. Issy then reminds me that the Japanese people regard pointing as extremely offensive, and I think that I might have just seriously offended an entire busload of locals. I hope that our bus mates aren’t staying where we're staying, and I suspect that they probably do too.

We reach our hotel which is on the shores of Lake Ashi. We are told that we've been assigned a Japanese Western room. The receptionist explains that this means that they won't force us to sleep on mats on the floor, but other than that the room is largely traditional Japanese. The first thing we notice when we open the door to the room is the slippers. There are two pairs immediately inside the door to the room, another pair in the toilet, two pairs on the balcony, and another two pairs in the room’s very small wardrobe. Issy says that she's not planning to spend any time in the wardrobe, so she won't be needing that pair at least. There’s also a pair of purple robes and grey kimono type wraps in the wardrobe. Issy is particularly pleased with the control panel for the room’s toilet. It includes a seat warmer, and all the buttons from the Tokyo hotel toilet plus a couple of extra ones for good measure. Hopefully by the time we leave she will have worked out how to use at least some of them. There are no seats or couches in the room, just a couple of bean bags on tatami mats on the floor. We get great views out over the lake from the balcony.

It’s still quite early and rain is forecast for tomorrow, so we decide that we’d better make good use of the rest the day. We walk down to the lake shore and board a pirate ship for a cruise on the lake. As we cruise further along the lake we can see progressively more of the spectacular Mount Fuji in the distance. It is quite a sight. We arrive at the far end of the lake, and assume that if we stay on board the pirate ship it will take us back to where we started. It seems that we are mistaken. The crew tells us that cruising is finished for the day and that we will need to find another way home. It would be a long and chilly swim, so we trudge hopefully to a bus stop. The bus trip back is long and windy, but is does eventually land us back at the hotel.

We head up to the hotel dining room for dinner, and immediately break into a cold sweat. Everyone in the dining room except us is decked out in the purple robes, grey kimonos and slippers that we found in our wardrobe when we arrived, and we feel like we’ve just accidentally walked in on the weekly meeting of some mysterious secret society. All the eyes in the room are on us. We sheepishly ask the waiter whether we’ve breached a compulsory dress code. I think he feels sorry for us. He tells us that we will have a chance to redeem ourselves tomorrow night, but we must remember to wear our purple robes with the left flap over the right, as the reverse symbolises death. We take careful note. We check back with him a few minutes later to make sure we haven’t got this wrong. He now tells us that we must remember to wear the right flap of the robe over the left. I’m now in more of a panic than ever. If our Japanese waiter can’t remember how to wear a robe, what hope have we got. We try to ease our panic in the usual manner by ordering copious quantities of beer and sake. The food is a buffet and is superb, but I am already feeling very nervous about tomorrow night’s dinner and can feel a sleepless night coming on.

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