Friday, 11 April 2008
A nudge in the ribs summoned me back into consciousness around 5:10 the following morning. ‘Er Indoors was quite keen for the two of us to make an early morning visit to the onsen.
A check revealed the facilities were closed for maintenance from 5:30 to 6:00, so we spent a few minutes discussing Fuji-viewing options.
Our train to the Deep North was due to leave Tokyo after three in the afternoon, and our only other commitment was a lunchtime appointment with The Interpreter.
That effectively gave us the whole morning to mount an attempt to glimpse the mountain.
Eventually, we decided a repeat of the train > cable > ropeway routine was preferable to a bus trip to Moto-Hakone, which would prove fruitless if the weather was cloudy.
If the weather improved, even if we didn’t see Fuji, we’d see views we’d been unable to enjoy yesterday.
Since we could save some time if we caught the train from the station at Tonosawa that gave me an excuse, after I was back from the onsen, to go for a walk. I wanted to locate the station that had to be somewhere on the other side of the stream.
Since there were two suspension bridges across the stream, one on either side of the hotel, I guessed one or both must lead to the station. Theoretically, I should be able to complete a circuit, crossing one bridge on the way to the station, and crossing the other one on the return journey.
I planned to confirm my hunches by inquiring at Reception, but the area was deserted when I passed through, so I was left to trust my own instincts.
Which, of course, turned out to be totally wrong.
I turned left, on an anticlockwise loop around the route I’d visualised, crossed the downstream bridge and encountered a private residence without an obvious path towards the station.
If The Casual Reader is wondering why Hughesy was so confident there was a station there, yesterday’s train stopped at a station clearly labelled Tonosawa. Later, I’d glimpsed a train from my stream-gazing position in the room in the evening.
Fine, I thought. It’s the other bridge. Should have gone that way, since I saw cars crossing yesterday afternoon.
Heading to the upstream bridge took me past the hotel.
I checked Reception on the way, in the hope of gaining guidance, but the area seemed deserted, so I carried on over the bridge and followed the road from there.
The road took me to another small hotel. There seemed to be a path that looped around behind the buildings, so I followed that.
Sidetracks branched off the main path, but I figured that the route to the station would be fairly well-trodden.
I followed what looked like the best option, which gradually became less and less promising.
In fact, the further I went, the more it seemed that no one apart from the odd adventurous foreigner used the track at all.
Backtracking, I tried various paths that branched off my main track, but each of those seemed to lead to a section of pipe I assumed was associated with the spa business.
Back at the hotel, I found someone at Reception and was told I should turn left once I’d passed through the front door and left again at a group of vending machines.
At the downstream bridge, there were no vending machines, so I followed the road downhill, crossed the bridge that took the main road over the stream, and found the machines.
They were situated close to a sign bearing the words Tonosawa station and an arrow.
Fine, I thought. Shouldn’t be too far.
Unfortunately, after a couple of hundred metres, I was faced with a multitude of paths with signs in Japanese and incomprehensible to large hairy non-Japanese-speaking foreigners.
If I had received the same directions when I first set out, I might have been inclined to explore a tad further. But thoughts of breakfast prompted me to head back to the hotel.
The best option seemed to involve a bus back to Hakone-Yumoto and catching the train from there.
Breakfast involved a croissant, juice, and a plate with scrambled eggs, sausages, a hash brown salad and a serve of pasta with mayonnaise, as well as the predictable tea or coffee.
Once we’d finished eating, packing and checking out, we headed back to the bus stop and caught the bus to Hakone-Yumoto, where we missed the train by a matter of seconds.
Never mind, we thought, the next one goes at 9:03, and the weather seems to be improving all the time, and we should be up at the cable railway before ten.
The train ride was disappointing after the previous day’s misty mystery. If we were experiencing it for the first time, I’m sure the reaction would have been different.
Once we were on the rope-way, we realised that the Fuji-viewing prospects were virtually nil, though we were able to get a good view of the sulphurous hell of Owakudani on the way.
When we reached yesterday’s lunch stop, we headed off in the direction in which, as far as we could make out, Mount Fuji must lie.
Since all we could see was a massive bank of white cloud, Madam ventured into a souvenir shop to verify that we were heading in the right direction.
She was informed that we were in the right place for a good view of the mountain but not today.
In that case, there was nothing for it but to head back down the rope-way and cable car and catch the train to a spot where we could link up with a bus.
That would take us to the hotel, where we could reclaim the luggage, cut our losses and take a taxi back to the station.
A local train should deliver us to Odawara in time to take our seats on the 12:35 service to Tokyo.
As the train left Odawara, I reflected on one of Frockster, the Former-Fishmongrel's recurring themes.
If we went to the Land of the Rising Sun, we had to plant a Bowen mango tree on Mount Fuji.
As ‘Er Indoors scanned the scenery on our left, the suggestion came back to haunt me. In the wake of an unsuccessful day-and-a-half’s attempted Fuji-viewing, it was apparent these sacrilegious sentiments had come to the attention of deities guarding the mountain.
As a result, they’d masked the peak behind a veil of cloud for the duration of our visit.
As the train left Hakone, we looked back. The cloud was slowly lifting.
It seemed the deities had been mollified, though from where we sat on the Shinkansen the summit remained shrouded by cloud. So I turned my thoughts to the next stage of the trip rather than dwelling on the past.
As we headed towards Yokohama and Tokyo, we moved into a belt of urban development. However, as we pulled into ShinYokohama, I was surprised by the amount of greenery close to the station.
It was hardly surprising to find it was impossible to tell where Yokohama ended, and Tokyo started.
Just after one o’clock, the train pulled into Tokyo, and we set off in search of The Interpreter.
Once contact was established, I found myself on the wrong side of a stream of students on an excursion as ‘Er Indoors threatened to turn a corner and disappear from view.
With disaster narrowly averted, we set off to find lunch, eventually settling for pizza before spending about an hour discussing language-related matters and wordplay in general.
I’d been bemused by signs we’d sighted around Hakone urging the public yo avoid touching "doubtful things". I was not sure which of an object’s properties would render it doubtful.
A year or two earlier I'd been equally intrigued by a shop offering "homemade cakes and pies" that operated under the name of "Pumpkin Poo". (http://www.engrish.com/2001/12/pumpkin-poo/)
Discussing linguistic oddities with someone whose job involves instantaneous translation from English into Japanese was an enjoyable way to pass the time.
By 3:40, we were back on the bullet train bound for Bashō country.
A lengthy tunnel took us to Ueno station, where I sighted the new double-decker Shinkansen before we plunged into another tunnel.
We emerged looking out over the sprawl of Tokyo’s northern suburbs and had hardly gone any distance before two overalled females moved through the carriage collecting rubbish. I found that odd I found odd. We’d been kept waiting on the platform while the train was cleaned before departure.
Or do travellers bring their rubbish on board with them?
After we’d passed Omiya, we encountered farmland once again, though there was still plenty of medium-density housing.
And in the middle of one urbanised belt, sighting Hotel Valentine I couldn’t help wondering what sort of establishment it might be.
There’s every possibility the establishment in question could attract the majority of its business from the honeymoon trade. Of course, there are some other possible explanations, and the name could originate from somewhere right over on the other side of the further reaches of left field.
The blinds on the west side of the train had been drawn to keep out the afternoon sun. I was glad to have something to look at as we passed patches of forest interspersed with urban areas.
About ten minutes past Utsomiya we were finally in more or less open country stretching to the eastern horizon as we gradually moved into serious forest in between villages and farmlands.
We passed through lengthy tunnels as the land became hillier, and banks of dull grey cloud started to develop overhead.
Glancing across, someone on the port side of the carriage had raised their sunshade.
I caught sight of snow-capped mountains.
The mountains away to the east must have been considerably lower or under the influence of warmer conditions near the coast since there was no snow to be seen in that direction.
We also noticed that we were moving back into areas of cherry-blossom. On the edge of Sendai, I sighted one of the few freight trains I’d spotted since I’d first boarded a train in Japan.
The high-speed commuter lines are obviously separated from the corridors that carry the quantities of freight that an economy the size of Japan’s must generate.
We arrived in Kitakami, our base for the next thirty-six hours comfortably after dark and immediately settled into the routine of booking the next leg of the trip.
That took some time since Sunday’s travel involves two changes of train on the long haul back to base in Kōbe.
An additional complication reared its head as ‘Er Indoors requested a starboard-side window seat on the final leg, a last attempt to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji in the wake of Triple-F’s fantasising.
The only available reserved seats were in the smoking section of the train, so we decided to cut our losses and declined.
While these negotiations were in train, someone I guessed was our host for the next day and a half arrived, mobile in hand, obviously looking for someone.
Having established that she was looking for us, we waited till negotiations had been concluded and the tickets processed. After that, greetings were exchanged, and we headed off for my first encounter with a modern Japanese house.
Apart from visits to The Mother’s apartment, which is some forty years old, I’d only seen the external aspect of the Japanese house.
We arrived outside a small two-storey house occupying a small block and guarded by a little hairy dachshund named Kotaro.
Inside, the canine was transformed from watchdog to lapdog as he attempted to protect the property by trying to lick the intruders to death.
The new nickname of Grog Dog seemed like the way to go when faced with a creature that is obviously a major league Licker.
With the preliminary pleasantries done, we sat down to supper, and talked till ten, while a small brown dog embarked a strategy of subjugation by dissolution.