Day nine
Monday January 19
If I’m not careful we’re going to end up speaking more about food in here than music. And so it is that tonight’s activity is hotpot night out, again going up one of those vertical high streets to the place Maja’s found for us to experience this. The concept here is two different flavoured pans of, I guess you would call them soup. But it’s not for drinking, or eating, or whatever it is one does with soup. Instead, you take all the raw food you want – fish, vegetables, thin slices of meat – and swirl them around in it. The great discovery here is noodles cooked in the liquid. Yes, Maja’s brought us for an experience and that’s just what we have. Complete with an all you can drink part of the concept where beers kind of pour themselves, including angling the glass just the way a bartender would, and where whiskey comes in dispensers that I at first mistake for where you would get your ice cream syrup toppings from.
Day 10
Tuesday January 20
The trip takes a bit of a turn today as first does the weather. Seriously cold outside and with a kind of wind I’ve never heard before. Full on cliched movie wind. All howling and screaming outside. All day. Pizza and movie night it is. We are not going out in that. Although poor pizza delivery guy still has to.
As the night goes on and the wind outside increases, we start to think we might struggle to sleep tonight. That does happen but it has nothing to do with the wind.
It could be because it’s been getting increasingly colder since we’ve been here, but we decide the sound outside the apartment at night is just too much. This place is a tad louder than you would want, with trains running just a few metres away from us until late at night and then early in the morning – and the walls are very thin. We also have our wind/ air conditioner heating thing in the bedroom which we have to run all night otherwise it would just be too cold in here. And understandably, neighbours around them are also running theirs. At least that’s what we think it is as the noise outside seems like it’s getting worse and worse. It’s been happening around 4am each morning, we kinda think. And that’s been a bit non ideal with being woken up around then and then not being able to get back to sleep, especially once the trains start up again an hour or so later. But now this thing is on when we go to sleep. It makes the walls vibrate with a bass hum right next to and behind us. But even worse, the pillows themselves feel like they have little motors in them whirring away. It’s a sound and a feeling that gets right into your head, making you wonder if sleep will ever be possible again. In fact, if you turned it up a few notches, I think you might just have yourself a sleep deprivation torture device. I’m not even exaggerating for effect.
Day 11
Wed January 21
Nope. We both feel like we just lay awake all night last night. That’s on top of a few previous nights where we’ve been woken at 4 and then unable to get back to sleep again. It’s been causing us to either sleep later and later or not quite be full versions of ourselves during the days. We’ve been putting a lot of that down to jet lag, but we’re quite deep into things now and jet lag or time difference can no longer be blamed. No. This place is just too loud and too much all night. And come on. If you can help it, you can’t come away like this for five weeks only to be miserable all the time cos it’s impossible to sleep. We had been planning a night or a weekend away with Maja having the idea of a special hotel treat she’d always wanted to try. But now we’re bringing that right forward. Not the special hotel night, but we’re getting out of here at the first opportunity and that means tomorrow with tonight suddenly being our last night here.
Maja’s cancelling our Air BnB lease on this place, we’re going to go Japan travelling and hotelling for a few days and during that she’s going to find somewhere else for us to stay.
With that, tomorrow is now moving day with Maja declaring it is now suddenly holiday and sightseeing time.
But before all that, we do have one last night in here and it’s a night of which Maja has an epic work meeting. Or rather, one of those all day affairs of one meeting after another. Given that we’re nine hours ahead, that means her day begans at 5pm and will go on into the night sometime. Tiny apartment. I really should leave Maja to it. But that works great. I have a plan. We’re only two hours behind Australia, so for the first time ever I’m in a timezone where I can actually watch the tennis Australian Open. Maja, you do what you have to do, I’ll be out watching the tennis. Except it doesn’t quite work out like that. Instead, what I discover is that Japanese people just don’t do pub sport like we do. At all. They simply don’t do it. I have the lovely idea that I can just walk into the nearby city centre and very quickly find a bar that has a TV on that will very obviously have the tennis – the Australian Open uses blue courts so it’s very easy to spot from outside a bar. Except no. Not a thing here at all. OK, I’m making an assumption, but come on. I spend the entire time I’m supposed to be chilling at a bar watching tennis being quite literally chilled out on the street in a totally futile attempt to find such a place. I get really excited when I see a place advertising itself as a sports bar. I go in and see that this is just a bad translation for a kind of machine type casino place. A little further along and having given up hope of any tennis, I see a place advertising itself as a music bar. It’s up one of those vertical high street things. Oh OK. Maybe this is the day I wander about fruitlessly and end up finding a cool live venue for us to play in. I go up to check it out and find it’s an empty bar with a bored guy who comes out and tells me it’s 1000 yen an hour – about a fiver. Yeah. Apart from buying drinks, at many bars you get charged per hour you’re there as well. No thanks. Oh, and that music bar thing. That means it’s a bar that has music playing in it. That’s it. A sound system gently playing a playlist in the background and the place can advertise itself as a music bar. OK. I get it now.
Back out on the street and I admit defeat when I check out a place advertising itself as an English sports bar. I go in and find that fine, they do have sports on. But it’s their one and only channel and right now it’s showing some random football match from the Belgium league. I quickly decide this is like saying you have an Anime bar in the UK, and then when Anime fans find you, you proudly tell them you show episodes of One Piece. OK, One Piece has been going for 26 years and has well over 1000 episodes, but even so, it would be a stretch to describe yourself as an Anime bar. But fine. I’ve been walking for something like three hours by now. I’m cold, tired, totally fed up and disappointed and have totally admitted defeat on what I thought was very much mission possible. I’m also well overdue the beer or two I thought I was going to have ages ago. So I order a beer and sit down with some relief at a warm table, all disappointment forgotten as I savour the chance to finally have stopped and set about on my first steps on my long overdue education of Belgian soccer. I’m still here when Maja’s meetings end and time is called on my failed mission.
Day 12
Thursday January 22
There has often been the sense, partially and at times totally true that The Diaries are part travelogue. Given that we’re often barely even able to keep up, to the extent that hardly anything has yet been written about Mexico due to the non-stop nature of that particular trip and that fact that it’s just so physically difficult to play guitar that much and then use those same hands and fingers to type about it all, if we really did go full travelogue, or maybe continue to try to, this thing would just never get written. So yes, a lot more could be written about all this next bit but I may just blast through some of it.
Let’s have a go with this part of it.
We’re heading up into the mountains around Tokyo, first up to Hakone – pronounced (roughly) Hakkon-Ne (as in Nest). A train takes us halfway before we catch a bus that takes us up a breathtaking and twisty ride going high up into the mountains. All the way up above the snowline.
When we get off, the first thing we notice is the silence. Now we realise we practically never have silence. Not just in the room we left today, but just in general. Living in central London, and just general city living. Up here we now discover the existence of actual in the wilderness silence. With that, we set off for our hotel.
There we discover a simple but wonderful and really quite large room with a mountain view.
Once settled, we go out to the only place around here to the local restaurant and the only place up here that’s open past 5pm. Our host has nicely but firmly reminded us, this is not the city. This is the mountain. And the steepest mountain in Japan at that, she adds.
Like the room, the dinner is simple but wonderful in a homely place that comes complete with a log fire. Then we walk back down the hill freezing in the minus seven temperature and snowy winds. Yep. We’re in the mountains alright.
But once back after dinner, we’re able to enjoy the individually private his and hers onsens – the natural hot spring baths the hotel offers.
On that natural hot spring experience, these mountains are famous and a much desired tourist location due to the very existence of the naturally volcanically heated water that is provided for the baths throughout the region.
Day 13
Friday January 23
The main local town is someway down the mountain and accessed by a cable car. For this I’m expecting one of those box type things that hangs from cables. But no. Here they’re called ropeways. Or maybe I’m just getting cable cars wrong because what we’re directed to looks more like a small railway platform. And yep, down on the tracks is a thick cable, and coming towards us is a train type vehicle. But this is a really weird thing to get on. It has a series of steps all the way through it, and when you get on you really do look up and down the thing. I’ve never been on anything this steep. And looking down, you see far down the mountain and you’re on a thing that’s literally being held back from total freefall by a cable that’s attached someway back up there. And off we go. Trundling smoothly at a deliberate pace as the cable gets paid out.
Fifteen minutes of so of this and we find ourselves in the very pretty mountain town of Hakon and go out lose ourselves for an afternoon among its mountain streams, waterfalls and artisan food stalls.
When we’ve taken it all in and start to head back we decide to stop off at the tiny town, or village, of Gora to have a look at that. It’s pretty enough, but is indeed tiny, much smaller than we thought. So it’s back for a stock up at the local village shop and back on the cable car up to the hotel.
Day 14
Saturday January 24
Before heading out yesterday we sent out a bunch of emails to more venues. We’ve had two replies, basically saying the same thing. Please hire my venue. We ignore them.
Now we’re heading out on a day we really could go to town in travelwriter land, but really, I just want to keep up with the pace we’re setting. Let’s see how we go. We’re off for a view of Mount Fuji.
However, today we are also traveling to the hotel Maja booked for the luxury stay. So this day trip has only been made possible because yesterday while at Hakone railway station, Maja discovered a luggage transfer service. With that it has been arranged that our luggage will be taken away from the hotel here this morning and will be waiting for us at Hakone station when we are ready to make our transfer the next hotel.
So it is, wonderfully unburdened that we take the same cable car we took yesterday, but this time up the mountain. From there it’s a cable car, sorry, ropeway going a long way down. Now this is what I was expecting from a cable car. We really are in one of those boxes suspended from high cables. But where usually these things look somewhat ramshackle and drafty inside with maybe a single bench, or not, with mostly standing, this thing looks like some kind of luxury coach type seating. And really big. Two sections of circular cushioned seating allowing for a capacity of between 20 and 30 people. We’re in there with less than half that so we’re able to get ourselves right to the front and have an incredible view all the way down. Although no Mount Fuji yet. I also discover that this is Maja’s first ever time in one of these things and she’s fascinated.
As we’re drifting down, we get our first view of the fabled mountain. Sporadic at first through the peaks, but quickly coming more and more into view. Mount Fuji. Just every bit as majestic and enormous and totally dominating as I’d always imagined, althoug. Among this mountainous region it stands almost totally alone, almost mocking the peaks around it which have the temerity to call themselves mountains.
By the time we reach our destination on some kind of plateau, it’s come fully into view, and we find we’re on some kind of natural viewing platform on which is situated a geology museum and large visitor centre and restaurant. But before going into any of them we need to take this whole thing in and get some amazing photographs. But oh my it’s cold, and with a vicious, freezing wind which whips up the snow around us. As much as we’ve waited for this, this is enough. We’ve seen it, we’ve got our photos, can we please get inside now? We are still at an altitude of almost a thousand metres and have proved beyond doubt that we were not built for mountain climbing. Yes we’d probably be wearing better clothes if we were having a go at that, but even so, we are pretty well wrapped up. But just no. Inside now please.
First, into the museum for a fascinating look at the history of the region to see how it was created through the millenia. Here, we also discover how the hot water originates in the mountains and is funneled to the various businesses and, I guess, private homes which use it. I don’t massively understand it so I won’t try to explain it here, but I will say that the people doing it have what looks like a really difficult and cold job, but they also seem to have a lot of pride in their work and what it means for the local community and how it drives the tourism of the area.
Afterwards it’s lunch in a huge and basic restaurant overlooking the beautiful lake we’re about to sail across. And in those things. Are those pirate ships? They sure look like it. There are two of them and they totally dominate the lake, their fluffy white classic sails soaring high above it. These things come complete with the sculptured frontage which flies across the water, leading the way and pointing in the direction you’re sailing. With great timing, just as we’re finishing lunch we see the ship has just started embarking so we casually make our way out to join in. Then we’re on the thing and ready to leave. Inside it’s full of smoothly carved benches and polished staircases. Practical, but quite luxurious looking. And once we’re out on the open lake, we just have to go upstairs to the top deck to take in the stunning 360 view. And to our left, there it is. Mount Fuji looking over us and making sure we cross safely. We also pass a small shoreline temple. Half an hour of this and we’re on the other side and there’s one more sight to take in. This is the Hakone Temple complex which we reach by walking first along the shoreline, then through a wonderful and wide forest footpath. And there it is. The ancient temple and grounds which we take in for about half an hour before retracing our steps through the forest, past the lake again and then to the local train station. Then it’s onto Hakone station which is where the plan all falls into place perfectly and we pick up our luggage. With that, we are at our next destination and walk through this now familiar town to our hotel.
We arrive at 4pm, with check-in having been no earlier than 3:30. It’s amazing to think how much we’ve crammed into today and how much travelling we’ve done; by cable car, rope way, ship, then train, all via Mount Fuji and a forest temple complex. And it’s not even close to getting dark. And we have yet more on the agenda. Because this is no ordinary hotel. When you think about activities, this hotel we’ve booked into is the activity. I have no idea what’s coming. Maja totally does, and she is on it.
First, the room. If the last one was large, this one is absolutely enormous. Actually it’s more an apartment than a hotel room, and much bigger than our Camden apartment at that. For starters it has an entry way larger than a hotel room we stayed in in the UK a few months ago. Directly in front of that is a whole bathroom complex. Quite a big washroom, separate door for a walk-in wet room of shower and bath, and on the other side, another door behind which are two toilet areas.
Then back into the entry way and the main door – off to the right of that as you enter from the bathroom – slides open to reveal a cavernous room. There’s no bed, and Maja explains that this will be brought in and put up later by the staff. It’s also now that I discover that we will be eating in this room, waited on by staff who will bring us a set dinner. Hang on. Luxury hotel? And you don’t get to decide what to have for dinner? Oh. OK. Didn’t see that coming. Well let’s roll with it. There has to be a reason. ‘Oh,’ says Maja. ‘There is a reason.’ Oh. OK then.
But before dinner there’s the other significant aspect of this place that we have to attend to. The famous onsen. We have one outdoors and one indoors. Given that males and females remain parted, times are assigned for when which sex can use which onsen. Maja gets first chance of the outdoor one. It’s now that I discover the next part of this experience. We’re not going to be wearing our own clothes. Instead we’re going full native and dressing ourselves in yakutas – kind of like kimonos but a lot looser and less formal. With these we will walk across the complex to the onsens. Which means going outside in the zero to sub zero temperatures wearing little more than essentially a loose, mostly open dressing gown. And when we return to the room, these will be what we’re wearing for dinner. Oh. OK then.
I go and do my thing and when I come out and into the carpark, Maja is just entering the complex. She’s already done her thing, nipped out to the local shop and come back with beer. Like I said. She is on it. I should add that she did change out of the yakuta to do that.
Now it’s back to the hotel room to chill for a while and wait for dinner. Just what could this thing be?
Dinner isn’t so much served as ceremonially brought and presented. By two people. And it isn’t like you get a single meal on a plate, and maybe a starter and dessert. No. This is a whole array of items laid out before us in ten little plates and dishes. That’s ten little plates and dishes each. Including meal size portions of sashimi on ice and some kind of luxurious wagyu beef, tofu and vegetable dish.
Once this has been served, the more senior host wishes us goodbye and a pleasant evening with a bow that ends up with her on her knees and then fully head and hands to the floor. I have to say that I feel quite uncomfortable with this level of subservience and choose to see it as more performative than anything, although Maja says this is just the way it is with these kinds of things. Oh. OK then.
Respecting the surroundings and the occasion itself, no computers or devices come out at all during our stay here. It really is the most spectacular kind of date night. And indeed, date weekend.
Day 15
Sunday January 25
Because we get to repeat it pretty much all again the next morning as we’re woken with something of very similar size and presentation for breakfast before being able to head off to the onsen again. For breakfast, think a whole variety of fish dishes – cooked and raw, so more sashimi on ice again – and Japanese variations on eggs and meat concepts.
We’re checked out by early afternoon and on our way to our next hotel, this time on the coastal town of Atami.
On the way, our second train starts to hug the coast. With that I get my first ever look at the Pacific Ocean. We check a few map bits and see that what we’re looking at goes either to the west coast of the United States or the east coast of Australia, or through the huge gap between both of them and all the way to the Antarctic. So basically we are looking out at sea that goes all the way to the bottom of the world with just sporadic island nations in between. I’ve never seen anything so vast in my life, and the place we’re going to sits right on the edge of all this.
Out of Atami train station and we’re right into the bustling city and looking straight downhill. Our route to the hotel takes us through a busy pedestrianised area where almost every shop left and right looks like another new thing for the photo album. It’s all steep downhill. And once through this the mountainside gets even steeper and it becomes a challenge to control our wheeled luggage even though the roads have started to wind more and more. This hill goes all the way to sea level and we find ourselves on the edge of a coastal path with the blue, almost instantly deep Pacific to our left and an enormous crest of high rise hotels to our right. The whole seafront is like this. As well as the stunning view, replete with large pleasurecraft and yachts, we’re just relieved to be finally walking on level pavement and not fighting the gravity draining slopes anymore. Our hotel is at the far end of this promenade we can see, just before the shoreline rises again to a hill on which sits the dominant Japanese castle feature of Atami.
It’s too early to check in when we arrive so we just leave our luggage secure in the large reception area and head out to explore the area.
For lunch we find what looks like a ramshackle shack in a row of ramshackle shacks just before the coastal area rises again. This is the end of the commercial area and the local cafe type place we’ve singled out, just yards from the sea, serves up the the most amazing fish I think either of us has ever had. It comes barbecued and we also take our own noodle dish each for an incredible homecooked experience.
As for Maja, she waits a lifetime to ride a ropeway – cable car to me – and two come along at once. But after the luxurious and massively long Mount Fuji ropeway car, we’re now in the more familiar territory of the smaller, draftier variety with the single bench where really, everyone just stands. And this is also apparently the shortest such ropeway in Japan. OK. I’m calling them ropeways now, alright?
This castle isn’t the ancient structure one might imagine. Instead, it’s a modern kind of re-enactment of what was imagined might have been here had plans gone ahead to build such a thing in the 1400s. The plans were actually there apparently. The ability to see through the project wasn’t. So the local council built one for them in the 1950s and here it stands as a stunning modern feature of what might have been.
Once at the top of this hill overlooking the ocean, we have to stop for a while to take in the oceanview and the whole hotel city spread before us. Beyond that the mountain rises to take its place among the mountains all around. And somewhere in there is the city centre we rolled down earlier today. As we’re trying to take some pictures, a group of three young Japanese students – two girls and a guy – ask us to take their picture with the backdrop. We do, then they return the favour, then the three of them get very impressed and excited to hear Maja’s Japanese and the three of them get talking very animatedly. After this, Maja says to me, ‘They’re our castle friends now. We’re all going up there together.’
And into the castle we go to see the whole series of museums and art galleries in there including whole sets of Samurai outfits and weapons. This includes a Samurai sword in a see-through perspex box that you can actually lift from the handle. It’s much heavier than you might think from the way you see them casually and expertly wielded and swung around in the movies. Through the castle we go, all the way to the top – six stories up and now 120 metres above sea level. From there we have the place all to ourselves and can walk all around the place from the outside. Through all this we get to know each other a bit and I can introduce the girls Lucy and Tama and their friend Dai. They’re all from Yokohama. Lucy speaks great English, Tama is a singer/songwriter, and Dai is a student teacher. Tama and Dai do also have some English so I’m able to communicate a little with them, but for me, it’s mostly with Lucy.
Once outside again, we all decide to continue the evening on together and head into the city. But first we have to go and check into the hotel. They come with us and wait in the lobby while we go and discover we’ve been upgraded to a seaview room, but not just that. Again we find ourselves in what is more like an apartment than a hotel room. Bedroom, living room, small kind of kitchen area and a really quite nice bathroom. And that living room – the whole front wall is a glass patio door leading out onto a balcony and, as promised, looking right over into the bay and out to the Pacific. This is just incredible.
Now we go back down to meet our new friends and head out to find a wonderful fish restaurant and a whole bunch of drinks. During this the girls tell us they have gone online and bought tickets for our show in Sunday in Music Bar Melodia in Nakana. As conversation develops, there’s talk of us going to Yokohama to hang out with them sometime, and when it’s time to leave, we all decide to continue the party deeper into the town. This sees us walk all the way up the hill we battled earlier in the day and right up the train station area again. We’re in search of a karaoke box for the party finale to the evening and to a day that saw us with that luxurious breakfast all the way back in the mountains of Hakone.
Our friends really don’t want this evening to end and stay with us almost till the very last available minute as we all join together to belt out what must the most joyous and emphatic rendition of Don’t Look Back In Anger I’ve ever been part of as we all stand in front of the big karaoke screen, arms around each other and just sing like we’re trying to rip the very sound out of our throats. Oh wow. This is the kind of thing this song was made for.
When it’s over, we go downstairs for a very emotional but quick goodbye because they really have pushed it to the last minute. I actually couldn’t believe it when I discovered how little time they had till their train went but that they also wanted to do one last song. They have to run – run – for the last train to Yokohama. When we get back to the hotel after a much more leisurely end to the evening, we receive a text from them to say the doors closed almost the second they entered the train.
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