visual assault, llc

8:00am

We headed out early this morning to catch the Shinkansen (high speed express train) from Hakata station in Fukuoka city towards Hakone. I rode Shinkansen a few years ago in 1999 when I travelled from Kyoto to Tokyo.

I love taking the express train in Japan, its got to be the best way to travel, as it segments each city into bite-sized 5 minute chunks as you pass out of a mountain tunnel onto the open city plains, followed by another mountain tunnel. Most Japanese cities are located in the open plains enclosed by mountains. This particular trip passed through Kita-Kyushuu, Hiroshima Osaka, Kyoto, Otsu and Nagoya, where we transferred to another express train to the castle town of Odawara.

13:00

There we met up with Ayakas’ father who had rented a car to drive up through the touge (Toh-gay: Mountain passes) to Hakone. Hakone is a town fairly high in the mountains, famous for its Onsen (hot springs). The drive took about of hour on a small 2 lane road winding up through tiny resorts and little local resturants. This is a holiday weekend, so most people have monday off, so many tourists are milling about.

At one point we came to a point in the road with many hairpins turns, and a large banner saying “…Bosozoku to hashiriya Kinshi…” or racers and motorcycle gangs are prohibited. From the skidmarks on the pavement, it was easy to tell that this particluar road was a popular late-night spot for rabble-rousers.

14:00

Eventually we arrived at our resort, which is a Ryokan (Traditional Japanese style inn) with a hot spring. We will be here for 3 days and 2 nights. Upon arrival, we dropped our things off in our rooms, and got dressed in traditional Yukata. We then headed down to the onsen. This onsen is separated by male and female, so me and Ayakas’ father stripped down and showered, and took a dip in the regular indoor onsen bath for a bit before heading outside to rotenburo (outside bath). There we had a nice chat and relaxed.

18:00

Dinner was at 6pm. It consisted of salad and consomme soup, with a white fish sashimi, followed by beef stew and a yellow-tail nabe (hot pot). We enjoyed sake and some wine with dinner. Dessert was a caramel/butterscotch cake/pudding (i dont know for sure), but it was tasty.

19:20

After dinner we all gathered in my room to relax. We watched a few television shows, enjoyed conversation and ate snacks with sake.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 7:27 am and is filed under Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.