Day 6: Monday May 31

We rolled out of bed at 0830 and I headed downstairs for emergency hotel searching. Some nice French ladies were using the computer next to me, and after some conversation, they gave me the name and number of the ryokan they had stayed at in Kyoto--and a good thing they did, because we called four others, and everywhere was booked--we finally managed to procure three nights at their ryokan, Roku Roku. We also managed to book a ryokan that was actually in Hakone this time. When we checked out--having reserved this ryokan for next week when we come back to Tokyo--the hostess gave us a samurai magnet. We left her some Timtams. Maybe she'll give us a room upgrade. We also raided the candy jar on our way out.

Sucking on our lollies, we hopped on the train, but not the express one--so what should have been a 30 minute ride turned into an hour and a half. We passed cemeteries perched on hillsides, with a brief fleeting view of dark ocean, little houses, factories, trees carefully shaped into perfect forms, a river, rice fields standing in water, all framed by the distant mountains, shrouded in dark gray mist.

Obento for lunch on the train.



A long bus ride from the train station saw us to our ryokan at 3. We were up in the mountains now, and everything was windy and full of hairpin turns and spaced very far from everything else, so it was too late in the day to see the sights. Instead, we dropped our bags and walked up the road in a light sprinkling of rain. Our little town seemed to consist of a single T intersection, and our ryokan was surrounded by a few other hotels, a German pub, and the Museum of the Little Prince, featuring a big bronze statue of the prince himself standing on his planet, with some volcanos and his Flower.



Nonplussed, and unwilling to pay ten bucks to enter, we turned left, walked down an alley through a Torii gate, and found ourselves in a temple devoid of the usual flocks of tourists and pilgrims. In fact, it was absolutely silent and empty, somewhat overgrown, and beyond serene.

We washed our hands first under the mouth of a stone dragon, continued past the koi pond—where a few Buddha status balanced on one toe in the water. Some very steep stairs took us up through a bamboo grove to a little shrine. On all sides there were paths, and lining the paths were about a hundred little stone statues of various gods, covered in moss, crumbling, and each with a different position and expression--happy ones, sad ones, angry ones, ones clenching fists, ones gazing up at trees, ones balancing on one foot on top of a stone pillar that went ten feet over our heads. Behind the shrine was a cemetery. In the fading light, it was the most peaceful place I have ever visited.

Me and my favorite statue.



Now quite cold, we walked back up the road and ducked into a café which turned out to be a Western style jazz bar. A row of men at the bar sat with their backs to us but kept turning around to look, and we felt a bit uncomfortable, especially when one of the waitresses kept gesturing to the couch we were perched on and muttering things to the other. Hopefully she was just saying “don’t forget to tell them we’re out of Oolong” but I still felt very self-conscious. We awkwardly drank our cups of coffee and hot chocolate—D had a bowl of sweet bean soup—and left. D surmised that the men, some of whom were dressed quite nicely, could have been yakuza—J mafia. D accidentally overpaid by a few yen and as we headed down the street afterward, our waitress chased us, shouting and waving the coins.

And let's not forget the domestic sausage shop.


We returned to our ryokan. We had reserved the onsen (hot spring baths) for 7 p.m. and at 6:55 were inside. The ritual with the hot spring bath is very particular. First, you sit in a cubicle on a little plastic stool which fills with water, and wash yourself from a tap or showerhead—completely, making sure all the soap is off. Then you put on your yukata, a stripey bathrobe, with an obi, belt, and sandals and walk to the onsen, where you disrobe and slowly lower yourself into the water chanting “Atsui, atsui…” Hot, hot! The water is whitish with minerals and a bit slimy. Some onsen are just a tiny wooden house built over a pool in the spring; some are big, single-sex public baths where the water is channeled in. Luckily ours were private. The water was pleasant at first, and you could just about float on top of it. After twenty minutes, though, I could feel myself sweating into the water, climbed out, washed again in my cubicle and met D at the exit. Now thoroughly relaxed, and smelling strongly of sulphur, we were asleep before 9.

A quick comment on the ryokans here. In a ryokan, or Japanese style hotel, the bed is a roll-up mat that sits on the floor. The floor is tatami, or reed, mat, some of the walls are wood and some, like the one leading to the bathroom, are paper. You take off your shoes and leave them at the entrance to the ryokan, the equivalent of the “lobby” or concierge, so as not to walk on the tatami in outside shoes. When I first heard that the floor was made of reeds, I was thinking ancient Rome—a few rushes spread across a dirt floor. Definitely not. The mats are extremely thick and look and feel almost like plastic, with woven bits of cloth to attach them at the corners that Japanese mothers tell their children not to walk on, lest the samurai under the house thrust his sword between the cracks to try to get your feet—a clever ploy which probably originally was intended to stop people walking on the more delicate cloth parts of the floor. You can’t make out the individual reeds, but you can smell them—a sweet, dry smell that permeates your clothes after a while. Most of the toilets are squat toilets, but if you want a Western one, you can usually find it. The ryokan room also usually comes with extra blankets for your futons, yukatas for each person, and pair of bathroom sandals to be worn only in the bathroom. It has an alcove along one wall which is reserved for the gods and usually has a decoration, a little statue of a god, or a hanging tapestry.