For some reason I woke up early all by myself before my alarm even went off today. That’s fine, because I wanted to get out early to Tsukiji Market. That place was a BLAST back in the day, super fun, but you have to get there early. Except when I got there only the outer market was open, the inner fun part was shut down and I found a sign that said it had relocated to a brand new building in another area. After looking it up, turns out the old market shut down last year…I can’t say I blame them, that place was madness and chaos and fun and health code violations and an accident or fire waiting to happen, but that’s why I liked it so much! I guess the new place is super modern and all of the 100 year old charm is gone, so I didn’t bother heading across town to see it. Instead I picked up a couple things from the outer market then went back to the hotel to shower.
Once I was clean, I headed to Kabuki-za Theater to see a Kabuki show, something I had wanted to do when I was younger but didn’t have the money for. The full show can take around 4 hours and I didn’t want to dedicate that much time, so I opted for one of the longer opening segments in the morning. It’s not the flashiest segment, but you do get into the story and it was an opportunity to see if I could figure out what was going on with my limited Japanese refresher. I was able to figure out the gist of it, the rest I asked one of my English speaking neighbors who paid for a translator box.
After the show I hopped on a train to Gotokuji Temple, a temple with hundreds of beckoning cats (maneki-neko) and cat themes carved into the old historic structures. It was pretty adorable, so SO many cats! Sunset was approaching by then and since it was a clear day I wanted to get up high to watch the sun set behind Mt. Fuji. I went to the Shibuya Scramble building, but there was a huge line for it, so I jumped on a bus to Roppongi Hills instead and ran up to their observation deck. I hung out up top until after the sun set, and watched Tokyo light up. Once it was dark, I went back down and walked around the Roppongi illuminated streets and garden, then stopped at Hard Rock Café for my pin and to get a salad because for some reason I was craving a salad and no Japanese restaurants have them. At least not like the ones in America. Japanese salads tend to be made of mostly cabbage and snotty runny dressing. While eating, there was a bit of an earthquake, but although the Japanese folks didn’t seem to notice my foreign friends and I certainly did and eyed each other while it was going on, then laughed about it after. I was debating on whether or not I wanted to check out more Christmas lights or maybe go to Akihabara, but it was almost 8pm by that point and I had been up since 6am so I decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel. I have one more full day tomorrow, and most of the day on Friday to wrap things up!
I’ve had a bad day, so this is just going to be a long winded bitching whining journal entry. Feel free to skip it if you want.
As a society in America, we tend to only talk about the good things and not mention the bad. Especially on social media and particularly when we travel, we like to show only that we’re having the time of our life even when there are down days. Then we watch everyone seemingly having a blast and feel bad about the boring, everyday life we’re leading at that moment. This is totally not representative of reality, the truth is even on the best days there’s always some down part or some annoyance. And other days the day is just a total waste. Today was one of those days for me.
When I woke up the sun was out, so after breakfast I decided to take a chance and go back to Hakone. First, I accidentally left my keycard in my room, so I had to get another one to get in and get my first one. I kept the first original card and gave the second one back, but that delayed me, so by the time I got to the train station it was already 10:00am. Next I went to check out this “Hakone Pass” I had heard about the day before. The sign said it was for 1-2 days, so I had assumed the $45 dollar price was for the one day with an option for 2 days for more, but actually it was flat out for two days. Why they say 1-2 days and not just 2 days, I have no idea, but I could have bought this pass yesterday and not wasted the $35 I spent paying on my IC card. The $45 pass for the day was still a good deal though, seeing how I wanted to do the cable car, ropeway, and pirate boat lake tour, so I purchased it and headed to the train.
Took the train to the end of the line, then walked over to the bus stop. The line for the bus stop wrapped allllll the way around the station. Since the typhoon damaged the train line to Gora in Hakone, the only way to get there is by bus. So after waiting about 30 minutes for the bus, I was finally on my way to Gora where the cable cars start. We got to Gora and unloaded towards the cable car, only to find out right as we were walking up to it that they cancelled both the cable car AND the ropeway for the day due to high winds. The fact that they didn’t tell us this when we bought our passes in Odawara, considering the bulk of the fee is for those two attractions, is bullshit. With the ropeway down that meant they were also sending all of the tourists in the complete OPPOSITE direction of where we all needed to be to get to the lake. Some people were getting belligerent with the non-English speaking conductor, but I’ve been here enough times to know that it’s pointless to argue or ask for a refund in this country. The Japanese are polite, and give good service, but when things go wrong they won’t do a damn thing to fix it most of the time, at least not without making you pay more one way or the other. Fortunately it’s very rare that things go wrong, which is why I think they don’t have a system to fix things. When something does go wrong, you’re shit out of luck, the entire country has a “no refund for any reason” policy just so you know, and getting worked up about it accomplishes nothing. This isn’t America.
I turned my butt around and went to the bus stop and wound up getting crunched between a group of people with waaaay too much luggage, they blocked the entire back of the bus and I had to practically climb over them when I got to the transfer point to yet another bus. Finally 45 minutes later I was at the lake. So, now being about 2pm we got to the bottom of where the ropeway would have gone if it were open via standing room only bus. I did make friends with a very lovely Australian couple during this little adventure, so when we finally got to the pier we all got some extremely overpriced cafeteria food and ate together.
Then as we were finishing up we noticed the boat was about to leave, so we put our stuff away and practically ran to the boat. The three of us were the last ones on. Once on the boat we all realized exactly why the ropeway was closed, the winds almost knocked you off your feet. Anything not tied down was blowing away, and everyone started doing the Titanic pose on the upper deck as a joke. Despite such a ridiculous transportation day everyone WAS trying to keep a positive mind about it all. The clouds were low and the sky was dark as we left port, but as we approached the first stop the wind whipped clouds actually started to break up and let sunlight through. Lo and behold, by the time we left the second stop the clouds parted for roughly 3 minutes for a perfect view of Mt. Fuji just as we were passing Hakone Shrine. I’m glad I did Hakone Shrine yesterday, the winds and waves were so strong people couldn’t go down onto the platform today. I did the hour tour around the lake, and when we got back to our starting point I asked if the ropeway was still down and they said yeah, so I gave up for the day and got back on the boat. There was no way I was going to take two buses and a train to get back to Odawara when there’s an express bus on the other side of the lake. Luck was against me again though, I got stuck standing once more. Also, even though the bus sign says it goes to Odawara, and the map shows it goes to Odawara, and the guides all said it goes to Odawara…it actually doesn’t, it just takes you to the train station that you have to transfer to in order to get to Odawara. I hate the Japanese bus system…
So while I didn’t die or get sick or anything like that, from a tourist experience standpoint, I basically I spent roughly 5 hours standing in a bus or train to catch a 3 minute glimpse of Fuji which I already saw yesterday. What an annoying waste of a day. Then again, I suppose there are worse ways to spend a day, I did meet some nice people and get a few good photos. Also, just FYI but the promo posters showing Mt. Fuji super close over the lake are completely photoshopped. You can see Fuji yeah, but way off in the distance like okay that’s cool but not amazing. Anyway, I was in a bad mood from all of that so instead of eating in a restaurant I went to the 7-11 and got a sandwich, onigiri, and Smirnoff Ice because when it comes to alcohol this country is stuck about 20 years in the past. I did find a hard cider finally but it’s only 3% so meh.
I went back to the hotel, and since I had kept the first keycard and not the second one the card I had didn’t work, so I had to go back down and get yet another new one. I know, I know, first world problems and all that, but god damnit I was tired and almost getting to that “straw that broke the camel’s back” status. I showered, ate, and made plans for Kyoto for the rest of the night. At one point someone tried to come into my room, so I think they may have forgotten that I switched rooms last night (they tried to put me in a room behind the elevator where my window had a gorgeous view of the inside of the elevator maintenance area…hahaha no. I immediately made them move me to a nicer room). Now my neighbors are being REALLY loud right now…ugh. UPDATE: And someone pulled the fire alarm for no reason in the middle of the night. Nice.
I gotta say, under the right conditions I’m sure Hakone is great. It is beautiful for sure, but the weather is so unpredictable, the prices are outrageous, the crowds are unmanageable, and the transportation system can’t accommodate everyone. So unless you plan waaaaay far ahead, or have the money to stay in an expensive resort on the lake for at least two days, I wouldn’t recommend it. Or, maybe I’d recommend a day trip out here if you check the weather to be sure it’s 100% perfect beforehand. Otherwise, if it’s cloudy or windy or a weekend or holiday or just a day where a bird flapped its wings the wrong way, it’s not worth the time and money. I won’t be coming back. I kinda wish I had gone to Kawaguchi instead, it’s right at the base of Mt. Fuji and their autumn colors look amazing right now. True, it’s harder to get to than Hakone which is why I came here instead, but after these past two days I’m thinking the extra travel time to get over there is worth it particularly when travel within Hakone is so terrible.
Well, shitty days are just part of life even when on vacation, and considering this is my first complete bust since I started traveling on August 9th…I’ll take it. It just needs to not happen again pleeeeease!!
After waking up and getting breakfast I packed and headed to the train station for Hakone. I’m actually staying in Odawara, which is about an hour by bus from Hakone proper, but it was a lot cheaper and easy access to the trains. Plus, it’s only an hour, no biggie…right? Well, maybe not so much.
After dropping off my bags I went to ask about the bus, except there was some big traffic jam on the bus route so it was faster to take a train then transfer to the bus. Okay, no problem. Except it took 1.75 hours to get there, so it was nearly 3pm by the time I got to the lake. I made my way to Hakone shrine, and waited patiently to take a photo with the floating tori gate. A new thing they started doing here was renting out these stupid plastic swan paddle boats and people will paddle out to the gate and try to photobomb pictures. It’s super annoying, selfish, and dickish behavior, and the people doing it know they’re ruining people’s photos and do it anyway. So when it was my turn and these two Japanese girls in a swan boat wouldn’t get out of the photo I non-discretely pointed at them and gestured for them to kindly get the fuck out of the way. The other tourists were all too polite to speak up, but I’m an obnoxious American so they can gtfo. The two girls in the paddle boat laughed of course, but started moving away and when I turned around the couple that were up to take their photo next waved and thanked me for that. No one in line was happy the paddle boats were there, cheap ass ugly looking pieces of garbage…
Anyway, after getting my picture I walked down this cobblestone pathway along the lake and finally found my momiji! There weren’t many but there were indeed yellows and oranges and reds, finally! I got some nice photos, but the path didn’t actually lead anywhere interesting, so I power walked back to the pier and skipped the actual shrine so I could get to my boat tour around the lake. The views from the boat are spectacular, especially at sunset, and even with some clouds you could still see Mt. Fuji. Plus I met some very friendly people on board who were just as happy to be there as I was so we chatted the whole time. I figured since it took so long to get here it would probably take just as long to get back, so I walked to the bus stop early and met some lovely ladies from Australia and, coincidentally enough, Tinley Park in Chicago. So we yapped for a while and hopped on the bus. Unfortunately there was a car accident shortly after we got on the bus that brought traffic to a standstill, and since it’s a two lane winding mountain road there is literally no other path to take. So the trip home ending up taking well over 2 hours.
I was planning on going back tomorrow to ride the cable car up the smaller mountain, but man I wasn’t expecting the travel time to be like this. Tomorrow is a weekday though, not a weekend, so maybe it won’t be so bad? I need to watch the weather too, if it’s raining there’s no point in going all the way out there anyway in which case I’ll hang in Odawara and check out their castle and waterfalls and stuff. There’s no shortage of things to do around here! Once I got back in town I went to a place kind of off the main trail to get some yummy orange chicken, and the restaurant happened to be in the same building as an arcade so I stopped and played a round of Taiko Drum Master. It took me a minute to remember what all the symbols meant but that game is still super fun. Tomorrow is a flexible day, so maybe I’ll go back and check out the rest of the arcade.
