Worrall Travel R's

Worrall Travel R's
Roz and Russ

Worrall Travel R's - Kicking the Bucket List

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Where's Mount Fuji? WTRD 20, September 23, 2017

It rained all last night, and when we awoke there was a soft glow in the room and it was quiet in our traditional Japanese wooden house.
Yes, we slept on double foutons.  Warm, but perhaps a lot firmer than we are used to.

 Just maybe the sun would come out today after all, and maybe we get good a glimpse of Mt. Fuji.

I love the mornings when we are not on an organized tour..no timetable except our own.  We got up, opened the rice paper doors to the outside and soaked in all the shades of green of a late summer, early fall day while we ate our breakfast,

View out our window
got dressed, packed a picnic lunch of crackers, cheese, chicken, apples, and chocolate, and took off in our littlle red car.

Our plan for the day was really simple, to visit Lake Ashi and see if we could glimpse Mt Fuji.  We only had to drive about 15 minutes to the Onshi-Hakone Park in Kanagawa Prefecture.  From our research, this would be the best place to see Mount Fuji.  The park is the restored sight of the Hakone Sekisho checkpoint (immigration control) from Kyoto to Tokyo, and the Imperial Summer Palace.

The Sekisho check point started in the early 700's, but became coordinated and systematic in the 1600's and lasted until 1869.



Much like the TSA, men and women passed through the security gates on their way into Tokyo. Their identities were scrutinized, hats off, coats examined for weapons and other contraband.  The checkpoint was manned by foot soldiers and administrative staff who lived in the buildings.










On the way out of Tokyo, then Edo, women were highly scrutinized.  The Shoguns typically held the wives of their noblemen hostage while the nobles an their retinue were in town to make sure that they did not overthrow the Shoguns and did their bidding without question.

We walk through the museum and the outdoor check point exhibit, frequently looking towards the cloud shrouded mountains across Lake Ashi for any sign of Mt. Fuji.



We see tourist boats and fishing boats, and lots of clouds. We aren't even sure we are looking in the right direction.  It could be straight ahead, to the left, to the right. Or perhaps it is just a myth.

This park also is the site of the imperial summer palace built in western colonial style in the late 1800's.

The view from the palace of Mt Fuji, if one can see Mt. Fuji, is supposed to be the best on the lake. We climb the hill through the Avenue of Cedars, first planted in 1619.





















the sun pokes out occasionally, but still no sign of Fuji.



Inside the imperial palace today, there is a tea room with a balcony.
 We debate whether it is worth going upstairs. The mountain from our ground level viewpoint is socked in with clouds.  What the heck, we are here.

We climb the stairs, and step out on the balcony where we still cannot see the mountain, and then as if by magic, the clouds begin to evaporate from the top of the mountain.  Wow!



Mt. Fuji as we saw it today is not the iconic snow-capped Fuji we've seen on post cards.  It is fall after a warm summer.  The snow is gone, but the volcano is still there, sometimes peaking out from behind the clouds or showing more of its glory as the clouds mist away and then in again.   We feel lucky to have seen it.

We eat our picnic lunch and leave the park and drive along the lake.
Hakone Shrine



 Mt Ashi is about the same latitude aa Portland, Oregon.  It is misty, wet, lush, and green.  The vegetation and trees seem to reach out and grab at us as we drive along the road.


What we thought would be scenic wasn't.  Too many trees and relatively no pull out vistas.  By this time it is nearly 4:00, we stop to replenish our groceries and pickup something for dinner and head back to our retreat house, but not before we stop by to look at the neighborhood golf course...not public, but a private club with two 18 hole courses.  Green fees for 18 holes are $241.00 per person.  Oh well, we were too tired to play 18 anyway. Fun to look at.



Because we are in a geothermal, volcanic area, their are many hot springs available, one directly across from the  golf course.


















We head home for noodle soup, wontons, salad, and wine.  Tomorrow we drive to the five lakes area on the western side of Mt. Fuji, and if we are lucky we may see more of the mountain.

All is well with the Worrall Travel R's in Hakone, Japan.


Friday, September 22, 2017

Goodbye Tokyo, Hello Hakone, WTRD 19, September 22, 2017

Goodbye Tokyo, Hello Hakone

Having practiced our route to the Shinkansen train in Tokyo the day before, we felt pretty comfortable getting a later start this morning from Shinjuku.  We've enjoyed our diminutive apartment.  Just to give you a perspective of how small, the jolly green giant stands in the doorway from the kitchen to bedroom.  

And yes, he is wearing one of two Tokyo City Soccer Jerseys commemorative of the year the club was formed in FC Tokyo Verdy 1969.

Unlike the beautiful blue sky of yesterday, today is overcast, and has a 50 percent chance of rain in the mountains.  That doesn't bode well for seeing Mt. Fuji, but hopefully sometime during our three day stay we will get a glimpse of iconic volcano.

Trains

We made our way to the Tokyo Station and Shinkansen train to Odawara without a hitch, 


arriving a half hour early.  Before we left the states, we purchased a 14 day first class, reserved seat, Japan Rail Pass from September 22 to October 5, until we will officially begin our Friendship Force homestay with the Gifu Club.  We got the pass officially stamped and started today.

Track 19, 11:56 Departure
The train we were to board was already in the station, but the cleaning crew was busy inside during the short stop getting it ready for departure.  As soon as they were done, they got off the train like clockwork, and the leader bowed and motioned to us that it was permissible to board.  The crew left the station platform as another army of cleaning people came up the escalator and lined up by the gates of a track across the platform from us.   The inbound train was due in 5 minutes.
Women Cleaning Crew in Pink, Men in Blue

We watched with great interest as the train glided to a stop, automated doors opened, passengers disembarked, cleaning crew got on.  

The leader had a time schedule, she was checking off.  There looked to be six or seven trains and times on her agenda.  Like precision drill teams, the cleaning crews are on and off swiftly and then on to the next train.  I didn't see it happening today on the Shinkansen line, but yesterday on the JR line, the fast train had automated pivots of double seats. When it reaches the end of a line going one way, the seats turn to face forward in the new direction.  Every other row simultaneously pivots.  Fun to watch.

As we board our train, there is a small space just inside our car for stowing luggage.  We find our seats and the train is underway.  

Prior to booking the train in the US we were concerned about our ability to find our way around the train stations without being able to read Japanese.  Everywhere we have taken the train, there are signs also in English, and the public address system on the train is in English, taking the worry out of the equation.  


Neither yesterday or today, did a conductor or anyone else come by to check our tickets.  A conductor walked through our train car from back to front, turned and faced the passengers, and bowed. He then turned and walked through to the next car.  Russ and I surmised that he had a list of all the reserved seat passengers and their seat assignments.  Since our car only had about 10 people, he must have just counted the people in the reserved seats and moved on.  

Odawara

In less than 35 minutes, we left the Tokyo station, sped through the city, suburbs, 


fields, small hills, made 3 stops, traveled 50 miles (by car miles), and disembarked in Odawara. The train travels about 150-200 miles per hour depending on the track.   Too bad we cannot model efficient train systems like this in the US.  The trains in Japan are fast, swift, and frequent.  The key is that they have lots of feeder trains, dedicated main lines, computerized systems, and a will to move people efficiently.

Hakone-Yumoto

Once we arrived in Odawara, we got on a small local train that took us up the mountain to Hakone-Yumoto stop.  This was the only train that did not have a PA system in English, but there was a map of the stops with script Japanese so we knew where to get off by counting stops.

We were renting a car here and driving the rest of the day and for the next 2 days on our own, first to a wooded area to our AirBnB, and then taking day trips to various places in the shadows of Mt. Fuji

In all the years of traveling and carrying international drivers licenses with us wherever we go, Japan is the only place where we have had to produce the license to rent a car.  We knew this in advance and were prepared.  The clerk at the rental desk did not speak much English, but we conveyed to him that we wanted him to program the destination and route into the GPS navigation system of the little red Toyota we were renting, and then convert the audio to English for us, which he did.  Our AirBnb is quite remote and while we had printed off paper maps, the mountain road we were going to travel twisted and turned with hairpins and switch backs that would all look the same in a deep forest.  We needed to see our position in relation to the route.

While in the basement checking out the car and getting it ready for us, two Japanese women heard us speaking in English. One of them asked us where we were from.  Russ said San Francisco.  Her response was, "Jesus!".  Boy, sure didn't expect that response.  "I lived there for seven years," she told us. We had a nice little chat and then we were on our way.

We usually either say San Francisco or California because these names are so readily recognizable around the world. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was our Governor, people always wanted to know about the "Guvenator." Yesterday,  the Aussies we cycled with asked the same question.  Tony from Melbourne asked if there was a reason we didn't say America. Ha! I knew what he was asking?  But even when we used to be proud of our president, we would identify this way.  Nevertheless, this led us into a brief discussion during one of our short photo stops about American politics.  He said most Australian's feels our pain.  Nice to know that people to people don't hold it against one another when their "leaders" are wonky or a dotard as Kim Jung Un said yesterday.

Airbnb Accommodations

It has been awhile since we last drove a right hand drive car on the opposite side of the road we are used to.  Russ drove and I kept a watchful eye on the white line on the passenger side to make sure Russ didn't get too close.  There was barely a shoulder and the road was narrow.

Our Airbnb host had indicated that her traditional wooden Japanese house was not near any markets and that we should bring food with us.  We stopped at a convenience store as we drove up through the mountains and picked up food for dinner, some lunch fixings, yogurt and cereal for a few days.  We had two small hand baskets that totaled $50.00.  Not inexpensive here.

By the the time we reached our destination, it was about 4:00 pm, and it had started to drizzle.  The traditional Japanese wooden house we rented is just perfect for us.  


Peaceful Entry, Slippers Ready

Large soaking tub in foreground.

Forested Privacy for a Nice Shower an Soak



The kitchen cabinets are so high in this house, Russ can barely reach them.  He needs to wear  his jolly green giant shirt.



Tea Room and Bedroom

Nice Walk About Before Dark


It serene and peaceful in this forest setting.   Our host, whom we have not met in person, has compiled great directions on how to operate all the electrical appliances.  

We cook an early dinner, take a walk in the rain, and catchup on news an email before lights out.

All is well with the Worrall Travel R's in a traditional Japanese house snug in the woods.