Today was planned as a trip to the touristy area of Hakone, on a lake overlooking Mt Fuji. But, it seems, plans are made to be broken and after 4 tiring and hot days we were in need of a bit of a rest. A couple more hours in bed and we were ready to start a relatively relaxed day. We started off by buying our now customary sandwiches from the supermarket and trying to find a quicker route between the station and our apartment.
It seems that the route we had been given was designed to take us to the station exit closest to the apartment, to minimize the published walking time between station and accommodation, rather than the actual shortest or easiest route. This might not seem important, but considering the fact that the station has 4 different lines and a river running through it, it added about 12 different flights of stairs to an otherwise flat journey. It took us about 5 minutes to find a route around the corner of our street that took us straight to the JR station, which might have been good to know 4 days ago.
We made our way from Iidabashi to Tokyo to get on our first shinkansen. We thought we could try reserving seats to practice for our big journey on Monday. It turns out that 15 minutes before a train arrives is not the best time to do this and so ended up with 2 separate seats in a smoking car. We pocketed the passes and promptly entered the unreserved, non-smoking car and easily found seats. The best way to describe the bullet train is probably like an airplane, but really long and with masses more leg room.
Thankfully the trains don't have too much in common with planes, other than appearance, and Sarah made it through the journey without reaching for a sick-bag. Instead we sat in the comfy seats, enjoying cool air conditioning, eating our sandwiches and watched as Fuji passed us behind a fine layer of cloud. We got off at Shizuoka station, since it seemed like a nice looking place to wait for our train home, and wandered through the city before heading back to the station for ice-cream and the journey back to Tokyo. On the way we bought some manga and the delightfully named 'Crunky' chocolate to keep us entertained.
Back in Tokyo, we headed to the big department stores of Ikebukuro. There were of course floors of clothes and toys, but the real draw here was the food floors at the top and bottom of the building, where we planned to try a range of traditional japanese foods and nab some free samples while we were at it.
Wandering through the counters of delicious looking cakes and sweets, this seemed like an excellent plan, until Sarah was offered our first free sample. Maybe the fact that it was dripping liquid should have been a clue that this wouldn't end well, but by this point we were too enthusiastic to care. Helen, ever on fish-watch, let Sarah try first. After a nervous glance or two, Sarah put the slimey orange ball in her mouth and chewed. The server looked on expectantly as Sarah grimaced and tried to decide the most polite way to dispose of what had turned out to be very salty pickled fruit. Swallowing what she could and binning the rest, Sarah rushed to get a drink of water while Helen followed behind laughing. Not surprisingly, our sense of adventure had been lost somewhat, and we headed to the nearest pizza place for something a bit more familiar.
The day ended with laundry, and an interesting attempt to decode the instructions on the washing machine and the washing powder which came in 2 different sized and coloured sachets (the decision was to just pour both powders on the clothes, put in some money and hope for the best). Everything is drying now, so in the morning we will see how much has shrunk or melted.
Tomorrow we explore some more of Tokyo, and see what Japanese teenagers get up to on their days off.
No comments:
Post a Comment