Hakone - January 13th

Sacchan had one more free day before she goes back to the States, so we figured we would go to Hakone. I invited Hans along, thinking that we'd be going to onsen, for which Hakone is famous. I met up with Hans and we took the Odakyuu again to Odawara. A few days later, I was watching the news about one of the recent "bara bara jiken," where murder victims were dismembered and their body parts were strewn about the countryside. Apparently, one of the suspects, a wife upset about being cheated on, was carrying the head of her murdered husband on the very train we had been riding. Holy shit.

The train we were riding had a different destination, so we had to backtrack a little bit to get to
Odawara. We met up with Sacchan, but didn't have time to go back home or visit with her family. Since it was the weekend, everyone was home, including her dad. I'm anxious to meet him again, but she seems to be even more apprehensive about it, and so we headed straight for Hakone from the station.

En route, we found out that we wouldn't be going to onsen at all that day, since she had plans to hang out with friends and family later that evening. Seeing as she talked about her old job at a huge onsen park just before we discussed going to Hakone, I figured that a soak was somewhere in the itinerary. Alas, it was not.

We went to ashi no ko (a with a great view of Mt. Fuji) and walked along the shore. There was a small peninsula blocking the view of Fuji, and as we progressed, it came into view. We apparently had hit the perfect vantage point for the mountain, because there was a small group of photographers with tripods set up, taking photos of the mountain and trying to catch the pirate ship tourist ferry in the foreground. We piled back into the car and wound our way up the mountain, heading for Owakudani, the Sulfur Valley.

The view from the lake actually made Fujisan look bigger than when we were up on higher ground, but I took as many photos as I could anyways. The second we stepped out of the car the acrid yet familiar stench of rotten eggs assaulted our sinuses. We hurried into the shop nearby to try one of the local specialties, the kuro-tamago (black egg). The black eggs are like goth easter eggs; the color comes from being hard-boiled in the natural spring up the hill, the source of the smell. I was a bit apprehensive about eating a black egg that smelled like it had been left in the sun a bit too long, but when I cracked mine open and ate it, I found it to be a perfectly normal hard-boiled egg. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was hovering somewhere between relief and disappointment. Eating a hard-boiled egg is hardly something to write home about, but here we are.

After finishing the eggs and the bento boxes that Sacchan and her mom woke up early that morning to make, we meandered around the shop, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the yosegi-zaiku (elaborate woodwork) and trying to pick out something for Haruto, as it was his birthday. I ended up getting him a kind of wooden puzzle where you use the pieces to make hundreds of different "target" shapes. I later gave it to him that night, and while he wasn't really sure what to make of it, everyone else agreed that it was a fine gift, and that it'll help him develop intellectually. Score.

Wandering around, we randomly ran into Sheryl and Davina, along with another friend. They had purchased some sort of tourist package, and had spent the previous night at an onsen ryokan. We visited briefly, but they were fixing to take the gondola back down the mountain, so they took off. How completely random was that, I thought.

We made an offering to the small shrine at the base of the hill, then walked up toward the sulfur pits above. Huge plumes of steam were issuing forth from the earth as if to remind us that there is more to this planet than the ground we stand on and the air that we breathe. Running below the wooden walkway, a stream of water trickled downhill, staining the ground a desolate shade of ochre. Above our heads ran a tiny gondola, not quite large enough for a child to ride in. We would later realize that this gondola was meant for the black eggs, and not for lazy tourists. The smell grew stronger as we approached the end of the path. Pretty soon we were engulfed in the sickly steam, permeating everything like an angry skunk. If it weren't for the smell and toxic levels of sulfur in the water, it would have made a fine onsen. People were gathered around the main "bath," taking photos and eating the freshly boiled rotten eggs. We took our share of photos and retreated from the smell that did not diminish in potency. Having already spent most of our daylight hours, we began the drive back towards Odawara.

We stopped back at the Kamaboko museum, and this time I got a chance to watch the factory in action. It's an interesting process, going from a net full of squirming fish to a half-moon emulsion, reminiscent of a giant marshmellow. Guests were making Chikuwa, another fish-based product. Sacchan sat herself down on the stairs leading to the art gallery on the second floor, and after walking Hans through the exhibition, we gathered her back up went to the now deserted fish market I had visited back when I first came to Odawara two years ago. There were a few shops still open, and one of them had samples of ika no shiokara (salty spicy squid, raw), which she and the shopkeep assured me was quite tasty. I put on my poker face and held it fast, which was good, because it tasted like fishbait dipped in chum. I thanked the storeowner and spent the next five minutes screaming on the inside and desperately wishing for a soda machine or a bottle of urine to wash down the aftertaste.

I tried to get Sacchan to take us back to her place to say hi to her folks, but she stuck to her guns, assuring me that her father would "kill me." Perhaps she's trying to instill respect in me by trying to purvey a vision of him snapping my neck like a twig, even though he doesn't know I'm dating his daughter. He is apparently Rambo in a suit, and I am Vietcong soldier #6 that gets Agent Orange in the face for not using honorifics when talking to his daughter, or just for talking to his daughter at all. I should quake with fear at the very thought of him. From hence forth, he will be known as "he-who-shall-not-be-named." Sorry JK Rowling, but I found someone who is apparently scarier than Voldemort.

We got a bit lost on our way to the station, and ended up driving several kilometers down the line in order to save a few yen on our return tickets. It wasn't really necessary, but it was thoughtful of Sacchan to drive us all that way, and I actually appreciated the extra time I was able to spend with her. Other than a random guy on the train with a nasty case of tourettes (literally screaming out all kinds of random stuff), the ride was pretty uneventful. The funny thing was that when he first started yelling, everyone visibly jumped a few feet into the air. Everyone's backs stiffened and they turned their ear towards the man, who by now had been awarded his own bench by the people who were unwilling to sit next to a slathering lunatic. Yet, by the third outburst, there was no response from the crowd. They had simply tuned him out, silently hoping that the next station was his stop. When he finally disembarked, he stood up and bolted across the platform to board another train. Hans and I quietly chuckled to ourselves, and the other passengers exchanged nervous glances. He was their problem now. I had no photos, so I wrote a note to myself so as not to forget the crazy guy on the train. May we never forget the crazy men on the train.