[Since returning home, I've tried to go back and edit those two posts that were too small to read. But I'm ether too dumb to figure it out or this site won't let me re-compose and move those pages to the right place. So, I'm re-entering those days here. My apologies.]
Friday, September 21, 2012: The Hills Are Alive
I seem to have lost a day.
Fortunately my breakfast was included in the price of my room (also not cheap) and I learned that Japanese egg yolks are not yellow but violent neon orange (the color of Shirley MacLane’s or Pat Moran’s hair). Japanese hens must eat a lot of yellow marigolds! I’m waiting now for my 8:25 pick-up for a tour to Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately, it’s raining and I, always the optimist, did not bring an umbrella, but not to worry. I believed that a hotel of this quality would have guest umbrellas, and so it does. I chose a nice midnight blue one.
The bus for my tour was prompt – public transportation here is maddenly on time – and I joined 38 others for the hour trip south of Tokyo to Mt. Fuji. Traffic in Tokyo is as crowded as that in Bangkok and travels on a network of aerial highways that wind through the city. The couple behind me had brought a small baby who didn’t like being transported and began to cry immediately. The gay couple in front of me played many games of Scrabble on their i-phone. Hari, oiur girl guide was very hard to understand (at least for my ears) and her accent – an odd “uh” at the end of most words, like “Mountuh Fujiuh” made her almost incomprehensible. But as the day progressed, I became more accustomed to the accent, the baby and the Scrabble game. Among the many gems of information – I caught every third word – was that Tokyo was once called Edo, a crossword puzzle clue I always forget but will now always remember. EDO/
The overcast day followed us all the way to Mt. Fuji’s observation point so my photographs of Japan’s highest mountain are mostly of mist. After not observing the mountain from the observation point, we drove up the mountain to a place called Station 5, where there was the ever-present souvenir shop – mostly food products – and an ersatz Shinto shrine. The day was beginning to clear so the top of the mountain played peek-a-boo, but like a wary child, never gave itself away. Station 5 was windy and chilly but I did learn from Nari that the Japanese language, a derivative of Chinese, has only 1900 characters whereas Chinese has over 5000. I also learned that in the 1980’s, a 101-year-old man walked from Station 5 to the summit with a container of his wife’s ashes on his back, supported by members of his family and resting every 30 seconds. That’s seconds, not minutes. Now that’s devotion!
I met several other travelers, mostly from offering to take a photograph of both parts of a couple which, like walking a dog, is a good way to break the ice. My seat mates across the aisle, for instance, were from Tennessee: Seth, a nice farm boy body builder and his Indian wife, Ahmi, who have been in Japan for more than a week, mainly visiting shrines, Seth’s passion.
Unlike most others on the tour, I had not opted for the Japanese lunch and so at the hotel where most of the bus tour went to the cafeteria to eat their seaweed, I found a Western restaurant and had spaghetti carbonara, the best I’ve had, and herbal tea while overlooking a busy amusement park with many types of roller coaters, the riders screaming and with their arms in the air – not my favorite thing. I’d rather take photographs of people screaming than join them.
Next was the Hakone Ropeway, an odd name for a cable car affair that took us – eerily quietly- up the side of a mountain so we could see the sights from the top. The sights were mostly mist, mixed with sulpher steam fron vents in the side of the so-called inactive volcano. How can a volcano be inactive if it’s spewing sulpher steam? Don’t’ ask! In line for the cable car, in cattle troughs like at Disney World, I spoke to a gay couple and couldn’t understand their replies until they told me they were from Australia. Funny how our minds work. Once I knew to listen for the accent, I could follow them pretty well even with the machinery of the mechanism that lifted us up the mountain grinding away – all rubber wheels and gears – quite impressive.
Speaking of “mate,” our next thrill and photo-op was taking a ferry all tricked out like a pirate ship – much gold leaf – around Lake Ashi. The day had cleared and the boat was fun, everyone jockeying to have their picture taken with the lady hand, appropriately costumed for the pirate occasion.
It was here that I became suddenly aware that my day had given my knees – and my feet and my back – a month’s worth of physical therapy, many steps and rough ground, and I was suddenly very tired. I realized that I has having trouble lifting myself up from a seated position, but I soldiered on, determined to do it all. (I did take the handicap elevator from the top deck down to the pier.)
This ended our guided day. Nari gave us our ticket for the bullet train back to Tokyo. I was delayed and missed the train I was supposed to take by a drunken old man in the station who shouted at me in Japanese and despite having a ticket already in his hand, seemed to want mine as well. A nice porter helped pry me away and pointed me in the right direction to the platform but my train had already gone. Several more went by before my next train to Tokyo, swooshing by with a great roar and pushing a great blast of air stronger than any New York subway. I finally found the right train, a sleek white projective which, for all its highly touted modern outside, was oddly mundane inside – a brown linoleum floor, ugly blue seats, and not comfortable…too bright fluorescent lighting with little Art Deco air circulators between each window. But, oh how fast the Shinkansen does go! Nari had given us all directions to use the subway from the train station to our hotels. But mine were so complicated that I took a taxi instead, for 960 yen, about $12.00, and worth every penny.
I tried to change my Saturday tour from seeing Tokyo to going to Kyoto but I learned from a Fax – how the Japanese do love their electronics – back at The Imperial, that this was a no-go. The tour was already full. So another $16.00 vodka and tonic, and right to bed at 8:30. I don’t remember when I’ve been this exhausted. And tomorrow’s another 8-hour day.
I’m typing this at 3:30 AM, trying to catch up. But using a Japanese electronic, once in Traveling With Phil, I can’t seem to find a command to enter a new post. So, I’m printing this out with the hope that when the office opens, someone can scan the whole thing to my blog and tell me how to post in the future.
Stay tuned.
Friday, September 21, 2012: The Hills Are Alive
Fortunately my breakfast was included in the price of my room (also not cheap) and I learned that Japanese egg yolks are not yellow but violent neon orange (the color of Shirley MacLane’s or Pat Moran’s hair). Japanese hens must eat a lot of yellow marigolds! I’m waiting now for my 8:25 pick-up for a tour to Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately, it’s raining and I, always the optimist, did not bring an umbrella, but not to worry. I believed that a hotel of this quality would have guest umbrellas, and so it does. I chose a nice midnight blue one.
The bus for my tour was prompt – public transportation here is maddenly on time – and I joined 38 others for the hour trip south of Tokyo to Mt. Fuji. Traffic in Tokyo is as crowded as that in Bangkok and travels on a network of aerial highways that wind through the city. The couple behind me had brought a small baby who didn’t like being transported and began to cry immediately. The gay couple in front of me played many games of Scrabble on their i-phone. Hari, oiur girl guide was very hard to understand (at least for my ears) and her accent – an odd “uh” at the end of most words, like “Mountuh Fujiuh” made her almost incomprehensible. But as the day progressed, I became more accustomed to the accent, the baby and the Scrabble game. Among the many gems of information – I caught every third word – was that Tokyo was once called Edo, a crossword puzzle clue I always forget but will now always remember. EDO/
The overcast day followed us all the way to Mt. Fuji’s observation point so my photographs of Japan’s highest mountain are mostly of mist. After not observing the mountain from the observation point, we drove up the mountain to a place called Station 5, where there was the ever-present souvenir shop – mostly food products – and an ersatz Shinto shrine. The day was beginning to clear so the top of the mountain played peek-a-boo, but like a wary child, never gave itself away. Station 5 was windy and chilly but I did learn from Nari that the Japanese language, a derivative of Chinese, has only 1900 characters whereas Chinese has over 5000. I also learned that in the 1980’s, a 101-year-old man walked from Station 5 to the summit with a container of his wife’s ashes on his back, supported by members of his family and resting every 30 seconds. That’s seconds, not minutes. Now that’s devotion!
I met several other travelers, mostly from offering to take a photograph of both parts of a couple which, like walking a dog, is a good way to break the ice. My seat mates across the aisle, for instance, were from Tennessee: Seth, a nice farm boy body builder and his Indian wife, Ahmi, who have been in Japan for more than a week, mainly visiting shrines, Seth’s passion.
Unlike most others on the tour, I had not opted for the Japanese lunch and so at the hotel where most of the bus tour went to the cafeteria to eat their seaweed, I found a Western restaurant and had spaghetti carbonara, the best I’ve had, and herbal tea while overlooking a busy amusement park with many types of roller coaters, the riders screaming and with their arms in the air – not my favorite thing. I’d rather take photographs of people screaming than join them.
Next was the Hakone Ropeway, an odd name for a cable car affair that took us – eerily quietly- up the side of a mountain so we could see the sights from the top. The sights were mostly mist, mixed with sulpher steam fron vents in the side of the so-called inactive volcano. How can a volcano be inactive if it’s spewing sulpher steam? Don’t’ ask! In line for the cable car, in cattle troughs like at Disney World, I spoke to a gay couple and couldn’t understand their replies until they told me they were from Australia. Funny how our minds work. Once I knew to listen for the accent, I could follow them pretty well even with the machinery of the mechanism that lifted us up the mountain grinding away – all rubber wheels and gears – quite impressive.
Speaking of “mate,” our next thrill and photo-op was taking a ferry all tricked out like a pirate ship – much gold leaf – around Lake Ashi. The day had cleared and the boat was fun, everyone jockeying to have their picture taken with the lady hand, appropriately costumed for the pirate occasion.
It was here that I became suddenly aware that my day had given my knees – and my feet and my back – a month’s worth of physical therapy, many steps and rough ground, and I was suddenly very tired. I realized that I has having trouble lifting myself up from a seated position, but I soldiered on, determined to do it all. (I did take the handicap elevator from the top deck down to the pier.)
This ended our guided day. Nari gave us our ticket for the bullet train back to Tokyo. I was delayed and missed the train I was supposed to take by a drunken old man in the station who shouted at me in Japanese and despite having a ticket already in his hand, seemed to want mine as well. A nice porter helped pry me away and pointed me in the right direction to the platform but my train had already gone. Several more went by before my next train to Tokyo, swooshing by with a great roar and pushing a great blast of air stronger than any New York subway. I finally found the right train, a sleek white projective which, for all its highly touted modern outside, was oddly mundane inside – a brown linoleum floor, ugly blue seats, and not comfortable…too bright fluorescent lighting with little Art Deco air circulators between each window. But, oh how fast the Shinkansen does go! Nari had given us all directions to use the subway from the train station to our hotels. But mine were so complicated that I took a taxi instead, for 960 yen, about $12.00, and worth every penny.
I tried to change my Saturday tour from seeing Tokyo to going to Kyoto but I learned from a Fax – how the Japanese do love their electronics – back at The Imperial, that this was a no-go. The tour was already full. So another $16.00 vodka and tonic, and right to bed at 8:30. I don’t remember when I’ve been this exhausted. And tomorrow’s another 8-hour day.
I’m typing this at 3:30 AM, trying to catch up. But using a Japanese electronic, once in Traveling With Phil, I can’t seem to find a command to enter a new post. So, I’m printing this out with the hope that when the office opens, someone can scan the whole thing to my blog and tell me how to post in the future.
Stay tuned.
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