As always before a stay away from home, I was edgy and fretful before we set off for our night in Hakone. I know it winds Nick up, but I just can't help it. Anyway, we managed to get away at the time we wanted to, and were soon at Shinagawa for our shinkansen ride to Odawara, which is on the coast about 50 miles south-west of Tokyo. Again we ditched the pushchair, in favour of our fancy new baby-carrier backpack.
The high-speed bullet train whisked us there in less than half an hour; now Emily had been awake for a long time, so we set up camp in one of many coffee shops at the huge station there so that she could have a nap. The bus ride to our destination, Moto-Hakone, on the shore of Lake Ashinoko, took a little over an hour. The latter half of the route was round tortuous bends, and Emily got travel sick. She went hot, then pale, and then threw up all over me before going into a deep sleep. We were worried, and kept checking that she was still breathing! To our relief she seemed right as rain when we got to our accommodation and she woke up.
It was a small pension, the only place where we had been able to get a room at short notice in what is a very popular area for Tokyoites and in prime leaf-viewing season. Since we were paying 20,000 yen (over £100) each for the night though, we were expecting a certain level of luxury. We were therefore disappointed to find that though it was in a great lakefront location it was a slightly seedy place with cheap, stained carpet and plastic covered tables. Our room on the top floor was a good size with a large bathroom, for Japan, but no view (to be fair, we knew that before we booked) and intermittently a strong smell of drains. The owner had very good English, and was very jolly (as well he might be, fleecing his guests that much).
We wasted no time in sallying forth in search of a place to get lunch, walking along the lakeshore to some restaurants nearby. The lake is in a beautiful setting of mountains, most over 1,000 metres. The trees were a mix of cedar and deciduous trees, the latter in various stages of turning yellow and red. Unfortunately the weather, which had been a settled high for a long time, had turned grey and a bit misty, so the full brightness of the leaves was dampened, but we still appreciated the scenery.
We found a restaurant with a table on tatami mats, and pulled up a little chair for Emily, as it was way past her usual lunchtime. With a lot of coercion we got her to eat her pouch of pork risotto before we tucked into tempura on noodles and broth. Once again I wondered why they serve lovely crispy battered veggies on soup, so that it get soggy and the batter falls off. It was still very tasty, nonetheless. With her blonde hair, Emily was attracting lots of admiring glances. Two young women approached and asked hesitantly if they might touch her; they took her hand so gingerly you'd think she was made of china.
With a couple of hours of daylight left we decided to take a trip across the lake on one of the 'pirate ships' that cruise across it. We didn't stay above deck for long as there was rather a chilly breeze blowing, but did see the lower right flank of nearby Mount Fuji through the cloud before it disappeared again. It's in the middle of the picture below, but you'd have to know or you'd never guess there was a 3,600m mountain lurking there.
From the many posters we'd seen, it was frustrating to know what a fantastic view we were being deprived of. By the time we'd gone across the water and back it was close to dusk, so we made our way back to the pension to begin Emily's evening routine.
Though she was wide awake and babbling as our dinnertime approached, I took a chance and left her in the room with the monitor on, expecting her to cry. A few minutes later I crept back in, convinced the monitor wasn't working as there was no sound, only to find her fast asleep, but several feet from where I'd left her on the futon. Our meal left us full but far from happy with the quality of the food. There was a large plate of raw bonito slices - the cheapest fish you can buy, pretty much. We shared a large nabe (stew) of cabbage, tofu, mushrooms, cod and a few small scallops. It was filling but lacking any flavour. Also on offer was a huge platter of Alaskan crab legs, which the owner pressed upon us. The idea of cracking open a leg and extracting the flesh was abhorrent but I made myself try just one. Nick enjoyed the meat, but I would have liked some lemon to squeeze on to make it more palatable.
Without a communal hot tub in the place to share together, we tiptoed back into our room and ran a bath, masking the drain odour with a sachet of bath salts. Though deep, the bath was not large enough for us to get in together. We got a nice early night, at least, snuggling under our duvets at 10pm. Unfortunately Nick's mobile rang at half eleven (his mate Skid calling to tell him Arsenal had beaten Man United), and it woke Emily. She was awake for an hour or more, crawling around on the futon between our two, wanting us to play, and sitting up babbling.
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