2 May 2009

Thanks to a sensible train time we managed a fairly leisurely departure with minimum stress. Emily was quite well-behaved on the 2 hour journey. Phew! Though hazy, we spotted white-topped Mount Fuji rising from a bed of cloud a few times as we passed across the top of Izu peninsula then south to Shuzenji at its heart. We picked up our hire car and made the short drive to our ryokan, through the famous spa town. Though she had now been awake more than six hours, Emily was still lively, and was excited to see several cats at the ryokan; they also had a basket of toys and children's books. There was a small waterwheel in a bed of gravel in reception and she was in seventh heaven grabbing handfuls of stones and putting them in piles all over the place.

On our way into our room to dump our gear, we saw a large cockroach near the ceiling. The place had seen better days but was perfectly decent, so we were surprised, as was the attendant with us. It was a fine afternoon so we got straight back into the car and drove about 20 minutes to Mount Daruma (981m). Emily finally dropped off in the warm, moving car, though only for 20 minutes or so. We parked in a scenic layby with views over countless wooded hills, the sea, and a busy port town below. A short but steep climb up the coast path brought us to the peak,

where we had views across the intervening sky to Fuji-san, apparently hovering in mid-air (see the photo of Emily on the rock - it is in the background). It seemed so high, with such an expanse of cloud at its feet. The path was set in chest-height bamboo, with many sharp new shoots thrusting up through the earth. There were several butterflies braving the cool wind, and Emily said 'chou-cho' a lot (Japanese for butterfly), though it sounds more like 'jo-jo' when she says it. One of her favourite words now is 'carry' and she employed it often as we walked back down to the car.

On the way back to the ryokan Emily got really upset - not sure if car sick or just very tired - and shook her head repeatedly, another favourite thing right now. She perked up as soon as we were back, and was ecstatic to be reunited with her monkey, which she calls 'gokoo'. She was already saying 'ooh-ooh' even as we approached the room. She ate well at teatime and enjoyed her bath with Nick, but though really tired she took more than half an hour to go off to sleep, rolling around on the futon reciting her vocabulary. Like most ryokan, dinnertime was very early, at 6.30, so Nick had to leave me to it and when she finally went off I was able to join him in the dining room, under the watchful eye of a rather stern older serving lady, probably wondering why Emily wasn't with us, as most Japanese kids stay up a lot later than ours.

As we were near the sea it was no surprise to be served a lot of seafood. There was crab, some winkels, and a beautiful shell with a horrid creature inside. When cooked on the table stove it bubbled a liquid that looked and smelled like slurry. The woman helped us extract a thing that looked like an Alien extra, all rubbery and curled up.

Nick ate as much as he could before being defeated by a particularly elastic part; I was emboldened by some sake and tried nibbling a bit, but my worse fears were confirmed: chewy and bitter.

Outside in a small lounge area there were some foot and back massage machines set up. We spent some time being pummelled and vibrated before it was time for our prebooked slot in the rotemburo . It is such a treat for us to be able to luxuriate in a large outdoor bath together like that.

Though a cool evening, I got so hot in the water that I was able to sit on the rocks around the bath afterwards for ages without feeling cold. As we returned to our room we heard a veritable frog chorus of burring and chirruping in the valley below.