Japan - Day 5

Today was an early start as we had plans to leave the busy streets of Tokyo and spend a night in the scenic mountains of Hakone in a traditional Japanese hotel called a ryokan. Before we left Tokyo I had one last thing I wanted to see. This was the famous Tsukiji Fish Market. My alarm on my phone awoke me at 7am and we quickly packed up our things to leave our hostel, posed in front of reception for a last cheesy photo and made our way to the underground Tokyo Metro.

As we emerged from Tsukiji station we instantly knew we were in the right place judging from the odour of fish and the bajillion stalls selling fish fish and more fish. Stalls were filled with eels, jellyfish, squid, mackerel, tuna, sardines, octopus, oysters and many more. Some stalls also sold knifes, condiments, pickled vegetables and some other strange looking things inside clear plastic bags.. presumably fish. Other stalls offered a variety of street food but I had only one dish in mind to try here... freshly made sushi. As we made our way through this maze, the stall owners shouted prices at us, offered us free samples and beckoned us to sit and eat. Eventually one place stood out. A small restaurant in the midst of the chaos with a large counter that was headed by 5 sushi chefs preparing the sushi and yelling "Konichi Wa Irasshaimase!" To each new customer that entered. We took our seats by the counter and a waiter brought steaming cups of green tea and gave us menus. I couldn't wait to order and selected the sushi special of the day, a 13 peice extravaganza consisting of nigiris topped with tuna, fatty tuna, squid, egg and grilled eel as well as other maki rolls filled with minced tuna and mackerel. Bish on the other hand didn't look so keen.. sushi and fish isn't really his thing and his look of disgust as the browsed the menu said it all. He ordered tuna and fatty tuna on my recommendation. We had our own sushi chef looking after us so he took our order, whipped out his knife and sliced up various different blocks of fish to make our meal. He presented it to us on rectangular ceramic plates with curved edges. It was a piece of art in itself. I would describe this in more detail but I instead took a photo.. much easier! It was it was absolutely delicious and I finished the whole plate. I vowed I wouldn't eat until dinner.. A promise I failed to keep. I ended up spending a cool 3000 Yen (18 pounds or so) on breakfast here alone. We left the restaurant and headed to the main wholesale market. Here the scene was even more chaotic. Hundreds of workers were all engaged in various tasks. Some chopping up tuna fish almost as big as me, others throwing water from containers into the floor. Some sped past us on small cars with a loading shelf behind them to carry heavy boxes from lorries to their stalls. I got shoved out of the way by workers carrying boxes behind me. I guess time is money and I was in my own world (for once!) We walked through the market but quickly realised that 1) we had a train to catch and 2) the stench of fish was getting a bit much. Onward to Hakone!

Hakone was about a 70 minute journey from Tokyo. We made our way onto a Shinkansen, settled into our luxurious seats and watched the skyscrapers and buzz of Tokyo fall behind us through the window. We made it into Hakone and had to change for a local train to Hakone Yumoto station where we then paid a mere 100 yen for a shuttle bus to our ryokan. Once again we were subjected to an ascent up the hills in a bus that swayed around the corners. My large breakfast suddenly didn't seem like a good idea! Fortunately our journey wasn't too long and we were dropped right outside our ryokan, the Kijitei Hoeiso.

My first impressions of the place were awesome. A sign lit up in Japanese characters bearing the name of the ryokan stood next to the front entrance which was sunk into the wall, covered in ivy. The front of the building had a tiled roof that rose up on each side to a point at the stop. Wooden beams and bamboo made the walls and a glass doorway revealed the lobby. Once we walked inside we were greeted by the owner and the staff dressed in kimonos (Japanese robes). We were instructed to take off our shoes and wear slippers they had provided for guests and to wait for an hour while they prepared our room. We made our way to the lounge area which had An old record player humming relaxing piano music. This room had a beautiful view of the Hakone mountains and hills which rolled up diagonally left of the ryokan's windows. It was raining quite heavily by this point but the humidity was so high that steam billowed from the trees that covered the hills, making for a pretty epic photo! After an hour we were greeted and accompanied to our rooms. The staff insisted on taking my bags as they were the heaviest and Bish had to carry his.. Sucker! Should have packed more mate!

Our room was everything I wanted it to be. A real Japanese ryokan experience. Sliding doors, tatami flooring, private bathroom, small lanterns for lighting And futon beds. Our dining table was barely knee height and our chairs had no legs. Instead, cushions were placed onto the seat and we were expected to kneel on them for meals. This is easier said than done as both legs had piercing pins and needles after about 5 minutes (more on this later). We settled into our room and were brought fresh green tea by our own personal server. We took this opportunity to change into our robes that were provided (aka Yukatta).. This is basically a full body size Japanese dressing gown worn around Ryokans which has a belt tied at the front. Me being me could not work out how to dress myself with this simple garment and proceeded to ask at reception for assistance. 10 minutes later I'd mastered it and Bish and I posed for photos, showcasing our finest karate moves.

Next on our agenda of Japanese culture to try was the hot spring public baths, also known as an onsen. Our ryokan had two, one inside and the other outside which overlooked the river and surrounding mountains. I had looked up the etiquette for an onsen and had to warn Bish of this...basically you have to strip down so you're stark naked and wash yourself before you go in.. For some reason I can't think of, Dan wasn't so thrilled about this. After hesitation he gave in and decided to give it a go! We decided to leave our room and head for the outside bath. However we weren't sure if we were allowed to walk around the hotel with our Yukatta on. We decided to do it anyway and made our way to the baths. As we walked outside a crowd of Japanese people gathered at a nearby window above us. We heard laughing.. Maybe the Yukatta wasn't such a good idea after all! We reached the bath where a small bamboo hut marked the men's changing rooms where we walked inside and, trying our best not to look at each other, stripped off, head out the back door of the hut and out into a small enclosure where the hot spring bubbled and steamed. The spring was a circular rock pool, filled with steaming water, naturally heated. All around it the pool grew plants that were lit my small lanterns which hung from bamboo. The pool looked out onto the Hakone mountains and the river which ran through the town.

The sound of the river as it flowed beneath us was instantly relaxing. I stepped inside the pool. Absolutely boiling!! Oh well, Who needs skin anyway? After the water had burned off every nerve in my body I could finally relax, take in the scenery and soak in the pool. Absolutely awesome. I could get used to this! We spent about 30 minutes here before heading back to our room as an early dinner would be served in our room shortly.

Dinner was an epic in itself, a 3 course meal made up of around 16 different dishes were brought to us in our room. We had to leave our dining room while our server set our table and when it was ready, we were brought back into our dining room where each dish was explained to us.. In Japanese.. We had no idea what we were eating and how to eat it. This didn't matter. The presentation was incredible. Each dish burst with all colours of the rainbow and were served in a variety of bowls, plates, baskets and slates. We ate fish, salads, noodles, soups, tofu, pickled vegetables, Japanese small sweets and even had a mini BBQ to grill cuts of pheasant on. We didn't realise there were essentially two rounds of main courses and couldn't believe it when the second round came. Finally dessert was melon and a jelly thing wrapped in a large leaf that was also filled

with ice cream.
After dinner, Bish and I drank whiskey and played another round of chess like true gentlemen. I decided to check out the indoor public baths the ryokan provided which put any spa I'd been to before to shame. A large pool sat next to a wall which was a see through window that overlooked the hotel. The bathroom was empty so I enjoyed some quality me time here in the warm water, listened to the hum of crickets outside and chilled out to el max.

I returned to our room for bed. Our beds were comfortable futons on the floor, apart from one thing.. The pillows were literally filled with these rock hard round ball things. How could such an awesome place have such terrible pillows. Sleeping on ball bearings wasn't what I had in mind so swapped my pillow for my travel pillow instead. Not perfect but better then sleeping on someone's pachinko winnings. Goodnight!