Hangover in Hakone (Fart City)

After we made it off the train in Odawara and boarded the bus to Hakone, we sat on the bus for quite a long time. We got off the bus and our noses were immediately assaulted by the fart air of Hakone (caused by the natural hot springs in the area). I was still very hungover, my stomach was furious with me, and I needed to go to the bathroom, so I assumed the worst from the smell. We were both still tired from not getting much sleep the night before and nauseous from the rocky bus ride up the hill, so we were grumpy and ready to get to our hostel, Hakone Tent.

Unfortunately, I picked the route on Google Maps that required about 15 minutes of walking. But what Google Maps failed to mention was that the 15 minutes of walking was up a narrow steep mountainside path with hundreds of feet of stairs. Carolanne and I started making our way up because we had no other way up. We had no choice. We bitched and moaned the whole way -and I considered diving into the bushes.

At some point along the mountain, we stopped to catch our breath. We were sweating profusely and panting loudly, so we decided to hitchhike. We joked that we should hitchhike and I hesitantly put my thumb up. A guy stopped almost immediately and offered to help. He was Chinese, but spoke English and Japanese as well. He called our hostel, got directions, and drove us to the door. We thanked him and went inside to check in. The hostel was cute and beautifully done with tatami mats -and cheap as well! The room was a traditional style room with futons and tatami mats. It was so charming. We were supposed to share the room with one other person, but luckily no one checked in so we got it all to ourselves.

You could say it was pretty close quarters.

Once we dropped off our stuff and settled in, then went downstairs to the onsen (the hot spring that was really hot and smelled like farts, but was great). We hopped into the tub and enjoyed the basic (2.2) water. At one point, one of us said, "Ohhh that was a sick burn! You should soak that in the onsen." and that became a reoccurring joke throughout our trip. After about 15 minutes, we got out because it was too hot and we were starting to get dizzy. Our skin felt great after, but we smelled like farts the rest of the day.

Soon after, we tried to find a few restaurants that the receptionist suggested. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any of the places and got increasingly hangry as we searched the entire town for any place that was open. Eventually, we found an Okonomiyaki place and bought two pork pancakes and an order of sausage. We returned to the hostel much happier and a lot less likely to kill each other. When we got back, I rented a few yukatas (summer traditional garb) for us to wear for the night.

Crafts inside the Hakone Crafthouse!

We woke up early the next morning, took another dip in the onsen, the walked around the town. We were in much better spirits after a day of rest. We visited a cute place called the Hakone Crafthouse. Carolanne bought a set of adorable cups that didn't seem to be for sale, but they let her buy them. The Crafthouse had some gardens attached so we got a few more videos for the music vid and met a lemur.

"I want to Break Free" always plays in my head when I see this photo.

We wandered around the city a little longer buying souvenirs -I was able to buy some nice looking clip-on earrings (my right ear was still recovering from plastic surgery and was unpierced). When we were satisfied, we went back to the hostel, packed up our stuff, and hopped on the train to Tokyo.

Train views!

Bird Shows and Karaoke in Kakegawa -the Dan and Eve Edition!

Shinkansen time! We got up early, then took a cab to the railway station so we could activate our JR passes and catch the Shinkansen to Kakegawa where we'd be staying with Dan and Eve. I had met Dan the first time I had visited Tokyo. As new English teachers in foreign countries, we became fast friends. Carolanne and I were so excited to to stay with them and finally meet Dan's girlfriend -Eve.

We bought some crappy bento boxes for the train then made our way to the platform. Across from us was the skinhead guy from our hostel who continually was creeping us out. He had a shaved head and torn black jeans and a spiked belt and chains with what I assume were fascist red patches on his black jean jacket, but they were in a language I didn't understand so maybe he was just punk. Either way he was creepy and made fashion decisions that could easily get him labeled as a Nazi. It creeped us out even more so because he seemed to be everywhere we were and each time he'd creepily stare at us. Luckily he went on a different train to God knows where. Both of us tried to catch up on journaling and blogging as we took a smooth two hour ride to Kakegawa. As you can see from my two year late post, that catching up didn't do much good. Shout-out to Carolanne who actually finished her journal in a timelier manner (one year later)!

The view from the Kakegawa castle.

Dan and Eve picked us up from the train station and took us to the Kakegawa castle and museum. We had the opportunity to see the scenic view of the city from the tallest tower in Kakegawa castle. Afterwards, we were hungry so Eve suggested we go to a conveyor belt sushi place. She said it was kind of trashy, but we assured her that she could roll these garbage cans (us) to trash town. At the sushi place, they had these adorable Shinkansen style trains that would bring you whatever special order sushi you wanted.

Eve had to jet out because she had work, but Dan took us to the Kakegawa bird park, which did not sound very inspiring, but was in fact very much fun. There was a large room full of parakeets that you could feed. I didn't have any small change, so I ended up dropping a bunch of cash (about $10) on feeding the birds. We had bird food for days! I had one parrot friend who hung out with me for awhile (until I eventually ran out of food).

My friend!

Afterwards, we went to the bird show where they had different types of birds performing cute tricks with audience participation. The MC asked for someone in the audience to come up for the eagle's portion of the show and I excitedly threw my hand up yelling "ME!" impulsively. I was surprised that I was the only one who wanted to participate, so they quickly chose me. I ended up holding a hoop for the eagle to fly through, and was given a cute sticker at the end for my participation. I was literally the only adult to get a sticker though, so I quickly drew the conclusion that I was the token dumb foreigner of that show (which was fine by me). Dan had the opportunity to feed a toucan, then we headed outside to feed the emus.

'Hey there!', he seemed to say.

Back inside, true to the cute Japan nature, there were costumes and props so people could dress up and take pictures around the bird signs. Carolanne and I dressed up as pumpkin witches and forced Dan to do many takes of us making a heart for our music video. Carolanne threw her magic wand at him after the 5th take where he made fun of us and told us we made nothing close to a heart.

This picture has literally been my desktop picture for two years. It is always Halloween themed on my laptop.

We stopped by the grocery store where we picked up some wine and food, then found a beautiful table flipping game. I was the first to try it out and broke every single one of my beautifully long nails that I had spent so long growing out. It was incredibly worth it. Dan ended up getting the high score for the game. We all left feeling very accomplished, then went home to play Mario Kart while sipping wine like the classy people we were.

Eve came back and their friend Ian came to join us for a night at the karaoke room. Before we left, we all decided to wear silly hair clips or hair bands -I was wearing my dinosaur headband. Dan had a chihuahua clip that he and I had gotten from Everland, Carolanne had bunny ears, and Eve had cat ears. Carolanne, Dan, and I all got unlimited drinks at the karaoke room and used it to our full advantage. Carolanne and I sure put on a good show of Call Me Maybe and Let It Go.

On the ride back, Dan, Carolanne and I were in the back of the car still not over singing. We continued to sing into Eve and Ian's ear for the entire car-ride back not noticing that Ian was taping the entire thing. At one point in the drive home, Carolanne exclaimed, "Dan, I fucking love you. But I love Eve at least 12% more."

Dan and Eve went to bed shortly after, but Carolanne stayed up to cook (at my drunken request) some scrambled eggs on the stove and rice in the water heater. Needless to say, we bought Dan and Eve a new water heater. Luckily, Eve was very nice about it and cooked us breakfast the next day. We watched trash reality tv as we recovered from the night before (but not enough), then she dropped us off at the train station where we waited for the next train to Hakone.

Thank you, Eve, for loving us even though we destroyed your water boiler!!