DAY FOUR!!!! We are OUT of Kyotokko - aaaaahhhhh..... I think I might've been the only one that was happy to leave. I think Kok Siew, Jin Lee and Yvonne have gotten attached. :)
Brekkie at the same awesome place - I can't remember what I had this time, but needless to say, it was GOOOOOOOOODDDDD....
On another note, thank God I had the other three girls with me, I would've been so lost in Japan. It amazed me how all three of them knew exactly where we were going, which trains to take and which buses we needed to be on! They even knew how much the fare was!!
Switched trains at Odawara and proceeded with another train to Hakone. Fun fun! The initial plan was that we store our luggage at the train station, but upon arriving at Odawara, we found that we could not. So, we thought that it would be a good idea to take our bags to Hakone with us and store it at the train station in Hakone. Great idea. NOT.
We thought surely, as there would probably be less people at Hakone, surely we will be able to get lockers to put our stuff there. We were SO WRONG. And then there was a frantic moment of looking for lockers to put our things. We saw somewhere that said "LUGGAGE STORAGE" and breathed a sigh of relief and attempted to lodge our baggages there. The guy who was manning the place told us in no uncertain terms (well, it was in sort of English, so I guess it was in uncertain terms! Haha...) that we were not allowed to do it and we attempted to lawyer our way through it. FAIL. Sorry, lemme rephrase that: COLOSSAL FAIL. J
However, we were a little cunning (or at least we thought we were) and sought the help of the tourist centre (which was the window next door) and even they thought that they were being ridiculous in not allowing us to store our bags overnight.
Anyway, after a lot of arguing and kerfuffles, we managed to store our luggages in A BAKERY. Honestly, the Japanese hospitality (barring the silly man at the luggage storage area) never fails to astound me.
So then we boarded a bus to take us further into Hakone to where the ryokan was. On our way, we all sat in different spots, Kok Siew, Yvonne and I listening to our MP3 players and Jin with her head buried in her Bromley’s guide to Japan. On the way in the bus, we saw some sort of procession on the street, which until this day, I have no idea what it was. So for people who have lived in Japan, a little enlightenment would be great! And that’s the thing about Japan, we didn’t have a local tour guide, so half the time, we had no idea what was going on. Although I should say that most times, it was fun though.
During the bus ride, clearly Kok Siew’s brain had ticked over and she was convinced that she had worked out the bus system and how much it cost. She was WRONG. I never thought that I would say it, but KS was WRONG. Oooohhh… that provided us with some form of entertainment for a while.
Moving along – we arrived at the ryokan and successfully checked in. The most expensive accommodation (well, anything is more expensive than Hotel Kyotokko!) we’ve been to, but for a private onsen, who’s complaining. Certainly not me!!!
Got into our room and it was SO COOL. Futons on the floor. A little table filled with Hakone mochi – apparently everyone knows about it in Australia. I had no idea what it was, but I had sampled some and quite enjoyed this delicacy and was determined to buy some on the way back from the ryokan.
Jin wanted to explore the area (what was there to explore? There are nothing but mountains in this sleepy town) but as we were tourists, and while in Rome, why the hell not. Walked along this somewhat deserted road only to find, in the midst of a town that seemed to be stuck in the past, a 7-11. Score. Of course, true to Hua Zhong hostel form, we bought out the shop. Noodles, chips, facials, ice-creams – I seriously think that our eyes were bigger than our tummies. The only difference between shopping with these girls now and back in 1996-1999 was that we can legally buy alcohol. And since we were in Japan, we bought sake. Cheap and nasty. Just the way alcohol should be. J
As I could not resist ice-cream, I bought this cool Sakura shaped ice-cream which was filled with some red bean paste. Interesting, but a little sweet for my taste. But still enjoyed it.
As predicted, there was nothing else to see, so we made our way back to the room, where we proceeded to put on our yukatas and tried to jumpstart our modelling careers. I won’t upload the piccies to the blog- there are too many, but I have uploaded them to my facebook. But here's a taste...
Just for fun (and because we could), we made our way down to the dining hall for some dinner, which turned out to be like an eight course meal. It was all very delicious. WAIT. I’m taking that back. Because some of it was NOT delicious. Like the fermented soy beans (WTF) and raw calamari. No deal.
Of course while at dinner we also saw a very beautiful girl with an older, clearly less unattractive man, which made us wonder… hmmm…..
And of course we had to grab some cards from the front counter to continue our tradition of chor tai ti and Bridge!!! Now that we were older and wiser, we thought we were way too mature to play Asshole Tai Ti (we weren’t) so we played Tai Ti and the losers had to drink. And Kok Siew lost, big time. :) And same went with Bridge. Which Kok Siew lost again. :) The other two shared the losses and I was having a gay old time with my winnings (I got ice-cream and the calories – BITCHES). And of course when we were merry, we reverted to Asshole Tai Ti. Which Kok Siew lost. I sense a theme here.
I should just say as well ( while I remember) that we did attempt to play cards in Kyoto (at my favourite Hotel Kyotokko). Unfortunately, let’s just say that the cards Jin provided were not to the groups’ satisfaction and we had to abort mission. :) And when I said that they were not up to satisfaction, it meant that it had canned food on the cards. WTF indeed. Jin - gotta love you! And I should mention that we would've played if Yvonne could stop giggling!!!
Oh, did I forget to mention that we jumped into our private onsen? Yes, it started with someone (can’t remember who but I daresay it was Yvonne) saying – let’s all dip our feet in the onsen. And that was nice. Then we realised that we could all fit in the onsen and have some facials done. But we had already dipped our feet in the onsen. So Yvonne came up with this GENIUS (please note the sarcasm here) idea of emptying the onsen and refilling it. “Don’t worry, it will refill” she says. “It refills very quickly” she says. BULLSHIT. It took forever!!! So each of us took a shower in the open freezing cold balcony (yes, it was OPEN). So imagine a balcony. The cold night air. On one side of the balcony is the onsen and on another side, a stool and a shower. Stripping stark naked and sitting al fresco on a tiny little stool and taking a shower. NICE (not). But despite all this, it was an experience and a very good one at that. I’m just complaining because I like to.
End of Hakone. Bring on Tokyo.
Brekkie at the same awesome place - I can't remember what I had this time, but needless to say, it was GOOOOOOOOODDDDD....
On another note, thank God I had the other three girls with me, I would've been so lost in Japan. It amazed me how all three of them knew exactly where we were going, which trains to take and which buses we needed to be on! They even knew how much the fare was!!
Switched trains at Odawara and proceeded with another train to Hakone. Fun fun! The initial plan was that we store our luggage at the train station, but upon arriving at Odawara, we found that we could not. So, we thought that it would be a good idea to take our bags to Hakone with us and store it at the train station in Hakone. Great idea. NOT.
We thought surely, as there would probably be less people at Hakone, surely we will be able to get lockers to put our stuff there. We were SO WRONG. And then there was a frantic moment of looking for lockers to put our things. We saw somewhere that said "LUGGAGE STORAGE" and breathed a sigh of relief and attempted to lodge our baggages there. The guy who was manning the place told us in no uncertain terms (well, it was in sort of English, so I guess it was in uncertain terms! Haha...) that we were not allowed to do it and we attempted to lawyer our way through it. FAIL. Sorry, lemme rephrase that: COLOSSAL FAIL. J
However, we were a little cunning (or at least we thought we were) and sought the help of the tourist centre (which was the window next door) and even they thought that they were being ridiculous in not allowing us to store our bags overnight.
Anyway, after a lot of arguing and kerfuffles, we managed to store our luggages in A BAKERY. Honestly, the Japanese hospitality (barring the silly man at the luggage storage area) never fails to astound me.
So then we boarded a bus to take us further into Hakone to where the ryokan was. On our way, we all sat in different spots, Kok Siew, Yvonne and I listening to our MP3 players and Jin with her head buried in her Bromley’s guide to Japan. On the way in the bus, we saw some sort of procession on the street, which until this day, I have no idea what it was. So for people who have lived in Japan, a little enlightenment would be great! And that’s the thing about Japan, we didn’t have a local tour guide, so half the time, we had no idea what was going on. Although I should say that most times, it was fun though.
During the bus ride, clearly Kok Siew’s brain had ticked over and she was convinced that she had worked out the bus system and how much it cost. She was WRONG. I never thought that I would say it, but KS was WRONG. Oooohhh… that provided us with some form of entertainment for a while.
Moving along – we arrived at the ryokan and successfully checked in. The most expensive accommodation (well, anything is more expensive than Hotel Kyotokko!) we’ve been to, but for a private onsen, who’s complaining. Certainly not me!!!
Got into our room and it was SO COOL. Futons on the floor. A little table filled with Hakone mochi – apparently everyone knows about it in Australia. I had no idea what it was, but I had sampled some and quite enjoyed this delicacy and was determined to buy some on the way back from the ryokan.
Jin wanted to explore the area (what was there to explore? There are nothing but mountains in this sleepy town) but as we were tourists, and while in Rome, why the hell not. Walked along this somewhat deserted road only to find, in the midst of a town that seemed to be stuck in the past, a 7-11. Score. Of course, true to Hua Zhong hostel form, we bought out the shop. Noodles, chips, facials, ice-creams – I seriously think that our eyes were bigger than our tummies. The only difference between shopping with these girls now and back in 1996-1999 was that we can legally buy alcohol. And since we were in Japan, we bought sake. Cheap and nasty. Just the way alcohol should be. J
As I could not resist ice-cream, I bought this cool Sakura shaped ice-cream which was filled with some red bean paste. Interesting, but a little sweet for my taste. But still enjoyed it.
As predicted, there was nothing else to see, so we made our way back to the room, where we proceeded to put on our yukatas and tried to jumpstart our modelling careers. I won’t upload the piccies to the blog- there are too many, but I have uploaded them to my facebook. But here's a taste...
Just for fun (and because we could), we made our way down to the dining hall for some dinner, which turned out to be like an eight course meal. It was all very delicious. WAIT. I’m taking that back. Because some of it was NOT delicious. Like the fermented soy beans (WTF) and raw calamari. No deal.
Of course while at dinner we also saw a very beautiful girl with an older, clearly less unattractive man, which made us wonder… hmmm…..
And of course we had to grab some cards from the front counter to continue our tradition of chor tai ti and Bridge!!! Now that we were older and wiser, we thought we were way too mature to play Asshole Tai Ti (we weren’t) so we played Tai Ti and the losers had to drink. And Kok Siew lost, big time. :) And same went with Bridge. Which Kok Siew lost again. :) The other two shared the losses and I was having a gay old time with my winnings (I got ice-cream and the calories – BITCHES). And of course when we were merry, we reverted to Asshole Tai Ti. Which Kok Siew lost. I sense a theme here.
I should just say as well ( while I remember) that we did attempt to play cards in Kyoto (at my favourite Hotel Kyotokko). Unfortunately, let’s just say that the cards Jin provided were not to the groups’ satisfaction and we had to abort mission. :) And when I said that they were not up to satisfaction, it meant that it had canned food on the cards. WTF indeed. Jin - gotta love you! And I should mention that we would've played if Yvonne could stop giggling!!!
Oh, did I forget to mention that we jumped into our private onsen? Yes, it started with someone (can’t remember who but I daresay it was Yvonne) saying – let’s all dip our feet in the onsen. And that was nice. Then we realised that we could all fit in the onsen and have some facials done. But we had already dipped our feet in the onsen. So Yvonne came up with this GENIUS (please note the sarcasm here) idea of emptying the onsen and refilling it. “Don’t worry, it will refill” she says. “It refills very quickly” she says. BULLSHIT. It took forever!!! So each of us took a shower in the open freezing cold balcony (yes, it was OPEN). So imagine a balcony. The cold night air. On one side of the balcony is the onsen and on another side, a stool and a shower. Stripping stark naked and sitting al fresco on a tiny little stool and taking a shower. NICE (not). But despite all this, it was an experience and a very good one at that. I’m just complaining because I like to.
End of Hakone. Bring on Tokyo.
