Goth Goes Otaku: Bullet trains and anime-esque inn keepers
Saturday 26th April - Hakone/Kyoto
We wake up and Simon goes for one last bath while I shake off the sleepiness and we head down for another breakfast, Western this time and not as silly. There’s some confusion as our message about breakfast time got lost in translation but they flutter about apologetically and it takes no time at all. I’ve brought gifts for each of the ryokans we’re staying at and decide in this instance to give them to the parlour maid who seems very flustered at the thought; the other maids look on jealously. As we leave they giggle at our giant luggage and trying to pour it and 2 large Western men into a Japanese taxi and no less than 5 of the staff come out to wave goodbye, staying out until we are out of sight.
Saving me from tripping all over myself again, Dog manages to jury rig my suitcase handle, it’s not quite fixed but at least the handle is extended now and I can actually pull the thing without it hitting my legs. The trip to Odawara is uneventful and Dog picks up on me getting upset about always being the one to talk to strangers and offers to buy the next set of train tickets. This may not have been the best move as the next train is our Shinkansen to Kyoto and there’s a fair bit of confusion but we get the tickets and find the platform with plenty of time to sit around. Simon and I both try and get footage of the screaming fast Nozomi bullet trains going past with some success… though I’ve never posted video before and haven’t quite worked out what to do with it.
The trip to Kyoto is quite nice and takes a bit under 2 hours on the bullet train, there’s not altogether that much to report of the scenery save from the quaint rural townships surrounded by rice paddies. I watch more Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and yet again consider my headphone double adaptor jack to be the best travel purchase of all time as Simon watches with me while Dog listens to stand up. Throughout the trip though my throat is aching and I am given jibes about smoking, drinking and yelling too much… but I know the signs, my body’s realised I’m on holiday and has decided I have time to be sick. I down milk tea and vapodrops and ponder what on earth is in the milk tea/coffee drinks here as none of them make me sick and as a dire lactose intolerant this is a bad sign.
On arrival we are thoroughly confused and realise we’ve taken the wrong exit, managing to get past the ticket gate for the local JR line without purchasing a transfer. After some flustering we give up and head outside to grab a taxi who drives us to entirely the wrong place after assuming we wanted to visit the shrine near our ryokan rather than the ryokan itself.
After fairly minimal trolling about we find the ryokan. The owner is like something out of a Miyazaki anime, if this had been a cartoon she would be the well meaning but slightly inappropriate landlord who saves us from dire peril and then tries to set all of us up with the main character. She has a dog and a cat and a lively manner, she cackles at everything particularly our limited Japanese vocabulary and chatters away with us across the language divide. I briefly ponder who the hell she is as she’s obviously got connections, half the walls of the ryokan are strung with the red painted fans given to influential locals by geisha on the day they end their apprenticeship and she and her pets are featured in some of the local magazines with pictures of her cat being held by a maiko. We’re miles from the geisha quarter and I wonder if she might be an ex-geisha or perhaps tea house owner with her jovial ways and her ryokan business; but even if I knew how to ask her I don’t know if it would be rude to ask and leave it alone.
She gapes at the size of Simon and Dave and shows us that she’s got two rooms, after a bit of explaining and hand signals that neither are my boyfriend I get the single room while the boys share the double. It couldn’t come at a better time, I needed a little space and the ability to feel less awkward at changing time and I’m about to get hit full force with a headcold that is sure to leave me snoring like a chainsaw.
We try to wrangle with the ryokan’s laptop but fail spectacularly with the Japanese operating system and wi fi settings and by this time we haven’t eaten in many hours and I’ve got my cranky pants on. The local area is much like the area we were in in Tokyo and I’m happy with my choice in Ryokan between the mad grandmother hostess and the shrine village feel to the neighbourhood. We’re right next to the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine, a Shinto shrine dedicated to the god of rice and sake. Inari is symbolised by the kitsune fox spirits and all the local yaki and souvenirs are little fox creatures, so I pick up a souvenir for dustandfox and gape at the tasty snacks.
We search around for a stationer’s and I pick up some gorgeous envelopes, as both the gion tour and the ryokan must be paid in cash and giving blind cash is a social faux pas. Then we hit up the local bookstore for magazines, the man behind the counter chuckles to himself as I paw through the S&M magazines and pick out the latest issues of Sniper SM which Simon promptly buys before I am able to and I pick up copies of NailMax and NailVenus for myself which are about as close as one can get to manicure pr0n.
Some snacks and it is back to the ryokan where as noted I manage to haxx0r their wi fi and the rest of the evening is whiled away chatting to Das Boy and updating endless photo galleries and blog posts. Some time alone, Das Boy being cute at me, some serious internet time, another hot hot hot sento bath on my own and the boys being a little more mindful towards me and I’m in a great mood by the time I fall asleep.
We wake up and Simon goes for one last bath while I shake off the sleepiness and we head down for another breakfast, Western this time and not as silly. There’s some confusion as our message about breakfast time got lost in translation but they flutter about apologetically and it takes no time at all. I’ve brought gifts for each of the ryokans we’re staying at and decide in this instance to give them to the parlour maid who seems very flustered at the thought; the other maids look on jealously. As we leave they giggle at our giant luggage and trying to pour it and 2 large Western men into a Japanese taxi and no less than 5 of the staff come out to wave goodbye, staying out until we are out of sight.
Saving me from tripping all over myself again, Dog manages to jury rig my suitcase handle, it’s not quite fixed but at least the handle is extended now and I can actually pull the thing without it hitting my legs. The trip to Odawara is uneventful and Dog picks up on me getting upset about always being the one to talk to strangers and offers to buy the next set of train tickets. This may not have been the best move as the next train is our Shinkansen to Kyoto and there’s a fair bit of confusion but we get the tickets and find the platform with plenty of time to sit around. Simon and I both try and get footage of the screaming fast Nozomi bullet trains going past with some success… though I’ve never posted video before and haven’t quite worked out what to do with it.
The trip to Kyoto is quite nice and takes a bit under 2 hours on the bullet train, there’s not altogether that much to report of the scenery save from the quaint rural townships surrounded by rice paddies. I watch more Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and yet again consider my headphone double adaptor jack to be the best travel purchase of all time as Simon watches with me while Dog listens to stand up. Throughout the trip though my throat is aching and I am given jibes about smoking, drinking and yelling too much… but I know the signs, my body’s realised I’m on holiday and has decided I have time to be sick. I down milk tea and vapodrops and ponder what on earth is in the milk tea/coffee drinks here as none of them make me sick and as a dire lactose intolerant this is a bad sign.
On arrival we are thoroughly confused and realise we’ve taken the wrong exit, managing to get past the ticket gate for the local JR line without purchasing a transfer. After some flustering we give up and head outside to grab a taxi who drives us to entirely the wrong place after assuming we wanted to visit the shrine near our ryokan rather than the ryokan itself.
After fairly minimal trolling about we find the ryokan. The owner is like something out of a Miyazaki anime, if this had been a cartoon she would be the well meaning but slightly inappropriate landlord who saves us from dire peril and then tries to set all of us up with the main character. She has a dog and a cat and a lively manner, she cackles at everything particularly our limited Japanese vocabulary and chatters away with us across the language divide. I briefly ponder who the hell she is as she’s obviously got connections, half the walls of the ryokan are strung with the red painted fans given to influential locals by geisha on the day they end their apprenticeship and she and her pets are featured in some of the local magazines with pictures of her cat being held by a maiko. We’re miles from the geisha quarter and I wonder if she might be an ex-geisha or perhaps tea house owner with her jovial ways and her ryokan business; but even if I knew how to ask her I don’t know if it would be rude to ask and leave it alone.
She gapes at the size of Simon and Dave and shows us that she’s got two rooms, after a bit of explaining and hand signals that neither are my boyfriend I get the single room while the boys share the double. It couldn’t come at a better time, I needed a little space and the ability to feel less awkward at changing time and I’m about to get hit full force with a headcold that is sure to leave me snoring like a chainsaw.
We try to wrangle with the ryokan’s laptop but fail spectacularly with the Japanese operating system and wi fi settings and by this time we haven’t eaten in many hours and I’ve got my cranky pants on. The local area is much like the area we were in in Tokyo and I’m happy with my choice in Ryokan between the mad grandmother hostess and the shrine village feel to the neighbourhood. We’re right next to the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine, a Shinto shrine dedicated to the god of rice and sake. Inari is symbolised by the kitsune fox spirits and all the local yaki and souvenirs are little fox creatures, so I pick up a souvenir for dustandfox and gape at the tasty snacks.
We search around for a stationer’s and I pick up some gorgeous envelopes, as both the gion tour and the ryokan must be paid in cash and giving blind cash is a social faux pas. Then we hit up the local bookstore for magazines, the man behind the counter chuckles to himself as I paw through the S&M magazines and pick out the latest issues of Sniper SM which Simon promptly buys before I am able to and I pick up copies of NailMax and NailVenus for myself which are about as close as one can get to manicure pr0n.
Some snacks and it is back to the ryokan where as noted I manage to haxx0r their wi fi and the rest of the evening is whiled away chatting to Das Boy and updating endless photo galleries and blog posts. Some time alone, Das Boy being cute at me, some serious internet time, another hot hot hot sento bath on my own and the boys being a little more mindful towards me and I’m in a great mood by the time I fall asleep.