Our Family Onsen Vacation to Hakone

Saturday morning we woke up intending a trip by train to Ueno Park so the kids could go to the zoo. But it looked like rain, so we decided to drive to a ryokan (Japanese inn) at the foot of Hakone instead. I'm not sure how we came to that conclusion, but it involved meeting family there and all. We had to drive through Tokyo, but we figured traffic couldn't be too bad on a Saturday... Two hours after leaving home, traffic was barely crawling through downtown. We gave up on the direct route and circled around to take a back road. I really don't want to describe the whole driving part, but we drove and drove for hours and hours staring at car bumpers. We had arranged to meet friends for lunch half way at a point near Machida. They waited for a long time and finally went home. We didn't get there until after 3pm. We finally made it to the Ryokan just before 7pm. Hungry, tired, feeling guilty about keeping our kids strapped in car seats all day, wondering what we had been thinking and all that.

I've been to ryokans before, but I have to say that evening when I headed for the onsen (hot spring bath) I really appreciated the strangely restful atmosphere present in such places. I undressed, entered the onsen room (where the big bath is), and sat on a low stool to shower. You shower BEFORE entering the water. I think there was one other guy there, but we stayed in our own worlds. By the time I hit the water, I was reflecting on life. I talked to God a bit (just telling the story here), and let it all out. It was real good.

We all slept well and woke up late. In the morning, I discovered that the sliding door at the back of our room opens directly over a pond. We held onto the kids so they wouldn't fall out of the room, then enjoyed looking out over the giant koi swimming below us. That was nice, and I took the picture above. Breakfast wasn't great, which surprised me, but then I hit the onsen again. Afterwards, I was sitting on a stool trying to shave (with a plastic razor they provide, but I'm an electric shaver guy now...). Then I heard a woman's voice. As I looked in the mirror, I had a view of the main changing area. There was a guy standing in the middle of the room stark naked (a normal sight in such a place). But a cleaning ladies had entered the room, and I think she asked him if he needed a towel. He nonchalantly said, "Eh.." or something(which I took to mean that he was ok).

In the picture above you can see a view upstream from outside the ryokan. It's a pretty area, potentially, but if you look closely you'll see that the buildings are old and ugly. Sorry for anyone who doesn't like my choice of words, but that's how it is. The river is lined with concrete, the waterfalls are concrete, long pipes line both sides of the river (perhaps carrying hot spring water), and the hotels are boxes and oblong shapes all stacked together and appearing that they may collapse anytime. Concrete is everywhere. Did I say, "Concrete?" As I faced toward my own ryokan, I saw a torrent of water coming through cracks in the concrete wall lining the river. Normally, I would like to say water was "seeping" through the concrete, but this was much more like a stream pouring. Apparently, all that water makes it's way down the mountain sides, under the ryokan, through the concrete and into the river. Hmmm. I'm not an engineer, but I played with dirt and water when I was a kid and that didn't look right. But the ryokan has been there for a long, long, long time so all must be well.

Anyway, we felt pretty rested when we got in the car to, hmm, drive home. We stopped by a big, really wonderful park in Odawara. It was free, too! If you live near there, look for Wanpakuland (in hiragana). My kids got to feed goats, but pretty much all the cool things (like the pony ride and train) were closed (because it was raining a bit). We made it home in about three hours or so. Ah, well. At least we made a memory that we won't soon forget.

Posted by jw at September 7, 2004 12:18 AM