diary/Japanese christmas

The trip was interesting, riding a rickety old tram up a mountain. Apparently it’s the second highest railway in the world, can you believe it! So the endless chatter of the robotic tour guide tape told me, so proud to be number two. Eventually I reached my destination on the side of the mountain, distant clouds of steam billowing from the hidden resorts stuffed randomly into the endless forest. Not so well hidden but majestically prominent was my hotel, clad in geisha girls and pre-war decor. That night I feasted on endless courses of Japanese food brought into my room by a kind old lady, things I’d never seen before being carefully levered into my mouth – bliss. Privately I changed into yukatta (a type of simple robe), to enter my private hot spring.

On my return from the hot spring, something was a miss. Opening the toilet door in my vast room proved difficult. It was locked. Slightly alarmed at this I used a coin to open the lock and prepared myself to confront an intruder. Slowly I tuned the coin in the locks outer screw changing the small locks colour from red to green. Opening the door swiftly to my shock there was, nothing. No-one. A mystery indeed. I franticly checked all the cupboards and windows in my room. I checked out the lock, there was no way that this lock could have simply locked it’s self & it was as tough as old nails. The damn thing was practically incapable of slipping into a locked position.

As I left I asked the old lady designated to my room about the lock. “they don’t come in here” she said mysteriously, as if wandering spirits often enter guests rooms and mischievously lock doors in Hakone.

An open air art museum beckoned, where I broke my ass on a slide. I still have the mobile phone shaped bruise to remind me.

Hakone’s cable car is something to behold. You can see a truly fantastic view of mount Fuji as you pass silently over lakes of billowing sulfur from hell, dead forests and drops that equate certain death. Maybe the last view there was just my own, as all on the carriage were mostly concerned with how cold it was and reading their mobile phones.

So after a brief and somewhat bizarre boat ride back to the train station, my journey was over. A wonderful Christmas without a Christian or fucking santa in sight. I still wonder about the lock~ well we don’t have chimneys here in Japan so who knows how he delivered my presents?