Japanese christmas

25th of Dec, 2007ce* in: diary

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! Endless chatter of the robotic tour guide tape told us, so proud to be number two. Eventually we reached our 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 our hotel, clad in geisha girls and pre-war décor. That night we feasted on endless courses of Japanese food brought into our room by a kind old lady, things I’d never seen before being carefully levered into my mouth – bliss. Privately we changed into yukatta (a type of simple robe), to enter our private hot spring. Frolicking in the scorching water will remain beautifully etched into my memory for as long as I have a memory to retain it.

On our return from the hot spring, like two walking hot water bottles we got ready for bed, something was a miss. Opening the toilet door in our vast room proved difficult. It was locked. Slightly alarmed at this I used a coin to open the lock and prepared myself to beat some intruder senseless. 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. “must be old” I lied to my lady, to put her at ease, while I franticly checked all the cupboards and windows in our 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. It was difficult to sleep that night but at least someone else wasn’t worrying, I read from the snoring.

Christmas morning held some delights, after I informed the other party about the impossible lock situation, presents!
I got 3 art books, I gave a nice wallet, because my girl’s previous wallet situation consisted mostly of her pockets and some small bag where she stuffs all her stuff. As we left I asked the old lady designated to our 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, our 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 them?

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