« October 2022 | Main | January 2023 »
What a long name it is! I was amazed to know his full name. He is Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger de Saint-Exupéry, whose name is shortened to "Saint-Exupéry" in Japan. His masterpiece is "Le Petit Prince", whose Japanese version I've read in my childhood, but I don't remember its story completely. Le Petit Prince Museum stood in a remote area from the hot spa, but it seemed that lots of tourists had visited before the pandemic. Under the restrained mood for tourism due to the pandemic, the number of visitors decreased and the museum would be closed at the end of the 2022 fiscal year. By the strong wish of my wife, we visited the museum. There are several museums in Hakone, but we hadn't enough time to visit many of them.
As I walked in the museum, it was a fantasy world for children. While looking around, I partially recalled the story of Le Petit Prince. The next section was about the writer, Saint-Exupéry. His biography surprised me so much. He was born in a rich family, but became a military pilot and died during the 2nd world war. The rough site of his death was detected recently, but his body or bones have not yet been recovered. I became eager to read some of his works.
(Vocabulary)
fantasy world おとぎの国
fragmentary knowledge 断片的な知識
We came back to Sou-unzan station, which is a connecting station of the cable car and the ropeway. Our car was at the parking lot of the station, but we took the cable car just to enjoy riding the cable car. We went down to Gora station and then went back up to Sou-unzan station.
This route runs through the Gora spa district, dividing the area into two parts, north and south. It connects Gora station (alt. 541m) and Sou-unzan station (alt. 750m) in about 9 minutes. The length is only 1.2 km, but it has 4 stations on the way. This cable car is built not only for tourists but also for local folks who live in the Gora spa district which is located on the slope.
Lake Ashinoko is one of the popular lakes in Japan which is located at the east of Mt. Fuji. A few pirate-themed sightseeing boats are on service, though there's no history of pirates around Lake Ashinoko. Its lakeside is lined with several tourist destinations like Hakone Shrine, the ruins of the rigorous Hakone checkpoint in the Edo era (1603~1868) and hot spas. We'd like to have gotten on the boat, but gave up to free some time for other spots. We went on and got on the gondola again to reach Sou-unzan station. We saw some overseas tourists on the gondola. I expected that the pandemic would end in the near future. I'd like to visit the U.K. where my daughter works as a resident and Honolulu also to join the Honolulu Marathon in 2023.
There was a small box at a corner in the gondola as shown below. Taking a close look, it was a first aid kit, in which a few dozen oxygen canisters were set. If the ropeway system doesn't work properly due to some sort of accident and the passengers got stranded in limbo, and additionally, the volcanic activities got dangerously harsh, what would become of the passengers? This kit would be prepared assuming such an awful situation. Looking down from the gondola, there were several people working to monitor the volcanic activities. I came away with the idea that the authorities are paying elaborate attention to both the tourism industry and the tourists' security.
Our waiting time for a gondola was very short. The gondola commanding a fine view of mountains, crater lakes around Mt. Fuji and some vents spewing water vapor was one of the highlights of our Hakone tour. As the gondola went up, the water vapor came up in front of my eyes. Just after passing the peak, the scenery changed completely from the green hillside to the bare wild surface of the mountain. At the same time, I felt the smell of the volcanic gas. Looking down, there were a few personnel working. I presumed that they were from the official authorities and monitored the activity of the volcanic activity. Under their strict management, you can enjoy sightseeing there.
We got off at Owakudani station and took a walk around, but it was considerably cold for autumn clothes. We took refuge in the station building and got this site's institution of black eggs, which were produced by the heat of water vapor from the natural vent. These kind of eggs are seen in Beppu in Kyushu, but their eggs are white. I didn't know why eggs there were colored black. Anyway the material of popular black eggs are ordinary eggs and the energy is free as it's from natural vapor. Most tourists get them. The business must be lucrative, with 5 eggs for 500 yen(3 US.dollars). Its taste should be naturally the same as ordinary boiled eggs, but due to the cold air, it was very nice for us.
We lined up for the ropeway connecting the east and west sides of Mt. Hakone and crossing over the Owakudani vent. Owakudani vent and the crater lake of Ashinoko Lake are seemingly the configuration formed by Mt. Fuji. I expected that the ropeway would be simple with only two gondolas going up and down passing by each other, but I was wrong. When the passengers get on and off, gondolas were detached from the main rope and moved extraordinarily slowly for the passengers' safety. They reminded me of those of Whistler resort in Canada. I felt an irresistible impulse to visit Canada again.
When we arrived in Yokohama, our daughter, her husband and our lovely one-year-and-eight-month-old granddaughter were waiting for us. That's why we visited Yokohama. We were going to spend a half day with our granddaughter in a zoo in Yokohama. I've visited Yokohama several times, but I've never dropped in at any zoo in Yokohama. Yokohama City has three zoos. Every zoo has its own distinctive characteristics. We picked one of them, "Zoorasia", which is a portmanteau word chosen by the public in 1996. It seems to bind "zoo" and "Eurasia" which has an image of an immensely vast continent with nature. Zoorasia has an aspect as a research institute as well as a zoo. It was divided into several areas like tundra, subtropical, rain forest district, etc. Every area has its characteristic vegetation. I used to visit a Canadian ski resort every two years and the sub-polar area reminded me of a Canadian cedar forest which I had seen in Whistler.
Anyway, it was the first time for our daughter to see real elephants, monkeys, lions, giraffes and so on. She knows a few animals like above, but her image of animals was obtained from illustrations in books for infants or from stuffed animals. She must have had no idea about the size of real elephants or giraffes. I was looking forward to observing her face at the first look at those big animals.
I was convinced that she probably understands monkeys, but maybe not lions or elephants. They didn't look so cute as ones in the baby's books or stuffed ones.
https://www.hama-midorinokyokai.or.jp/zoo/zoorasia/
(Vocabulary)
be chosen by the public 公募で選ばれた
subpolar 亜寒帯の
I'd like to write about Hakone Tozan Railway, which is the sister-railway of Rhötische Bahn in Switzerland, which is the biggest-class private railway in Switzerland and is also called Viafier retica in the Romansch language or Ferrovia retica in Italian. I'm familiar with German, so I used the German expression.
We were going down to Odawara City near sea level today using this railway. It was my first time to utilize Hakone Tozan Railway. It has three switchbacks in a short distance and I was looking forward to actually experiencing those.
Hakone is located in precipitous terrain and a barrier station or a checkpoint had been sited in the Edo period from 17th to the middle of 19th century. Hakone is on the main route connecting two big cities of Edo (present Tokyo) and Kamigata (present Osaka). Hakone is such a place that it has several historic sites along with hot spas. Additionally you have to remember the geo-scientific aspect of Hakone. It's in the middle of a volcanic area. I'll write about this aspect in another entry.
According to the railway company's pamphlet, the sister-railway relationship with Rhötische Bahn was struck in 1979. At the 50th anniversary of Hakone being listed on Japan's national park, i.e. 7 years after entering the partnership, a few dozen people from St. Moritz Tourism Bureau visited Hakone for the purpose of promotion. A splendid party seemed to be held at that time. St. Moritz is one of my destinations which I'd like to visit some day.
Back to the track, the small train in which we got on clumsily went down the steep slope, back and forth 3 times on the switch back, through the forest which is dotted with small hot spas, and finally reached Odawara City. This city is filled with historic heritage and local food, but we transferred to a Shinkansen bullet train and headed for Yokohama.
What do you think we were going to do in Yokohama? I'll report it to you in the next entry.
(Vocabulary)
precipitous 切り立った, 険しい〈谷･崖･傾斜など〉; 突然の, 急な〈減少･増加など〉; （かたく）性急な, 軽率な〈行動･決定など〉
関所 《pass》 a barrier (station); 《pass through》 a checkpoint (検問所).
clumsily 不細工に, 不格好に; (動作について) ぎこちなく, 不器用に
Take a look at the picture at the bottom.
It might make your skin crawl, but four black things in the picture are simply smoked eggs which I got at a convenience store in the Hakone area. Naturally, you can eat them. I think such black eggs sell only in Hakone. This item is produced by smoking them in a factory, but it's an imitation of black eggs made by the use of natural resources in Hakone. To tell the truth, I mistakenly got them as original ones, but they were ordinary smoked eggs. I'll show you genuine black eggs of a noted product in another entry.
And, as for taste, I didn't like it. I prefer normal boiled eggs.
Tesla's supercharger at Gotenba is sited in the parking lot of a renowned coffee shop chain. We'd like to take a rest in the shop, but the charge of my car would be done within 20 minutes. As soon as the charge finished, I'm supposed to move my car out of the charging spot for the next car. We gave up visiting the shop and stayed in the car viewing YouTube video. We were going into the mountainous area and charged a little more electricity than usual.
This city is home to "Toraya", one of the famous sweets companies in Japan. I stopped at its factory-and-shop complex to please my wife who has a weakness for sweets and we enjoyed mutually different sweets to be able to taste two kinds of sweets. The taste was really nice.
I ordered Kuzukiri, which is called arrowroot starch noodles or Kudzu starch noodles in English. I picked one topped with kuromitsu, dark honey.
(Vocabulary)
have a weakness for ～には目がない
arrowroot starch noodles or Kudzu starch noodles 葛切り
After leaving Otsu city, we arrived at Hamamatsu at a stretch without a rest. Thanks to the superb driving assistance by the Tesla's artificial intelligence, the driving was fun and comfortable. Hamamatsu is well-known as an eel farming area, and we dropped in at a famous eel restaurant along the highway.
We ordered "Hitsumabushi", which is a traditional dish of this area of rice topped with grilled eel, soy-based sauce, and spices such as Japanese pepper. "Hitsumabushi" is a portmanteau word which consists of "Ohitsu", the rice tub and "mabusu", the way you put the grilled pieces of eel, wasabi and Japanese pepper on the rice. It was the first time to have the traditional Hitsumabushi. A waitress gave us a short lecture how to enjoy them.
She advised us to eat Hitsumabushi divided into four times. At first we scooped out a quarter of the eel and rice into the empty bowl. Then we ate them without any spices enjoying plain but delicious eel. Next, you can enjoy them with several spices and toppings. Lastly, you pour dashi - soup stock in English - onto the rice and eel. This was indescribably tasty. During our gorgeous lunch, my car was also charged.
This highway is relatively newly built and various novel ideas are seen. One of following pictures show an electric bulletin board showing the number of vacancies.
(Vocabulary)
at a stretch without a rest 途中で休まず一気に
at a stretch 連続で, 続けて
Doctors are forced to work 36 hours at a stretch. 医師は36時間連続で働かなければならない．
Japanese pepper 山椒
I drove my car from Osaka port to Otsu Tesla charging spot in one go, then charged my car and ourselves quickly with breakfast from a nearby supermarket. We'd like to have breakfast here leisurely, but we had a long distance to drive. As soon as the charging finished, we headed for the east.
(Vocabulary)
in one go 一気に、一編に、まとめて（１回の試みで）、一回で
leisurely ゆったりした, のんびりした; [副](書き言葉) ゆっくりと
a leisurely pace/speed ゆっくりとした歩調［スピード］
I own a timeshare condominium in Hawaii, but I wasn't able to use it in recent years due to the effect of the coronavirus pandemic. The ownership of the condominium can be exchanged with other resorts' accommodations, so I decided to stay at Hakone Spa Resort for a few days instead of visiting Hawaii. The exclusive Tokyu Harvest Club for members only was really gorgeous. It was located in the middle of the forest and was covered with a serene atmosphere. My wife and I spent a relaxing vacation. (hotel link)
Among a few options for transportation to Hakone, we chose our car as we could drop in at places as we liked. Additionally we utilized a night ferry(link) from Ehime to Osaka to effectively use our sleeping time. At every generation change, Japan's ferry became gorgeous. The ferry boat which we got on board was built in 2018. All cabins are single or group occupancy. We used a twin room whose picture is shown below. I thought that the room was elaborately designed. We took a bath and then enjoyed quintessential Japanese cuisine, sushi.
Hotel:
https://www.harvestclub.com/Un/Hotel/Hm/
Ferry:
https://www.orange-ferry.co.jp/en/osaka.html
(Vocabulary)
night bus 夜行バス
Recent Comments