Hakone

Musings from a first timer.

Last month I took a short and unexpected trip to Japan, so I hold it near to my heart as the high starts to subside.

The plane ticket was a fortune, and I didn’t know the person who’d invited me all that well. But the things I needed fell into place like careful dominos, so all that stood between Japan and I was a quiet voice asking: would it be right to take?

The inviter I’ll call my friend, was there for an undetermined amount of time on business as a go-between for California and Japanese surf industry. He took the week off before I’d even committed, and with urgency, told me now or never. I was able to get work off easily which I took as a sign, he booked the flight, and that was it.

When I go to a country where most people have dark hair, being blonde is like walking around in neon clothes.

But walking arm-in-arm with a Japanese man who wanted to share his country with me felt like I’d had a personal invitation to a private party. I watched his conversations with locals; his bowing, hand gestures, vocal intonations. I asked him why two of three curtains that hang in the entrances of restaurants and onsens are the same length but the third is always shorter, to which he replied “I have no idea.” 

“You are so Japanese,” he’d joke on my excitement for traditional things over tourism. The kind of tourism that would sit around a table of chicken breast appalled that the Japanese eat chicken heart, which does not taste very different. I desperately wanted to learn every phrase I could in that week. In either fashion, to travel far away from home is to be desperate for something.

Shirasu, which I thought were tiny noodles before I saw their eyes.

When my friend left me alone for a few minutes to answer the phone or use the restroom, I felt a difficult language barrier materialize again between the locals and I. But then we would bond by laughing at our poor attempts on each other’s language, in a way, that was speaking enough. I met some people whom I dearly hope to see again, but we didn’t understand each other without our translator.

Kazuto, me, Koki, and Chef.

Here is a journal entry transcribed from stationary scribbles:

We started in Tokyo because that’s really where you have to start.

I ate the most incredible sushi, arranged as miniature art with bursting simple flavors. The restaurant was intimate and cozy with low lighting. Rain pattered on the window while red headlights whizzed past. It was just us and the chef, and the two servers who appeared to refill hot water matcha like a pot of coffee at an American diner.

We had so many different kinds of sea life, one piece at a time. My friend insisted I wait until after dinner to know what one very squishy thing was, and I learned it was raw fish intestine. After dinner it was just past 11 and the city had darkened deeper with fewer taxis, but people were still all over prepared with clear umbrellas from convenience stores. Through the city with full bellies we ran past shops and nightclubs and a lonely laser lightshow that no one appeared to notice—green and purple beams gapping and blinking where the rain fell through, until my friend convinced an off-duty driver to take us to the nearest subway.

Now we are in Hakone, a few hours away and it is not so fast.

This morning the rain paused, so we walked to coffee. Giant greenwooded mountains around the town filled me with grief. I had spent two days here without seeing them because of the storm, and we leave tonight.

I stopped between buildings to watch low fog stretch its morning arms up the tree line, and finally I planted my feet. Red maples peppering the greenery sweated with fresh rain. The pavement steamed, and a damp gray cat emerged from a covered corner like a ghost, twisting her tail around some untrimmed foliage. Savory Japanese restaurant aromas caught me as we kept on, and we considered ditching the coffee altogether. I imagine I could be very happy living there. 

Living to look at this scene before a ride on the quiet train, drinking hojicha (roasted tea) and eating natto (fermented beans), rice, and a raw egg every morning. I’ve never felt such a pick-me-up as the one I get from Japanese breakfast.

Today we leave these mountains and head to the coast, planning to surf if conditions allow.

My friend and I find comfort in each other here. He helps me absorb culture shock and in some way maybe I do that for him. But at home in California we are playing the classic winter fling; induced more by the cold/physical attraction than healthy communication/compatibility. In Tokyo he translated a moment we’d witnessed between strangers. A man was reaching into a billowing cauldron of burning incense, and patting his partner’s chest outside of a temple. “For your cough,” he said to her.

Before we left Tokyo, I’d sat on the floor of his mother’s bedroom while she blow-dried my hair and brushed it with her fingers, speaking to me even though she knew I did not understand. (She gave me an orange and I wanted to write her a note but forgot to, maybe I still can.) When others speak Japanese to me as if I understand, I keep accidentally pretending that I do, with misleading nods or excitement that mirror their own. I can’t fake it when it’s my turn to respond, but for that brief moment I think what an honor.

“Izu Bay from the Hakone Mountains” by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1850.