The last travel day of the trip (if you don’t count the flight home). And it was a big one. Even though Hakone is only a short distance away from Tokyo. Getting from A to B in this case involved many modes of transport. We prepared for the journey in the best way possible – with an early morning dip in the onsen. We’ll miss our Hakone accommodation – despite the fact that it was a bit damp and smelled a little sulphurous (you get that when your house is built on top of a hot spring).
It was a midday checkout (so civilised) but we ended up leaving a bit earlier and jumping on the funicular one last time – this time heading down the steep hill into Gora. From there it was straight on a “switchback” train from Gora to Odawara. Not being a train nerd myself, I was previously unaware of the joys of the switchback train. Basically it’s a train that you can drive from either end – which means on very steep terrain you can simply zig zag down (or up) a hill by going in a series of straight (diagonal) lines changing ends of the train each time – prolly not explaining it very well – look it up whydontcha. But it was fun and there were stacks of train nerds with telephoto lenses stationed everywhere along the route snapping away and changing lenses with abandon. The landscape was wild, green and steeply spectacular.
From Odawara we caught the Shinkansen to Shinagawa and then finally onto the Tokyo subway (so many modes, so many crowded escalators with giant . This time our around we were staying in Ebisu – which is the next suburb along from Shibuya (Tokyo’s night club and neon heart) but Ebisu is a bit quieter – and cooler IMHO. Anyway we made it to our Air BnB early – but they let us leave our bags there while they finished cleaning. We had a couple of hours to kill and we discovered that we were staying quite close to two of our favourite museums – a photography museum and a beer museum (yes!). Serious stuff first – we had a good look around TOPS – which is the Tokyo Museum of Photography. So a lot of cool stuff including a photo series shot on a coal mining island off the cost of Japan – whole families stacked on top of each other and they, in turn, were stacked on top a coal mine. Looked a bit like Hell with black dust instead of fire.
Then to the Ebisu Beer Museum. Words fail me. The place was massive and incredibly over the top – a shiny cavernous space with gold and brass and lush carpeting everywhere. It was a long way from the Cascade Brewery Tour that’s for sure. They conduct regular tours but we gave them a miss – although we could see the (exclusively Japanese) tour groups seated at a series of elevated tables tasting beer and doing beer quizzes or something – it was very Japanese. And we were very Australian so we went straight to bar to sample some of the more unique beers they make at Ebisu. I’m aware that I have mentioned drinking Japanese beer a lot – but I haven’t really talked about the beer itself. This is controversial – and maybe my palette is blown from drinking too many over the top Australian craft beers – but I really found it hard to tell the difference between Kirin and Asahi and Sapporo. They’re all perfectly drinkable – and taste great when the beer is icy cold and it’s a hot day (which it always was) – but there is a distinct sameness to all of them. But hey – it was hot, we were in a museum and the beer was cold – no complaints.
We checked in to our accommodation – which was by far the smallest place we have stayed in. Sure it was two stories tall – but the rooms were tiny and the ceilings were very very low. I’m not that tall but I was constantly smacking my head on cross beams and door jambs. To make things trickier it was accessed by an external metal spiral staircase – tricky to navigate with massive bags of stuff. One of the best things about the accommodation though was the extensive local restaurant tips provided by our “host” Meg. This was a godsend – especially on our first night in Ebisu – so we took Meg’s advice and walked down to a local Yakitori (grill) place called Tatsuya. It was packed, so we ended up in their basement with about 80 or 90 other patrons. We were the only non-Japanese in the place, there was no English menu and the staff spoke zero English. Yikes – luckily we knew enough Japanese by now to order beer, a Highball and some fried chicken – but after that we were stuck. I was dreading ordering something errky – grilled pork rectum was supposedly on the menu, as was horse meat. Fortunately just when we were really struggling, a bloke next to me (who was there with a bunch of work mates) leaned over and said in flawless English “would you like some assistance?” Yes please! From there it was all smooth sailing – delicious grilled things (no pig’s bum or horsey) arrived in front of us with minimal hassle. And we made a bunch of new pals – including one who was definitely the Japanese Morgan Hart.
A big day and a disjointed stumble home to the spiral staircase of sleep.
flyeelookee 