The Inaho train to Niigata hugs the coast: we quite literally appear to be traveling over the water. The sea is calm and blue, like the sky, and a sharp contrast with the previous day when there were big waves and stormy gray skies. Rocky outcroppings, some of which are shrines. Way cool.

Stunning views of snow-capped mountains to the east. Koyo starts to appear as we get close to Niigata.

Tight connection at Niigata to shinkansen (carrying luggage now) but of course it's quite easy considering. Double decker train, five seats across, fairly crowded. Again, a very sharp contrast with the generally slow pace of things of things farther north, and the brightly lit skyline outside my window makes me remember that I'll be back in Tokyo in short while.

As we approach Tokyo I realize that I've got a choice as to where I disembark: get off at Ueno and catch the Hibiya line to Hacchobori (from which I'll walk to my hotel, Dormy Inn) or continue on to Tokyo station where I know that the Dormy Inn operates a shuttle during the evening hours that will take me directly to the hotel. Unfortunately I've neglected to look carefully at these two options (as I normally wouldn't mind even quite a long walk with my rolling suitcase along for company) and so don't know which is better: wander around Tokyo station trying to find this shuttle? Or Ueno to subway + walk.

I decide to get off at Ueno instead of Tokyo, and I have most assuredly guessed wrong. I am quite tired of my bag by the time I arrive at Dormy Inn Hacchobori (booked at Agoda, prepaid).

My room is exactly as I expect it to be (more later on details about why I chose this property) except that there's an unpleasant smell in my room: spilled stinky food? pet smell? I ask at desk and they agree to switch me in the AM. Room otherwise fine, with view over the Sumida (or a branch of it), very cool.

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e7902.html
Haguro-san info and photos - scroll down to see steps that Therese mentioned.....
I'd be afraid to go up as well.....definitely not up to code - at least you don't have to do them in slippers like most castle staircases....;-)

That section of stairs actually looks to be relatively gently sloped compared to some of what I climbed while there. But had I been with another person I wouldn't have hesitated, as it wasn't difficult going up, even in my non-hiking boots.

Just discovered this fascinating report! Many thanks! Do I see a return to Japan in my future...???

Thanks, ekscrunchy---great encouragement to get me to finish this report. Lots of work lately and the home computer's been cranky, so not much time.

I've already got "back to Japan" fever, and that's in spite of a planned trip to Paris in a couple of weeks.

I was wondering what happened to you, Therese - please continue! I need to save the completed report for future reference. OT, don't know if you're interested but there is a Cranach exhibit at the newly reopened Musee du Luxembourg - I am so tempted...missed going to see it in Brussels when I was in Paris last fall.

Cranach looks interesting. This trip includes my 20-year-old son, and so I'm planning on doing some traditional tourist things (like Versailles and the Eiffel Tower) that neither of us has ever done.

An aside before continuing this thread...

Upthread I mentioned that I found the small buckwheat-filled pillows used in Japan to be unexpectedly comfortable: nice support for my neck, not too hot, etc. When I returned home I mentioned the fact to my husband.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to Christmas morning. We're unwrapping our presents and I finally get to my last one. It's a big box, and it's heavy, and I'm starting to wonder if Santa's brought me something extra festive, like maybe a vacuum cleaner.

Turns out it's a buckwheat pillow. From Texas, where apparently they figure that if a little bit of buckwheat is a good thing than a lot of buckwheat is even better. So I am now the proud owner of a king-size sack of buckwheat. Not only is it heavy, it's also extremely unwieldy. It doesn't work as a pillow, as there's no question whatsoever of adjusting without wrenching your shoulder, but it does make a nice back rest for reading.

I'm so glad this thread was revived--I had forgotten about it! But I must have subliminally remembered it, for I'm booked for a visit at the end of May to Tsurunoyu onsen (through Japanese Guest Houses) and Kakunodate (we'll be staying at the Folkoro Hotel next to the station, since we have a lot of ryokans booked for our 5-week trip and we need to save a little money once in a while). Thanks again for all the detail on getting to Tsurunoyu, etc. Very helpful. Looking forward to the rest of your report!

Folkloro in Kakunodate a much better option than the ryokan than I booked there (via Japanese Guesthouses---I've let them know that it wasn't particularly nice), Ishikawa.

I hope you love Tsurunoyu, aprillilacs. Do make a point of checking out the phallic shrine at the ladies' rotenburo, and visit the mixed bath as well.

Sunday, November 28:

Upthread I say that I'm going to talk about exactly why I chose this particular property for my rather lengthy stay in Tokyo this time (8 or 9 nights, I can't recall exactly at the moment).

The property in question is Dormy Inn Hatchobori (or Hacchobori, depending on the romaji version that you use). The Hatchobori neighborhood is the east side of Tokyo, more or less on the water. Hatchobori is served by both the subway and JR (but not the Yamanote line) so decent transit options, but not so primo as to drive the price too high. The surrounding area is mostly office space, so armies of dark suit-clad salary men (and women) at rush hour, very quiet on the weekend. There are lots of business hotels in the area, so there's some price pressure on the property.

Despite the somewhat blah immediate neighborhood, it's actually very convenient to Ginza and Tsukiji (both of which I'd visit more than once on this trip) and the subway line had good connections for me. It's also walking distance (for me---a brisk 15 minutes) to Tokyo station, so very convenient for the Yamanote line and various other lines.

The property itself features small (but not too small) rooms with large windows (I'm claustrophobic, so that's important for me) that are well-equipped: small bathroom with shower and Mr. Toto and a compact rack for hanging laundry, separate sink that doubles as grooming area and kitchen (with hot water kettle and fridge), tatami area (complete with low table and a couple of zabuton), semi-double bed (nice and firm), desk, and TV. Free ethernet connection. Plenty of outlets to plug in electrical items. Nice jammies, and slippers to wear around the hotel.

A restaurant serves breakfast and other meals (none of which I tried), and there are the usual vending machines and microwave ovens and dispo chopsticks on offer.

One of the nicest features of this property is its common baths. These are located on the second floor (same as the lobby) and include a good-size indoor bath as well as a couple of outside cedar baths. Nice toiletries, very clean. The locker area features a washing machine (free) with detergent (free) and a dryer (pay, but not expensive). Incredibly convenient: put a load in and go and take your bath. When you're clean so is your laundry.

Staff at reception not anglophone by any stretch of the imagination, but they had plenty of written info and maps in English, and were uniformly pleasant and helpful.

Now back to the real day-by-day trip report...

Sunday, November 28:

Sleep okay (but what is that smell?), use sento in AM, put in load of laundry (appear to have lost my black yoga pants, possibly in Kakunodate), pack, retrieve clean laundry, switch rooms (much better, no funny smell), all by 11:00.

Walk to Hamarikyu Garden, seduced on the way by the idea of ikura don at a streetside stall at Tsukiji market. Ikuradon, ¥800, delicious.

Continue walk, see a couple of middle-aged gaijin guys with a map. They ask if I speak English and I do (and French, as one if them is, the other English) and if I know where to catch the Sumida boat. I do, and we discuss the various options, and they decide to accompany me to Hamarikyu and very nicely pay for my admission as well as theirs. They head to to pier and I head to a bench to write this all down while I look out over the water.

Full of park, I head to the ADMT (the Advertising Museum) to check out their temporary exhibit of Taiwanese commercials (made by Japanese agencies, I gather). Cute series of 12 ads for a wedding cake company called Isabelle. Each features a proposal of marriage by a different sign if the zodiac.

Capricorn, as usual, is matter if fact and practical: "we could save money and hassle if we combined households".

Dinner at Butagumi in Nishi Azabu (very upmarket neighborhood, Range Rovers, etc.---I happened across a fashion shoot that was pretty cool) with fellow Fodorite, rizzuto. I had previously (while in wifi contact) bookmarked the restaurant's address on my iPhone, and accessed the surrounding area. So when it came time to find the restaurant I was able to use my iPhone's "memory" of the map and the cell phone towers to map my progress along the streets of Tokyo without having to turn on data roaming (which is ruinously expensive).

Very good tonkatsu. Rizzuto is an engaging dinner companion even if he's not as big a fan of George Clooney (in his role in "Up in the Air", specifically) as I am.

Lots of walking that day, so home and bed after dinner.

Monday, November 29:

Sleep in, have a nice soak in the sento. Outdoor baths are really lovely, and in addition to the few bushes they've added a potted poinsettia for some seasonal cheer. Christmas is a big deal here.

It's Monday, so museums closed. So I head to Iidabashi to visit Koishikawa Garden. Really lovely day: very nice leaf color, much of it reflected in the central pond. Lots of photographers (either professionals or very dedicated amateurs from the looks of their equipment) trying to capture a very vibrant kingfisher as it dives in front of a large
stone in the middle of the pond. The combination of the blue and orange bird with the blue sky and orange leaves is worth the wait. I wait with them while dining on an onigiri (with beans, nice contrast), an alcoholic beverage called Nouveau that displays a bunch of purple grapes on the label(presumably evoking the idea of Beaujolais nouveau, when in fact it is only slightly less icky than Fanta, if Fanta packed the alcoholic punch of malt liquor), and some matcha cream-filled Meiji chocolates. Ah, the wonders of the combini.

A mid-visit break for amazake (hot, sweet home-style sake, often available at parks and other outdoor venues in cold weather) makes a nice contrast.

Lots of walking, so I head home in the afternoon for a break. More walking in the PM, pick up dinner of nabe vegetables and sweet sesame balls (is the starch mochi or tapioca? seems like tapioca) and breakfast of yogurt, ume onigiri, and juice (carrot + orange + etc.) at the grocery store a couple of blocks from my hotel. I've got an early start the next day, as I'm visiting Hakone with an ex-pat friend who lives in Yokohama.

Eager for more!! Please.

Just back from Paris, ekscrunchy, and swamped with the usual, but will be getting back to this report soon. Given recent events I've been spending a lot of time thinking about Japan.

Therese, you must feel as though part of your soul is still there in Japan and that it is trapped in some sort of purgatory. It's almost impossible to take in the magnitude of this thing.

We had not long left Christchurch NZ when the earthquake hit there, and I just wished I could jump back on a plane and dig people out of rubble. Enough time in a country, you start to feel you are part of that country.

The tragedy in Japan overwhelms me without ever having been there, and after your stay, you must feel almost physically limited in ability to express emotions.

Well, certainly not physically limited, as you'll appreciate once I start posting again, but I would say that I'm not feeling the urge to re-live my last trip via recounting it here at Fodor's to the extent that I normally would precisely because I'm spending so much time thinking and talking about Japan in my everyday life. I've got a friend and colleague whose daughter is studying in Tokyo right now, and we happen to be taking Japanese lessons (with a Japanese instructor) together as well. So it's pretty close to the surface all the time.

Tuesday, November 30:

My ex-pat friend from Yokohama is K. She's married to a Japanese man that she met in graduate school in the U.S. and she always knew that she'd eventually end up in Japan, but their move back occurred earlier than she'd anticipated due to his family circumstances. They've got three kids and she is a very content (if unusual) Japanese house wife.

Dormy Inn Hacchobori runs a shuttle between the hotel and Tokyo Station in the mornings and evenings, and my plan was to take one of the scheduled shuttles in that AM, figuring that I'd likely be doing quite a bit of walking in Hakone. But when I went down in the AM to ask about where to catch it the panicked look on the desk clerk's face told me all I needed to know: it wasn't running that morning due to a mechanical problem (not that I could glean that much detail from her expression---that was provided by the printed explanation in English that she was eventually able to find for me).

Not a big deal, as my feet would get a rest on the train ride in any case.

Tokyo Station at rush hour is, well, busy. Purchased a ticket for Odawara and headed to the appropriate gate and platform. This train was a local, so subway-style seating (benches along the sides of the car, but fewer stops so actually pretty quick. As we were headed out of town, in the oppposite direction of the AM rush, the crowd inside thinned out pretty quickly. The crowds on the platforms, however, were very dense. In some stations they've got rope barriers on the platforms to manage the crush.

Tuesday, November 30, continued:

Whenever K and I meet up we designate a place in advance so that we'll be able to find each other, but in fact this isn't necessary: we are both so tall relative to most of the population that we really needn't bother. And being gaijin as well means that either of us could probably just walk up to somebody running one of the combini kiosks and ask if they seen another one of us roaming the station and get a very quick answer.

So we see each other before either of us has reached the meeting point and wave and it's very nice to see an old friend (by which I mean that we've met a total of perhaps five times over a two year period).

We buy our Hakone Free Passes outside the Odawara station at the bus stop. If you do the Hakone loop make a point of figuring out what the symbol for the pass looks like: it's a kingfisher, much like the one I'd seen at the park earlier in this visit. It's a bit cartoonish, a little like Woody the Woodpecker. You can get discounts in places you didn't expect them if you keep an eye out for the symbol.

Tuesday, November 30, continued:

Whenever K and I meet up we designate a place in advance so that we'll be able to find each other, but in fact this isn't necessary: we are both so tall relative to most of the population that we really needn't bother. And being gaijin as well means that either of us could probably just walk up to somebody running one of the combini kiosks and ask if they seen another one of us roaming the station and get a very quick answer.

So we see each other before either of us has reached the meeting point and wave and it's very nice to see an old friend (by which I mean that we've met a total of perhaps five times over a two year period).

We buy our Hakone Free Passes outside the Odawara station at the bus stop. If you do the Hakone loop make a point of figuring out what the symbol for the pass looks like: it's a kingfisher, much like the one I'd seen at the park earlier in this visit. It's a bit cartoonish, a little like Woody the Woodpecker. You can get discounts in places you didn't expect them if you keep an eye out for the symbol.