I Like Pigeons Because Nobody Else Does

Owakudani is the area around Mt Hakone, about 2 hours’ train ride from here, and is a hotbed of geothermal activity. The last eruption of Mt Hakone occurred about 2000 years ago, but volcanic activity can still be found at several locations.
The notable thing about Owakudani is the smell – the geothermal vents spew out boiling sulfurous water and gas which makes the area smell quite foul. The sulfurous emissions also kill off nearby vegetation, giving the land a poisoned underworldy look. It would be a great place to film a movie set in Hell. Hakone is nationally reknown as a tourist destination, its main draw being hot springs. If you’re not driving a car, getting there is somewhat of a pain because it involves several trains, a ropeway (a train car that’s hauled up the side of a steep mountain by means of a cable) and finally a cable-car. But you get a nice view of the mountains for the greater part of the trip.
I was a little nervous about the cable car but I had to set a good example for my guests and, despite my trepidation, I really wanted to ride on it. We boarded the cable-car and set out above the trees. We weren’t terribly high – maybe 20 feet above the trees and I was thinking this isn’t too bad! We came to a rise but couldn’t see the other side but I figured that the landing pad at Owakudani was just on the other side since the smell of sulfur was really strong. Wrong. We came up over the rise and found ourselves hanging hundreds of feet in the air…then we got blasted with a gust of wind. I was paralyzed with fear. Hideous scenarios raced through my mind; snapping cables, shrieking women, plunging to the earth trapped in a glass bubble, a bloody,shattered glass and and guts pancake lying on the valley floor. Oh! The humanity! But the gruesome scenarios evaporated when I mustered the courage to look up and was the first one to see this:

Lousy photo, but in the interest of accuracy, that’s how it appeared from the cablecar. That view came none too soon because frankly, I was scared shitless and the excitement of a good view of Mt Fuji saved me from losing it completely.

So, we made it to the landing pad and had a good day hanging out in the stinking reek of boiling sulfur. The novelty of Owakudani is using the boiling water to cook eggs that are then sold to the public. Eating black eggs boiled in naturally hot water on the side of a mountain full of toxic vapors while looking at Mt Fuji is an experience everyone should have.

Here are photos frmo Rieko of the game we played. Players are supposed to throw the fan and knock that thing off the box. It was a lot harder than it looks.

 And here’s our dinner, post-onsen. This was great. I loved cooking my own food over the coals. They served venison which I couldn’t even bring myself to eat. It was raw. Incredibly, my mom ate it and loved it.

Nikko was beautiful yesterday but my photos did not meet my expectations and I’m a bit miffed about it. I learned a hard lesson: take only minimal gear on an all-day photo expedition, especially when there is no car in which to store things. My backpack weighed too much and I grew tired of it very quickly. The weather was spectacular and the fall foliage was lovely, however, I think that it would be hard to beat the conditions on the day Annie and Jenny and I were there back in May. It rained, which sounds like a bummer, but it kept the crowds away and the resulting mist and fog produced an amazing magical atmosphere.  Also if I had known China was having the Chinese National Field Trip to Nikko, Japan that day I might have chosen a different day to go.

I had an eventful ride home. I had to change trains in Asakusa which involved leaving one train station and walking about half a block to the subway station. When I exited the train station, I noticed a large crowd gathered. I thought everyone was waiting to cross the street, but then I noticed many police cars,  a zillion cops, a couple ambulances and a news crew van. Then I saw what I think was a person lying in the gutter. I didn’t hang around, so it may have been something else, but I am fairly certain that the person lying on the street was dead.

I got on the subway and got my favorite seat; the one behind the driver – the one all the weak-stomached people fight over. It’s the best place to sit if you get motion sickness since you can see where the train is going in this coveted spot .  And on this particular train, it was the only puker-friendly seat because the driver had the screens closed directly behind him and in the middle, leaving the one next to me open.

The train pulled into a station and I saw a neatly-dressed man wave to the driver as the train came to a stop. I assumed he was an authority because he dashed onto the train and immediately pressed himself to glass as if to try and get the attention of the driver.  The only problem was that he was totally invading my space. Trains in Japan get crowded, but most people still maintain a kind of decency in the throng. This was way over the line: his coat was hanging about 5 inches from my face and he was almost standing between my legs when there was plenty of  room – and even empty seats -in other areas of the train car. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this guy was not in any way associated with the train…well, maybe he was, but not in the real world.

I was going to say something to him, but when I saw him start to do really weird things with his mouth and make bizarre gesticulations every time the train stopped, I figured I had better not piss him off. He was obsessively checking his watch and staring at the driver as if he was checking to see if he was operating the train properly. After about 20 mintues of this, the woman next to me exited the train and the nutty guy sat next to me. Great. Now he was rammed up against me trying to see out the window. Every 60-90 seconds, he raised up out of his seat and just leaned across my lap and stared at the driver. By this time he had added his cellphone clock to time the driver as well as his wristwatch and was sweating profusely in his efforts to keep track of the driver.

I thought that everyone else on the train was just ignoring this guy and pretending that it wasn’t happening. Apparently not, because there was another man standing in front of me who must have noticed my very obvious discomfort. He said something to the guy in Japanese and the nutty man apologized and stayed seated…almost. Since he was jammed right up against me, I could feel him start to lift up slightly and then back down again as he checked his compulsion to stare at the driver. He didn’t stop the bizarre jaw snapping and the gesticulations though.

This guy was clearly very mentally ill and I don’t like to mess with those people. You just never know what they’re going to do. Probably nothing, but he wouldn’t have understood me any way and I don’t like to make a scene. I make a scene just walking down the street with non-black hair so I surely wasn’t going to start abusing a mentally ill man in public. I just felt bad for him. Trains are such a large part of life here, I can see that there’s potential for unstable people to develop some really insane fixations with them.

Here are a couple of photos. I’ll post more later. I’m sick of sitting at this computer.

I went to the gym to lift weights on Tuesday which is not something I do on a regular basis. I did leg and back exercises thatusually cripple me in the ensuing 2-3 days. To try and mitigate the inevitable agony, I went to an onsen near the base.  I had only ever been in themwith Rieko, but I was feeling pretty confident with my newly acquired language skills so I figured it was time to do an onsen solo. As is usually the case when I get a good Japanese phrase loaded and ready to fire, the intended recipient always knows English. This time it was the woman at the front desk of the onsen.  Well, it was a potential disaster averted and I was a little relieved. You don’t want to make a mistake in a place like this where people are running around naked and there is a high degree of etiquette involved. Who knows what could happen. Anyway, Nobori Gumois a fabulous place and I intend to visit frequently this winter. There are few things more relaxing than an onsen on a cold winter’s day.

On Thursday I went to Atsuko-san’s house for my bi-monthly ikebana lesson. Mary has never tried it so I invited her along since she’s soon leaving to move back to the USA.  Of course we had a great time and I came away with a decent arrangement.

Other than that, not a whole lot going on. Teaching is going well. I just got a new student – Rieko’s son. Like a lot of people, myself included, he was not all that keen on studying in high school, but after some growing up he has taken an interest in learning English, much to his mother’s delight. 

Gene is on emergency call this weekend. That means he can’t stray too far from the hospital. We may be able to get out for a quick dinner, but nothing much more than that.