Okay, now that I'm all better, I'll report that I spent the whole day Wednesday in bed with some sort of bug, mostly in my stomach. Now you can't worry since I'm better, Mom. But yeah, it sucked. I think it was a mix of the flu and the beer tasting followed by a sumo wrestler's amount of tempura, but whatever it was, it required plenty of bed time. I may have pushed it yesterday to see some more of Tokyo, but it was raining cats and dogs all day, and the view outside of our 8.5x11 window seemed more than ominous, so I was fine staying in and getting better so that I could enjoy the nicer days more. Plus, after going non-stop for the last two months with moving out of LA, planning and executing the wedding, and transitioning into this trip, I think my body was saying, "damn man, give me a break." So I did, and I reaped the benefits of resting this morning when I felt like a new man.
Tania got out yesterday to see the Edo-Tokyo museum, but came back and got to bed early as well. The rain helped her do it with a clean conscience, too.
So we woke up this morning around 7am and got ready for Hakone, slowly, as we seem to do on this pseudo vacation of ours. We jumped on the train down to Hakone for the 1.5 hour ride southwest of Tokyo so we could partake in one of Japan's finest customs, Onsen, or hot springs. After taking our JR pass to Odawara, we took a switchback train to Hakone-Yomoto, and then the B bus through the quaint town up to Tenzan, a hot spring recommended to us by Nakaba and Lonely Planet. For 1200 yen each (app. $25 total), we were able to spend as much time as we wanted in the hot springs and in the adult nap room.
The hot springs are broken out by sex, so Tania and I had to part ways to enjoy them. The idea of leaving my bride to go spend an hour or so with a bunch of naked dudes isn't ideal, but I got over that very quickly when I was relaxing in large stone pools with bamboo forests hovering above and around us. I normally hate jacuzzis because I get impatient and a bit claustrophobic, but I jumped from the medium heat pool to the hot-hot pool then into the holy-crap-cold pool and finally back into the medium pool, I shocked my body into letting go of the storm of thoughts that normally cloud my brain, and truly letting my self relax and not worry about life's minute details. And when I finally did settle in, I realized why this is such a popular national tradition. For men, we never really let go of our minds like this. We're either consumed with work or family/relationships, and when we relax, we're distracting our minds with more details like making sure our fantasy football roster doesn't have a WR who's questionable this weekend. We never let go, but in this environment, I did let it go, and it was great.
When I was done using the pools, I headed over to the cleaning area. A French guy had spotted me as an English speaker earlier and immediately grumbled about the cleaning areas only having public bars of soap, so I knew what to expect when I squatted in front of my own private mirror and European-style handle shower, but in between 6 similar stations next to me, to clean up. By this point I didn't care whether another man's ass had been on my stool a few minutes earlier, or that naked men were showering next to me. I simply rinsed off the stool and focused my energy into my little area. And it was a fine shower. Quick, but fine.
After getting dressed, I headed out to the public area about 20 minutes earlier than Tania and I were supposed to meet, so I wandered around the Tenzan grounds and explored what else this magic little complex held, and boy did I find a surprise I knew Tania would fall in love with...an adult nap area.
When Tania walked out of the women's side of the hot springs, I escorted her to this sleeping heaven, and her face lit up like a Christmas tree. She gazed upon the matted floors covered with individual futon mats, which looked out upon a perfectly noisy stream, and we sprinted for two open mats next to each other to do some reading and get some shut eye. An hour and a half later, we woke up and took the B bus back to the trains. Boy what an afternoon. If you ever come to Tokyo, make sure you make a day trip to Tenzan and learn what it's like to truly let go and relax. And this means a lot coming from a beach guy who adores napping on the beach.
After a quick stop in the electronics mecca Akihabara to buy a battery charger for our point and shoot camera and to look for comics, we went out for dinner with Kojiro. He took us to a shabu shabu place on the 50th floor of a building just down the street from our hotel. The view was spectacular, and the food was incredible. The meat was perfectly marbled and the veggies were a nice complement to the meat. Tania was the only to enjoy some sake since I didn't want to test my stomach and Kojiro was driving, so as you can guess, she was all giddy and, well, you know how she gets after a little sake.
She's asleep now, and I'm on my way to join her since we need to be checked out of the Shinjuku Washington hotel by 10am in the morning. We're going to do some laundry before catching the train Kyoto where we'll be until Monday. Then off to Osaka next week and to Beijing on the 20th. Every time we turn on CNN, they weather person is exclaiming how cold it is in Beijing, and how much snow they're getting, which is sweet since we didn't pack for THAT kind of cold, just kinda cold. Oh well, we'll get through that quickly then send back all of that cold weather clothing so we can focus on our SE Asia warm weather gear.
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