Nature and Technology
Road trip, hot springs, Fuji, and koi.
Out of the city. Finally. After six days surrounded by electronics and paved roads, seeing a body of water larger than the bathtub relieved me of a cloistered anxiety nestled in my chest. The day started early, nearly seven a.m., and by eight, my relatives and I were headed out into the wilderness of Japan by car. Three primary locations were chosen: Owakudani hot springs, Yamanakako lake, and Oshino Hakkai pond.
My uncle isn’t the greatest at navigation. In fact, my entire mother’s side of the family is notorious for lacking any directional senses. So much so that going a few miles in any direction is preceded by half an hour of cursing, fiddling with glitchy GPS software, and frayed nerves. However, once the car starts gliding along, all is well, and the obligatory road trip snoozes start settling in.
You might be saying, “But Eugene, you haven’t even seen the wondrous Japanese countryside yet. How could you fall asleep?” Or maybe you’re not. Either way, credit should go to my aunt for basically stuffing dinner portions into my mouth for breakfast, which, after a semester long diet of coffee and cold water to the face, is highly conducive to immediately knocking the fuck out. Especially when the weather in Japan is a balmy 78 degrees Fahrenheit and the car gently rocks back and forth on winding mountain roads. I swear, I tried to stay awake, and I did witness some majestic mountainscapes (is this even a word?) on the way to my first destination, but drifting off while listening to The National’s new album and groggily watching foliage drizzle past the window seemed like a much better choice at the time.
Owakudani
To get to the Owakudani hot springs, one must take a cable car, and though the view is pretty good, it wasn’t spectacular. The car’s thick frame and tinted windows made what should have been a breathtaking panorama into isolated windows of dark green smudges. It didn’t help that the trees to the side of the cable cars looked as if they hadn’t been trimmed in years, growing haphazardly and periodically grazing the cable cars.
The moment I stepped off the car, I was greeted by a powerful stench of rotten eggs. I immediately looked at my brother since he’s usually the culprit, but I knew from his disgusted expression that this time it wasn’t him. Rather, it was the gassy odor of sulfur wafting down from the hot springs. I looked up and sure enough, plumes of off white smoke billowed out from a yellow outcrop against the side of a particularly pointy mountain.
Climbing up the hill to the hot springs was an adventure in anticipation. Every couple steps a gust of wind would remind me that sulfur does indeed smell horrible and I did my best to try and predict the wind’s movements . It was like being intimate with someone afflicted with halitosis. The more you move around, the more both of you need to breath…
Owakudani is also famous for its boiled eggs, appropriate considering the smell. What’s a few more eggs compared to mountain fart? One is supposed to eat a few before heading up to the springs themselves. What I wasn’t expecting was how they boiled the eggs.
Right inside the springs. The boiled eggs of Owakudani are considered a delicacy, blackened by the sulfurous 90 degree Celsius water. At 500 yen for five eggs, they’re not exactly cheap, however i’m pleased to note that they live up to their reputation.
Black on the outside, white and yellow on the inside (no racist jokes to be found). A packet of salt was complimentary which, when sprinkled on top of each bite, brought the eggs as close to a sweaty nutsack as I’ll ever taste. Other than the eggs, the springs themselves were a pretty standard affair. Your typical throng of hat wearing, camera wielding asian tourists (I guess I’m one of those too sans hat) bunched around predetermined photo spots, striking “kawaii” poses and awkwardly half smiling into the cameras, taking care not to show too much teeth because that would be unsightly. What you end up with is a sad half grin, at which my mom is the undisputed master.
Next off, Lake Yamanakako.
This was the briefest stop on my nature trip. Nothing to do here other than take amazing pictures of Mt. Fuji in all its isolated grandeur, if the weather allows it that is. Passing clouds provided me with split seconds to snap pictures, otherwise leaving me to squint at the general direction of where Fuji was a moment before and cursing my camera’s weak direct light capabilities. You would think a Fujifilm camera would take better photos of its namesake geological formation.
My uncle, mom, brother, and I spent several blinding minutes struggling against the insurmountable cosmic rays and inherently weak optical capabilities of both our eyes and cameras. My relatives fared worse than I, armed with mere camera phones more adept at taking selfies than sweeping panoramic vistas of light and shadow. Coupled with their technological illiteracy, family photos here were never meant to be. :(
Oshino Hakkai Pond
A surprise detour to a tiny town. A rustic parking lot in front of a few rickety wooden stalls home to vacuum packed goods and ruggedly weathered matrons belied a gorgeous pond complex filled with the clearest water this side of the Pacific.
Village ladies sold their goods on the local farmers market, which was cleverly located along the way to the central pond. It was obvious this was done on purpose because a direct bridge into the central pond rotunda was blocked off with rope and a dried fish stall, forcing one to walk around into a longhouse filled with tantalizing free samples and trinkets. A town’s gotta make money somehow I suppose.
Afterwards, a two hour drive back to Tokyo commenced, and so did my nap. I awoke in a parking lot to a sushi shop, but not just any sushi shop. A conveyor belt sushi shop! Too bad I don’t eat sushi. Well technically sashimi (raw fish). I’m willing to eat rolls, but I just really dislike the texture and taste of raw fish. If I were to describe my sensation of sashimi, it would be… like eating ice cream and clay mixed with blended apricot. Ok, that doesn’t sound too bad, but it’s hard to describe all right?
Anyways, I don’t know how many of you have eaten at a conveyor belt sushi place, but it’s pretty fun. a set menu of items trundle along in front or beside you like a mini fish parade and you just take whatever you feel like eating off the belt. There’s a special touch screen above your booth where you can order specific items not listed on the permanent menu, but these cost extra. They get delivered by a miniature bullet train above the main conveyor belt, the novelty of which almost makes up for the cost.
My aunt and uncle’s kids, in other words my cousins, graduated college a while ago and are living the bachelor/bachelorette life somewhere in Chicago/San Diego/Montreal. It’s quite obvious my aunt/uncle miss having kids to spoil or feed because they ceaselessly try and put food inside of me. Every waking moment with them is either “try this, it’s good.” or “do you want X? X right here.” Doesn’t matter if I don’t want it, they’ll place it in front of me anyway. It’s endearing and aggravating at the same time since it feels like they’re patronizing me more than the dining establishment. It’s all good though as long as I can find a bathroom before my anus explodes from over eating.
