Tokyo spreads
out like a galaxy – the largest metropolis in the world and the capital of Japan since 1868 has more
pockets of interesting places as well as centres and hubs and strips and joints
than one can possibly hope to visit in a single setting. I felt that it is a
place where, no matter what your kernels of vice or virtue might be, you’ll inevitably
find more than one niche to get it.
Some highlights in no particular order: On a brisk night flirting with the
possibility of snow, a local friend took us through the crowded, hubbub-filled streets to enjoy the hitherto unknown joys
of all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu in Ikebukuro. Shabu-shabu, for the uninitiated,
is similar to sukiyaki or hotpot and involves cooking thinly-sliced meat and
vegetables in a cooking pot with broth and then eaten with a variety of dipping
sauces, preferably helped down with cold beer.
The communal process proceeding
from cooking to distributing to eating, all done around the table with friends
is tremendously fun; up until the point when the sight of more plates stacked
with meat slightly brought up bile. After the debauch, we found our way to a
place I can only describe as an activity centre. For a moderate fee, one can
enter this enormous space, which contains an enormous library of comic books
and magazines, booths in which one can use computers and watch dvd’s, which are
available for rent, pool tables, darts, free hot and cold drinks and, if you
are so inclined, showers. I suppose for a city where real-estate is
exorbitantly expensive and the average flat is exceedingly small, if, as a
young person in Tokyo
who wanted to hang out with friends, these places would be ideal.
As the birthplace of karaoke, Tokyo
proffers amazingly copious karaoke centres where the song-prong can unleash
their larynx to maximum effect. After a 4 hour session of soul-flowing feast of
songs, going through ABBA to ZZ top, we dragged our weary but sated selves
through the strangely quiet but still neon-lit Tokyo streets at 3am to our apartment where
futons never felt so inviting.
 |
| Beautiful Lake Ashi with a vivid Torii |
To change pace, we went out to a town called Hakone, about an hour
and a half out of Tokyo by train and famous for its natural beauty and hot
springs and its view of Mt Fuji. After the train, a bus was boarded to take us
up the mountain.
To our great excitement, as the bus climbed higher and higher,
more and more snow started to pile up on the side of the road, until we disembarked
in a blizzard of snow. We made our way to the placid and beautiful lake Ashi
where we walked what was the old Hakone highway, now an obscure trail beside
the motorway but lined with great snow covered cedars. Taking the tourist boat
to the Northern end of the lake, we hoped to spot Mt Fuji but unfortunately the
clouds and mists hid her from us on that occasion. Another Tantalusian
experience which warrants, like Kyoto,
another visit. The next stop was the Owakudani valley, a volcanic valley with
active hot springs.
Taking the ropeway up was a highlight as the carriage ventured in and out of
low laying billows of mist over valleys and mountains. The valley was very
picturesque, with great billows of sulphur smelling steam and streams of hot
spring water running down the hill, carving dark channels in the canvas of
white snow.
A beautiful, rarefied and tranquil place that nevertheless reminds one of Japan's precarious geological location above the Median Tectonic fault line. Hakone is a place that will bear visiting again and again as I'm certain she will offer new delights in the changing attire of the four seasons.
 |
| Mt Fuji should be behind the mists |
 |
| Shimmering evening light scattered by the mist |
 |
| Billows of steam from the Owakudani valley hot springs |
 |
| Footfalls echo in the memory |
 |
| Road-side shrine |
 |
| Vertiginous ropeway |
Comments
Post a Comment