I should be blogging about what fun I had in Tokyo after few months of careful planning and anticipation on this trip. Instead, all the fun are clouded by the fact that on the third day I arrived Tokyo, one of the most historic and devastating triple combo of calamities consisting of earthquake + tsunami + nuclear crisis took place.
After spending the first day at Tokyo Disneyland, and the second at Tsukiji fish market, Hamarikyu gardens, Asakusa, Ueno and Shinjuku, on the third day we took out our itinerary and headed to Hakone to view Mt Fuji as planned. We took train to Shinjuku to purchase our Hakone Free Pass (it's not free BTW).
While in Tokyo itself I was clearly underdressed, I could only blame myself that I only brought a cardigan and a long john to keep me warm. If Tokyo's weather was around 8 - 10C, at Hakone it was 2C as a digital thermometer on top of a house/hut had shown.
After traveling from Shinjuku to Odawara by train, Odawara to Hakone-yumoto by bus, Hakone-yumoto to Hakonemachi by bus (visiting some pillars of pine on the way), At Hakonemachi, we bought hot grilled cuttlefish before cruising Lake Ashi on a "pirate" ship across to Togendai. At Togendai, we took cable car (of which the Japanese call it Ropeway for reasons I do not know) to Owakudani.
Owakudani was where my first encounter with earthquake. Bracing the cold weather, we walked out of the ropeway station, hoping to get some non existent free black eggs at a sulfur crater. As it was already 2.30pm, we decided to have lunch here. I remember very well, it was a pork don.
About 15 min into lunch, I looked at Jo to see if she could feel the tremors. I can't recall what exactly happened at that moment. What I remembered was that a guy sitting at the table next to mine wanted to run out, then the tremors stopped for a moment, before getting more vigorous. The dangling lights above us looked like they were about to fall on us. The hot water dispenser on the table were shaking too. Few seconds later, there was a strong jolt. This time round, I almost wanted to run away from the shop. Then it all stopped. I never felt so alive as such a time like this.
The restaurant staff tried to calm us down. Since Mt Fuji is still an active volcano and as visitors from a country without such natural disaster, , we thought tremors happened frequently around here, so we continued with lunch. From where I was sitting, I could see the cable car halted. It must have been scary up there.
After lunch, we were still persistent with our black eggs. We climbed some altitude, before being shooed away from officers. Other travelers who were also shooed away. We took some pictures of Fuji in the background.
Up to now, we were still oblivious to what had happened. Back to Okudawani station, a Chinese lady told us earthquake had happened and traffic in downtown Tokyo was bad. I slowly churned the information that such a thing would happen during my first trip to Japan.
As train system was practically down, there was no way we could go to Gotemba to check out the premium outlets, the only way was to head back down using the bus. From Togendai to Hakeno-yumoto, it took almost 3 hours that we decided to walk down to Hakeno-yumoto train station. Thankfully, it wasn't very far but it's not something just anyone will do in the pitch dark.
Hakone-yumoto train to Odawara was still working. Since we could not take train back to Shinjuku, we had dinner at this nice cozy place at Odawara with our new found friend from Hong Kong. After some warm noodles and gyoza, we shopped at this mart for 3 hours while waiting for the train to operate again. The worker at the mart was very kind that she allowed me to make a call back to Malaysia.
Finally at 1am, we managed to take train back to Shinjuku. When we reached Shinjuku at 4am, it was not all sweet either. Train back to the hotel I was staying at Nishi Kasai was not in operation at this hour. We slept a makeshift bed at Shinjuku station, along with hundreds of Tokyo dwellers who like us, could not get back home. I could not really sleep at that kinda place, so I just watched Jo as she slept.
The adventure continues....
