You hear those myths about white gloved train workers pushing people into trains like sardines during peak hour in Japan? Deciding to throw caution to the wind we braved the subway during peak hour (honestly wondering when it’s not peak hour) and saw sardine pushers in person. I didn’t get to experience the personal rub up push in, but was close enough to know it’s a job that would be a challenge. It was however, quite interesting how we seemed to have a magical empty space around us. A bit like nobody wanted to step into the foreigner’s personal space.
Today was a day of epic travel, train after train, boats, buses, cable cars and funiculars. Before embarking on the big travel day ahead there was the mandatory coffee stop. Not being a coffee drinker, I find this act highly unnecessary. It would appear that some people find it very difficult to operate without a hit of caffeine. I do however think it crazy that all three adults chose canned coffee, aka dish water, and then complained. They either don’t read my blog or in Simon’s case just doesn’t learn from his canned coffee mistakes….all 312 of them.
Our day involved a trip out to Hakone, a beautiful mountain area about 2 hours out of central Tokyo. There’s a great pass called the ‘Hakone Free Pass’ that covers the return journey from Tokyo and all of the various means of transport. Having done the trip several times before, I was not fooled by the somewhat misleading name of the pass. They seriously need to think about renaming something ‘free’ as low and behold it isn’t. There’s an option for the super express train (saving approximately 40 minutes each way) called the ‘romance car’. I don’t know what on earth they were thinking when they were throwing around names for the train. I’m thinking perhaps a few too many sakes had been involved. Express, fast, speedy are appropriate names that come to mind. Heh, even zoom zoom. But romance! Needless to say, tight arse Tanya opted for the slower, cheaper option and decided to restrain from train romance. No way was I being pressured into smooching and hand holding because of the name of a train.
We did enjoy our slightly slower train. What was really exciting was the strange seal like sound coming from the drivers cabin throughout the journey. For a moment there we thought a couple of seals were having a bit of romance and had gotten on the wrong train. To the sound of possible seals mating, we did however get to see glimpses of Mt Fuji in the distance. Blink and you might have missed it but it was definitely there!
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