![OPERATION: DOWNFALL (The Invasion of Japan for Otaku Purposes [aka ODTIJOP])](title.jpg)
PAGE 19
Day 9: Wednesday, October 20th, 2011
We got up at 7:15 that day, took our time getting ready and then packed up again. We got our first real view out of our hotel room's window that morning, and it was amazing! So tranquil.
We went over to the dining hall for breakfast at 8:30. It was (no real surprise) a totally 100% authentic typical Japanese breakfast — the kind that you see all the time in anime.
I will just say that traditional Japanese breakfasts are pretty gross. I won't even pretend to be a weeaboo here and claim that "they're an acquired taste," or that "everybody should try it once because you just might find you love it!" No. Japanese breakfasts are pretty nasty. Natto is disgusting, and soft-boiled eggs in cold noodles.... Just, no thank you. I did notice that our server was the same one from dinner the previous night, and she took a certain satisfaction in my difficult-to-hide revulsion at some of the dishes I ate. I tried to smile while slurping down the cold, wet, slimey bits, but I think that the mental picture of swallowing egg-drop soup that a dog regurgitated kept turning my lips down into a frown of pain.
After breakfast we spent some time walking around the really cool hotel, seeing the sites in full daylight, finding some of the most interesting (read "strange") things that we ever thought we'd find in a Japanese hotel.
The place looked totally different in daylight. Mehves kept popping out of the woodwork once the sun came up.
The rock garden was a little less impressive than I would have hoped for, but I was just so fucking happy to be there that I didn't let it get me down.
Here we go! I finally got a shot of the fabled beer machines that one can find all around hotels in Japan. Oh, and Qoo, which Mehve and I assumed by the picture that one had to pronounce it "Kooooooooooooooooo!" like it's made of pure Sourpatch Kids or something.
The stairs mixed with our tiny yukatas were a terrible combination.
Japanese mountaintop golf course... That is all.
And here's Mehve getting his Pokemon groove on in the hotel's "game room." If I recall it was just this Pokemon game (however it was played) and a UFO catcher claw game. I guess this hotel isn't really meant for families with little kids, or grown Rossmen who always want to play fighting games or Pacman.
Here I am just chilling outside the hotel, talking to Totoro and Porco Rosso after around 8 of those Kirins from the beer machine.
And here are my actual travel-worn shoes on the right next to the largest-sized slippers available at the hotel on the left. Now go back to some of the previous pictures and look at those dainty things on my man feet. I felt like I just Hulked Out every time I had to put those dinky things on.
We basically just wandered around for an hour before checking out at 10 that morning, and check-out brought up a few questions that nobody could answer for us since nobody on the day-staff could speak any English either. Mehve and I were flummoxed about when and where a bus or a shuttle would appear to take us down to Hakone-proper where we planned to spend our day. The most we got out of the people behind the front desk was "Sign-u here, prease." They told us that 5 times before frustration made me stop asking about transportation and just sign the damn check-out slip. Then we got a "Sank you. Have nice day!" from the beaming desk clerk.
We ended up waiting for the hotel van at the curb outside the main entrance for about a half an hour (after I came up with the idea to draw a van picking up Mehve and I and driving us to a city on a napkin, and an illuminated clerk said "Aaaaaaah! Hakone? Hai!" and then pointed to the curb outside the front door). We sat there, checked out the scenery, looked at the "Guide to Hakone" brochure from the front desk, and that's when Mehve told me, "Rossman, you know that tour we took yesterday? Up the cablecar to the top of the sulfer-smelling, strip-mined mountain?"
"Yeah," I said. "Quite vividly. It smelled like rotten eggs! Heh. Remember when I pretended to eat Hello Kitty's black egg friend?... That was awesome."
"Well," Mehve continued, "It appears that that is all that Hakone really has to offer. We DID Hakone."
"Well.... Shit," I said. "What the hell do we do today then?"
That's when Mehve told me his plan. We'd get to the Hakone train station and try to transfer our 6:15PM tickets to the 11:50AM train. I said it sounded like a proper plan to me, and then the shuttle-van came up the windy road and screeched to a halt right in front of us. I had to tell myself to buy stock in Japanese brake companies when I had a computer available. Fucking everybody here drove up and down these mountains like that main ugly dude in Initial D.
Then we bid farewell to the Kissuiso, and began our journey to Kyoto!
