Japan: Hakone

EDIT – Henry is just A-Okay after his bite, nothing to report at all, finished antibiotics and it has healed nicely 🙂

Thursday 18th May

Full day in Hakone today on all the different modes of transport. I had never visited Hakone but actually I liked it – the best bit was the steaming volcano – I didn’t really expect it!

Bringing sexy back…🤣

They boil eggs in the natural water which is around 80 – 100 degrees. It was really cool watching it! The iron makes the eggs go black, and clearly they make the vanilla ice cream black too so we couldn’t say no!

Next transport, a pirate ship…obvs!

Then a lovely walk…

Stopped in a ‘conbini’ aka convenience store and stumbled across hats we need for the jungle in Borneo (in a few days). So obvs we had to purchase! I mean seriously random, no? Oh here is a shop where we’re going to sell food, basic toiletries, coffee, beer and a jungle hat!

Friday 19th May – Ts buffday!

Kids were SUPER excited for his big day. Too cute. We made homemade cards and got a snack lucky dip for his pressies! Do you know, I kind of wish this was all of our birthday pressies – simple, with love and with cheap! Sadly I couldn’t get a cake but managed to get a ‘coffee cream’ sandwich which tastes like coffee & walnut cake! It was cute just having simple family time. I scootched out to get a birthday coffee from a proper coffee shop here – by golly cost a fortune! I love Ts birthday as I get to say he is a whole year older than me (for the next 9 months!). Look at their faces 👇

The plan for the day was the Hakone open air museum which has lots of amazing sculptures including Henry Moore. We kept it really simple and spent all day there in the end. Day started off fab – lots of exploring…

This sculpture was one they could play in – kids literally spent 2 hours there

Other bits we could climb on. I was chief photographer, forgot to get pics of me!

Then it started raining and we got the worst meal of our time in Japan – we did the buffet (why, why?! I tell you, because the kids wanted to!). Awful food. But the kids stuffed their faces with pudding! Look at Ts face 🤣

By which point it was p*ssing it down with rain. Proper heavy! H was desperate to go home (he was up from 5am, birthday excitement – cute but🫣!). There’s some arguing going on down there!👇

T wanted to check out the rest of the park, so we did and it was cool…

I think we saved the evening with a family onsen (in the world’s smallest one!) and pizza for the kids for dinner. We are staying in the coolest hostel – plus side, pizza, onsen and a great bar. Downside, drunk yooooot at 1.30am last night outside our room!

How cool is this onsen though – they literally have a rock in the room because it’s all natural and naturally heated!

T then took them to take the train for a couple of stops because they knew it would be empty and they could use it like a gym! I kid you not, they took the ‘party train’! While I stayed home and wrote this blog (don’t get me wrong, didn’t want to head out into the driving rain again!). Poor H fell over and bruised his head and knee – he’s going to have a real shiner tomorrow!

Saturday 20th May

Travel day back to Tokyo as we were flying to Borneo the next morning.

In the morning, however, we went to a local mixed onsen (swim cossies ON!) with some water slides and some random onsen like a sake one, red wine, coffee and green tea ones! It’s a bizarre mix between a swimming pool and a spa.

Green tea 👇

Some final karaoke and revolving sushi to round off a great last day – how cute are the kids here on the train, they really are getting along well (most of the time!).

On what we thought would be an uneventful night, I spotted what looked like a tick (or something else) bite on Hs knee with a ring of red around it. At 9pm on a Sat night. And we were leaving our hostel for the airport at 6am the next morning 😩

I figured we’d have better luck with Japanese doctors so we tried calling our insurance company for A&Es. They were as helpful as a chocolate teapot, suggesting clinics closed or 8kms away! I wanted a St George’s hospital open 24 hours. Surely that is a thing in one of the largest cities in the world.

Luckily the woman we were staying with was amazing and rang around multiple places to find somewhere open and that would take a look at it. Ideally, we wanted some antibiotics, just in case it was a tick bite with Lyme or god knows what else. The red thing was also growing. I’d spotted it in the morning a quarter of the size.

Finally, at 10.30pm, T and H went to the hospital armed with a piece of paper our hostel owner had given us, with all of Hs symptoms. Her kindness was so lovely. T speaks way better Japanese than me so we sent him. Although the doctor turned out to be fluent in English!

The hospital agreed it looked a bit infected so we are now armed with 7 days antibiotics. And don’t have the stress of finding a doctor in Kuching, Borneo.

While they were out, there was actually a minor earthquake! It was just like 20 years ago, you feel a bit like a large lorry is rumbling by. I googled it and yes there was an earthquake of 4 off the coast near Tokyo. On that website it also showed just how many earthquakes go on basically all day everyday. That’s the Pacific rim of fire for you!