🇯🇵-2-1
Hakone 0
Let’s choose this hotel. I have been here a few times and it’s considered one of the best in Hakone,” said LittleMaster’s wealthy friend.
After seeing the price, LittleMaster couldn’t help but ask, “Why should I stay at such a nice hotel by myself?” Because the nice hotels are built on top of hot springs ♨️, while the less expensive ones require water to be pumped and don’t guarantee temperature.
“Why stay at such a nice hotel by yourself?” This hotel has rooms with balconies that have hot springs ♨️, so you don’t have to go to the men’s or women’s baths. It’s very private.
“I’m going alone,” said LittleMaster. “After working continuously for so long, it’s time to relax. Let’s call it a graduation trip 🎓 ✈️.”
Unable to resist the temptation, LittleMaster booked a room at the Hakone Kowaki-en Ten-yu. The name itself sounds very calming.
Ten-yu
After being shuttled to the hotel by a shuttle, LittleMaster’s luggage got wet due to the rain. The receptionist gave him a brand new towel to dry his luggage 🧳 and helped bring it to his room.
LittleMaster felt it was unnecessary, especially after climbing the mountain road for a long time, he didn’t have the strength to speak anymore. He could only marvel at the excellent service.
Just like his wealthy friend said, the hot spring was on the balcony. There was a small button next to it, and pressing it would release the sulfuric hot spring. LittleMaster bought many functional drinks from a vending machine to prevent dehydration and started cooking meat.
Outside the balcony, light rain was falling and mist filled the air. The wind rustled the curtains.
LittleMaster stayed in the hot spring, watching the steam rise until late at night, and listened to the sound of the wind and rain outside. It felt like it was all worth it.
The fog had not cleared when LittleMaster woke up the next day.
Feeling shy, LittleMaster didn’t want to see anyone. Originally, he planned to stay on the balcony for two days.
But because of hunger, he reluctantly went to the men’s bath on the top floor. He was instantly amazed.
Even though the iPhone X 📱 is waterproof, when the person in the pool saw LittleMaster approaching, they left.
But this place, where everyone is honest and open, can only be shared through these stolen official pictures.
Wow, it’s like the infinity pool at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, but instead of a pool, it’s a hot spring.
Then LittleMaster glanced at the mountains in the distance, thinking that the women’s bath was next door. When he went downstairs, he realized that the women’s bath was actually on the first floor and that the men and women switch daily. It must be a consideration for the balance of yin and yang.
So it seems that he can’t see the mountains from the room like he can on the top floor. Instead, he can only see it from inside the room.
That’s no fun. LittleMaster decided not to leave the room the next day.
But the truth is, on the fifth floor, there was a small pond with falling leaves 🍂. A small mountain next to it had a waterfall flowing down. This was the steamy hot spring.
Unfortunately, the hotel didn’t provide any pictures. It was a big surprise.
The breakfast was also amazing. You could choose between Japanese or Western style, and outside the window was a bamboo forest.
The Little Prince
After all, the food can get overcooked. LittleMaster had to go out for a walk.
Surprisingly, there was a Little Prince temple (museum) nearby.
PS: It’s worth mentioning that LittleMaster’s first love really liked The Little Prince.
As early as January 3102, LittleMaster had already read The Little Prince. The timeline of this series happened afterwards, so the name was somewhat inspired by it.
The Little Prince’s Plane
The Little Prince’s Rose
“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.”
“If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Because his first love made LittleMaster wait for three years at the Magic Academy and then broke up with him after just one week of being together, he didn’t have a good impression of The Little Prince. He couldn’t understand why it was so highly regarded worldwide.
After walking around in circles, he went to the Crystal Museum.
Hakone Glass no Mori Museum
It should look like this, supposedly:
What LittleMaster saw was like this:
Only this place looked like it came straight out of a fairy tale.
Gōra Park
It should look like this, supposedly:
What LittleMaster enthusiastically ran over to see was:
A closed teahouse,
a barren moss garden,
and a not-so-romantic rose garden 🌹🌹🌹
So recently, LittleMaster has been pestering his older sister to teach him how to photoshop images like the ones in the brochures 🐶🐶🐶.
Even so, LittleMaster still saw the tall bamboo trees and white clouds.
These same views were described in ancient Chinese literature like this:
White flowers in a willowy area, bound together by white reeds. Your son from afar, please let me alone.
Glimmering white clouds, covered in morning dew. Difficult and strenuous is the path in the sky, but to your son, it’s not an hardship.
— “Xiao Ya: Bai Hua” (The Minor Odes: White Flowers)
LittleMaster regretted that he didn’t come at the right season. With gain comes loss.
It’s better to go back and cook some meat.
LittleMaster consoled himself.
But then he was forcibly recommended a drink by a German girl 🇩🇪.
So he bought an extra can to take home as a gift 🎁.
Pola Museum of Art
LittleMaster saw something cool.
He hurriedly took a picture and sent it to his parents 👨👩 to ask if they wanted to buy two sets. Just in case they develop Parkinson’s disease in the future, they won’t be afraid of dropping their utensils.
Public Transportation
Google Maps, which had been reliable the whole trip, suddenly became unreliable in Hakone.
The public transportation 🚌 here was very confusing. In larger cities before, there hadn’t been many issues.
That said, in Japan they drive on the left, so it’s easy to misread the map. What’s worse is that the bus signs don’t show the starting and ending stations, making it difficult to determine the direction, since there aren’t many cars on the mountain roads. There are also few people, and the ones you do meet don’t speak English well.
Every time LittleMaster almost reached the bus stop and saw that the bus had already arrived, he wasn’t sure if he should run after it. He had to ask the driver each time if the bus was going in the right direction.
Ōwakudani
In Gora, he took a cable car 🚠.
Suddenly, he saw Mount Fuji 🗻.
Even though he was in the cable car, the elegant curve of the mountain still amazed him.
Since LittleMaster had just finished Andrew Ng’s machine learning course on Coursera two months ago, he looked over his old notes 📒, recalled the Gaussian distribution equation, and modified it (since Mount Fuji 🗻 is not two-dimensional). He could delete $\mu$ and came up with the following equation:
$$z=\frac{20}{\sigma \sqrt{2\pi }}^{-\frac{R^{2}}{2\sigma^{2}} }, \sigma= 2, R = \sqrt{ x^{2} + y^{2}}$$
Of course, the height and slope were not correct. He would need to use linear regression to find the correct values, but he didn’t feel like manually adjusting it. Naturally, he didn’t want to fine-tune the model himself.
And just then, the cable car 🚠 had reached its highest point.
A gust of mountain wind blew, and the cable car 🚠 started shaking violently. The mountains below were emitting smoke. Although he was high up, he could still smell the pungent sulfur.
No wonder there were hot springs ♨️ here.
After getting off the cable car, there was an egg bigger than a person 🥚. He could still see Mount Fuji 🗻 in the distance, and it appeared that the same cloud was there.
That German 🇩🇪 girl told LittleMaster that he had to buy and eat one of these eggs 🥚.
Puzzled, LittleMaster didn’t understand. Were eggs from abroad better than domestic ones?
Well, it turned out that the eggs here were black 🌚🌚🌚.
He ate five in a row and didn’t feel anything different.
In the meantime, a European girl asked LittleMaster how to crack open an egg. He didn’t know the word for “crack,” so he pointed to a door.
The girl was surprised and asked, “Against the door???”
Oh, so it’s called “against.”
Hakone Ashinoko, Narukawa Art Museum
After getting off the cable car 🚠, he took a boat from Moto-Hakone Port and took a trip around Lake Ashi on the Hakone pirate ship, to end up at the Hakone Port.
He remembered that it was important to buy first-class tickets before boarding, or else if he tried to buy them after getting on the boat, there likely wouldn’t be any tickets left. Outside, his hair would be messed up by the mountain wind.
But because he had done something similar in Osaka before, there wasn’t much novelty. However, at the art museum, he saw a sculpture that caught his attention.
It’s so intricate, carved down to the smallest detail. The material is actually ivory.
This one is even more miraculous. There’s a flower at the bottom. So, is that the origin of its name, “kaleidoscope”?
How beautiful and peaceful the snowy scenery is.
Afterward, LittleMaster sat in the museum’s café ☕️ and absentmindedly stared at Mount Fuji 🗻 until it closed.
Usually, travelogues only mention the positive side, as if these people arrived at the destination without any luggage or equipment.
LittleMaster is no exception because he can check his luggage at the hot spring ♨️ hotel. He just needs to fill in the address, and the luggage 🧳 will automatically be sent there.
However, because it sounds too good to be true, when he took the small train north, he briefly questioned whether the luggage 🧳 would forever stay in Hakone at Fujisawa Station.
Translated by gpt-3.5-turbo