Hakone

Hakone is a tourist landmine, famous for volcanic hot springs and brilliant views of Mt. Fuji. In spite of the obvious drawcards, the thing I was most looking forward to was the prospect of visiting the Gyoza Center, a renowned restaurant serving 9 (nine!) different types of gyoza (Chinese dumplings).

Of course, once my belly was full of gyoza (we gave the other menu items, such as boiled potstiskers, applitzers and flyed potstickers, a miss) I became obsessed with seeing Mt Fuji. Along with thousands of other Japanese.

There was not a cloud in the sky the day we arrived, but I was not taking any chances. Everyone knows that Mt Fuji is terminally shy, just like her fellow nationals, and will cover herself in a haze of clouds whenever she can. It is the rare individual who gets to see 'Fujers' naked. I was determined to be that rare individual.

So we joined the queue of hundreds to take the cable car and ropeway up to Soun Zan from where there are reputed sightings of the picturesque volcano. The peak hour 'all's fair in love and train seats' mentality had somehow transferred itself from Tokyo to this hot springs hamlet, and there was a mad rush for pole position on the cable car. Of particular annoyance were the 'Obattalions' (from the Japanese 'Obasan' meaning grandmother and 'Battalion' which is English and self explanatory), the bull terriers of Japanese society.

There seem to be two breeds of old Japanese ladies - the unwaveringly kind old duckies who'd give up there seat for you on the train or bow in apology if they were too old to get up, and the obattalions, the old battleaxes who'd sooner take your eye out with their umbrella than see you ahead of them in a queue.

This weekend in Hakone, the obattalions were having a battleaxe convention. During the wait for the ropeway, one lovely damsel insisted on digging her elbows into my back and stepping on the back of my shoes to get me to stand to one side. After 30 minutes of two-stepping, we finally got onto the ropeway, and as we passed over the first crest, there was Fuji, butt naked. She had her own way, though. As we'd been so late getting to the damn thing, it had looked to the afternoon sun to hide her, which it did by practically blinding us.

Upon returning to the Fuji-Hakone guest house, our hospitality mecca, we took a private late night rotenburo (outside hot springs bath), which was pure luxury. The hot springs bath supposedly has curative powers, but it didn't cure my indefatigable desire to give an obattalion the smackdown.

The next day was also cloudless, except for that annoying bank of white fluffy stuff covering Mt. Fuji. We bravely battled the tourist circle crowds, including taking a phenomenally tacky pirate ship across the Ashino Lake, and avoided all contact with obattalions should I be lacking in patience enough to nut one.

After another hot springs bath at the guest house, we said goodbye to our hosts and threw ourselves into the traffic tsunami descending on Tokyo.

The ghosts of rock-stars past...

One inevitability of being a guest at our Tokyo ranch, is being dragged out to karaoke. For Taz, this happened not once, but twice.

By the second time (last Friday night) Taz had become a confirmed karaoke junkie after a karaoke spree in Nagoya. In our local bar, with Angus Young firmly entrenched in his vocal chords, Taz belted out tunes in a surprisingly good voice considering the number of beers he put away.

In fact, many ghosts came to visit us that evening - Abba, Kenny Loggins, Starship, Survivor, Bon Jovi - you know, the Greats. Galit took Beyonce, Albert chose Bon Jovi (who wouldn't?), Matt shook hands with Stipey, while I communed with Anni-Frid. We spent two hours in rock 'n' roll heaven before the ghosts of rock-stars past departed, leaving us with sore heads.

There is nothing worse than a Karaoke Hangover. It is a deflating mixture of regurgitated beer, extinguished brain cells and the morning-after-the-rock-star-the-night-before depression. Didn't someone say the best things in life come at a price?