PLAY PEA PLAY!

So much fun that she slept in the car all the way back.

@The Hakone Open Air Museum

MIYANOSHITA & THE OLD FUJIYA

Little Miyanoshita was really a chance encounter this time round. I usually stay in the bigger towns in Hakone but due to our haphazard fly-in-two-weeks schedule we were out of options.

But it was a lucky thing, because we really liked it there.

Quiet enough to make us feel that we were really in the mountains but not lacking in the Lawsons and 7-elevens.

A lot of the eateries and shops were old, and looked like there have been there for a very long time.

And it's especially atmospheric when the fog decides to sweep in at night.

Of course one does not mention Miyanoshita without talking about the Fujiya Hotel.

I don't know how something can succeed in being so Japanese and Western at the same time.

I wonder what Albert Einstein and John Lennon thought of it.

Built in 1878, I find it rare that it's still a fully functioning hotel.

Beautiful beautiful details.

And I really liked that they were not afraid to leave things as they were.

Next time, I would really like to try checking-in.

THE PRINCE & THE PEA

We spent a slow week in Hakone after HC ended his busy meetings and I revisited the Little Prince Museum on a cloudy day with the little pea. This time round it was so lovely because we had almost the entire place to ourselves (compared to my previous back-to-back crowd experience), taking time to see the exhibits and letting the pea run around as much as she liked.

HOMESTAY

I brought HC and the little pea to stay with my ex-homestay family in Tokyo for the first time. It was good to find everything as it had always been, the cozy house, the warm family, gathering around for dinner, catching up.

One of my homestay sisters brought her little girl, and we were at first a little worried about how these two were going to communicate, but it was no matter, they blabbered and giggled and rolled around together on the floor holding hands, and watching them play I could easily forget that ballistic missiles are flying out of North Korea, Syria's still a heartbreaking mess and there's a president that I don't like in the US.