The next morning we set out to try and salvage what was left of our stay in Hakone and do some exploration. The morning fog covered everything up in the mountain and made everything feel surreal. Even with the sticky humidity, the area was incredibly serene. We took a short nature walk and decided to head back. By this point I was ready to hop onto the bullet train, or shinkansen, back to Tokyo for another shower and something to eat.
We were met by a pleasant elder taxi driver who was instructed to take us to the train station. He even tried to point out peaks, but soon gave up since he couldn't speak English at all. An hour later we arrived and our driver went inside to the station to check on our passage back. After a bit he came back frazzled making various phone calls and speaking to us in machine gun Japanese. We tried as best we could to make out what he wanted us to do motioning us to stay in the cab. Finally I made some hand gestures and motioned for him to find someone who could speak English. Ah-ha! Running inside he found a young man fluent in English and had him explain to us that the bullet train was cancelled due to bad weather. He quickly refunded us money and reissued a new set which made us take the regular subway back to Tokyo (3x longer to arrive).
From there our driver took us to the correct line and wanted to wait with us to make sure we got to our train safely and on-time. I felt bad for him and instructed him not to worry and we would be ok if he left. Even then he initially refused wanting to wait. Wow! Talk about service! I gave him 1000 Yen which he refused:
(Driver)) "No, no!"
(Me trying to pass him the bill) "Domo arigato" ("Thank you very much", long bow)
(Driver) "No, no" *(bowing back)
(Me) "Chu-soku." ("lunch", still trying to pass money)
(Driver) "no, no, ok"
(Me) "onegai shimass" ("please")
(Driver) (Takes money, long bow again and a handshake from El) My first semi-successful conversation. What a great feeling.
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2 comments:
Isn't it amazing how hospitable and helpful Japanese people are? They're so modest and well-mannered. Kind of makes you think differently of Americans, huh?
For the most part they were very accomodating, but we did run into the occassional upturned nose, usually from the older staff at hotels or some snotty girl. But with the blue collar workers they were very pleasant. I'd love to go back and explore even more. There's alot we can definitely learn from their culture.
Lek
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