Christmas in April

Friday, April 24th--We got home from Atami, and within an hour, we were back at the metro station leaving for another trip.  This time, we had the entire family along.  We were headed to Hakone on an express train.
We left our home in Laramie on December 29th, just after Christmas.  As a family we all voted to forego the regular Christmas presents--that we would then just have to put into storage--and instead ask Santa to help us afford an experience in Japan that we otherwise wouldn't have the funds to do.  We thought for sure that the kids would vote to go to Tokyo Disneyland, but that didn't interest them.  They wanted to do something more "Japanese".  So, this trip to Hakone is our Christmas from Santa Claus!
It took us about an hour and a half to get to Hakone from Tokyo on the express train.  Once we arrived at the station, we caught a bus that took us to our hotel.  To us, the mountainous resort town of Hakone looked much like the resort town of Park City, Utah.  There was one big difference between Park City and Hakone, though--hot springs!

One of the Awesome Ladies at Work gave us a hotel coupon that we used to stay at this hotel complete with a traditional Japanese dinner and a buffet breakfast.  We checked in and got settled--boys in one room and girls in the other room.  Then, it was time for dinner in the hotel's restaurant.

Just outside of the restaurant, there was a display for the upcoming Japanese holiday Children's Day (sometimes called Boys' Day, since Girls' Day is on March 3rd) on May 5th.  Remember that for Girls' Day, there are displays of hina dolls representing the Emperor and Empress on red tiers.  For Boys' Day, it is common to display samurai armor and carp flags.  Families will display samurai armor or just a traditional Japanese military helmet in their homes, one for each son.  These are to symbolize the desire for their sons to be strong and healthy.  We have seen a few small samurai helmets in shop windows, but this is the first armor display on tiers that we have seen.

We were seated at our table and sat on the floor on cushions.  There was a hole in the floor for our feet, however, and it kind of felt like we were cheating.  This was the children's first experience having a traditional Japanese dinner!  The entire dinner was 10 courses.  We started out by washing our hands and face with warm, wet washcloths that they brought out to us.  We also got some oolong tea.

Audra and Nathan had a kid's meal instead of the traditional meal that we all enjoyed....

....it consisted of orange slices, ramen noodles, rice, fries, egg, and a dumpling that looked like gyoza.  They had bites of our food as well, so they were pretty happy!

It's a good thing that everyone else is pretty adept at chopsticks, because this was the coolest meal in Japan for them up to this point--and eating authentically made it more fun!

This was the first couple of courses.  Beautifully arranged portions on mix-matched dishes that somehow all work together.  The portions are small, which is typical of a traditional meal.  There were some flowers--like dandelions--that were for decoration, but also were edible.  That was kind of fun for the kids.

Next course.....

....just like in Atami, there was another sakura potato bloom!

The ladies that served us were wearing kimonos, though they were plain in color and pattern.  It still added to the experience, though.  They were really sweet with the kids.

This dish was in the hot pot.   They brought one pot out for each person and lit the candle underneath.  After a few minutes,  they came around and cracked an egg on top of the ingredients in each one before putting on the lid and telling us to leave it alone to cook.  Once the egg was cooked, we were welcome to eat it.  It looked like cabbage, bamboo shoots, green onion, and noodles.  It was really tasty and most of us ate it quickly.  Tayla, who is a slow eater, was the last one to begin to eat her's.  She took a bite of the "noodle", thought it tasted funny, and gave it a closer inspection.  She was surprised to realize that what we all thought were noodles were actually little, whole fish--heads, eyeballs, bones, tails and all!  Oh, dear! 

Tayla didn't want to finish it, so she gave it to Christopher, who happily polished it off for her.

Logan eating his hot pot.

One of our favorite courses was the tempera basket.  I grew up making tempera, and have made it quite a bit since we came here because it's a family favorite, I already know what I'm doing, and I can make it authentically using the vegetables that the Japanese commonly use.  (The Japanese say that Americans use the wrong veggies for tempera!)  The common veggies that the Japanese use for tempera are green beans, eggplant, Japanese sweet potato, and a green-colored pumpkin with the skin still intact.  (The green pumpkin is our family's favorite!)  Mostly, though, they use veggies that are in season.  This tempera was unlike any that we have every eaten previously!  They had some kind of root that we had never seen before, eggplant, some kind of leaf that tasted like kale, and--would you believe--a sakura leaf! 

We got a kick out of the fact that they took a cherry tree leaf and turned it into tempera! 

Kirstina loved this meal--noodles, rice, seaweed, and everything else that she just loves to eat!  She's our "Japanese baby"!

This was a dish that looked like a thick soup and had a great flavor....there was just one problem.  There were WHOLE tiny shrimp all through the soup.  Their beady, black eyes were looking up at us as they laid on our spoon.  Ew.  Chris got a lot more soup than his one bowl, since some of us just couldn't eat the shrimp or pick them out of the thick soup.

Dessert was a flan type pudding that everyone said was heavenly.  I gave mine to Nathan and Ray gave his to Audra since the kid's meals didn't come with a dessert. 

Eating a 10-course traditional Japanese meal was super fun for these American kids!!  In spite of the eyeballs, guts and brains, everything was yummy and we all enjoyed trying out different food and eating out of pretty little dishes.
After dinner, we went up to our rooms and got into our "kimono robes" that were provided.

There is an onsen in this hotel, and Raymond said he would take any boys that wanted to go experience a traditional onsen.  Christopher and Logan went with Ray and really enjoyed it.  They felt a little weird at first, but once they realized that no one was paying attention to them, they thought the onsen was really fun.

Caitlin was hesitant, but got the courage to try it--for the experience.  She didn't want to have any regrets.  Audra happily went with her, and thought it was great!  She was splashing around and loving it, but she didn't like how hot the water was.  She kept complaining about how hot it was--Caitlin said that the temperature for the water read 43 degrees Celsius.  That's 109 degrees F.  Caitlin was very uncomfortable, but was glad that she did it--ONCE.  Never again.  This was the outside onsen at the hotel......

     

....and this was what the inside looked like.  Pretty and serene.

Nathan and Tayla were not interested in trying out the public onsen AT. ALL.  Instead, Tayla got into the bathtub in the girls' hotel room and Nathan got into the tub in the boys' room.  Because the purpose of the bathtubs in Japan are for soaking, they are REALLY deep!  It was so deep that Tayla couldn't fill it up all the way or else the water would be over her head.  As for Nathan, he had a ball doing cannonballs into the deep bathtub!  He got to splash to his heart's content because the tub is in a tiled room with a door and a drain on the floor for showering.  He thought that being able to do cannonballs in a bathtub was the best thing ever!