Lake Ashi – Joel’s Journeys & Jaunts

Yesterday, I mentioned that I bought a pass that gets me on five modes of transportation in the Hakone area. I told you about four of them. I kept the fifth as a surprise. You might have guessed the surprise from the title of this post, “Lake Ashi.”

Yes, it’s a boat. A sightseeing ship on Lake Ashi, to be precise.

To get to Lake Ashi, I took the same cable car (funicular) and two ropeways (ski lift-style gondolas) I was on yesterday from Gora Station. But this time, rather than dilly-dallying briefly at the transfer stations and then immediately turning around and going back, at the end of the ropeway line, at Togendai Station, I walked down to the lake to take the Lake Ashi sightseeing cruise or, officially, Hakone Sightseeing Cruise.

The company has three similar ships that ply the same route around Lake Ashi, allowing them to run more frequent sailings.

The cruise on Lake Ashi was quite pleasurable, but the ship was, um, er, unfortunate, in my opinion. It’s not that their ships are cramped or seem unseaworthy. Or is that unlakeworthy? Whatever, that wasn’t the problem. I had no fear of having to go down with the ship or that the ship was going to sink at all, with or without me.

It’s just that it seemed as if, rather than going to a company that builds lake cruise ships, the company went to a film studio and had them construct a fleet of three ships like what they’d have built for use in a period pirate film. It felt overly hokey to me.

The ship was in the style of a three-masted tall ship. But the masts served no purpose. I don’t think the permanently furled sails could be unfurled even if necessary to save our souls. In fact, I suspect they were hollow white tubes made to look like furled sails, rather than actual sails.

It occurs to me as I write this that I can’t elicit a mental image of what a traditional Japanese ship looks like. But I’m reasonably certain it’s not this. If they’re going to go with faux history, why not make it faux Japanese history?

Like I said, hokey.

Then again, since I don’t know what a traditional Japanese ship looked like, maybe they followed a parallel path with Western pirates. If so, I apologize for my whining. However, if you know me or you are a regular reader, or even more so if you’re both, it’s something you should be used to by now. Whining defines me.

Whatever. The inside of the ship was normal, so it didn’t bother me once I was aboard. And there were some subtle decorations inside that looked Japanese-themed.

Cruise on Lake Ashi

As I said, the cruise was quite enjoyable. The lake is almost spectacular. The forested mountains that surround it make for dramatic scenery. The only thing that Lake Ashi needed to do for me to upgrade it from “almost spectacular” to “spectacular” would be for it to provide at least a patch of blue in the sky above it. There wasn’t any today.

On the other hand, I can’t really blame the lake for that. It’s well known that lake gods have no power over the weather. I’ll have to take it up with the sky and cloud gods.

Which brings me to another point. The gods should simplify their hierarchy and create a one-stop shop for all of your godly needs. But it is what it is. And what it was today was that, while I was on and around Lake Ashi, the sky was completely overcast and on the gloomy side.

At least the rain god took the day off. So, there’s that to be thankful for.

Mount Fuji is supposed to be visible from the lake. I’ve seen promotional pictures of it that were taken there. But the mountain wasn’t there today. Perhaps they took it into the shop for cleaning. Either that or the clouds obscured it. Lousy cloud god. What good is he, she, or it?

Then again, maybe there’s a cosmic chapter of the DLJSSIA (Don’t Let Joel See Stuff International Association) that blocked off Mount Fuji because I was there.

There was a sporadic commentary on the cruise. It alternated between Japanese and English. The English sounded like it might have been computer-generated speech. It was very punctilious, but a little clipped. With that and the fact that it wasn’t terribly loud, I didn’t make everything out.

But I did make out much of it. For instance, I learned that Lake Ashi was formed about 3,000 years ago when a volcanic eruption spewed lava that blocked a river, creating the lake as the water built up behind the lava dam. The lake today is mostly spring-fed.

The voice also told me—and everyone else on the ship, because it was egalitarian—the circumference, length, average depth, and maximum depth of Lake Ashi. I forgot all of those numbers. If you’re interested, I’m sure you can find it somewhere on this newfangled thing the kids call the internet.

(Sticklers might say that the commentary voice wasn’t really egalitarian because anyone who doesn’t understand either English or Japanese wouldn’t have understood it. I suppose you’re right about that. However, in the future, please take your stickling and stick it. Thank you.)

The circle-route sightseeing cruise makes two intermediate stops on the shore of Lake Ashi as part of its circle route.

The ship takes 25 minutes to go from the pier by Togendai Station, Togendai-ko, to its first stop, Motohakone-ko. It’s then ten minutes from there to the next stop, Hakonemachi-ko. It’s then another 25 minutes from there back to Togendai-ko.

I didn’t get off at Hakonemachi-ko, but I did get off at Togendai-ko.

Shortly before arriving at the pier at Togendai-ko, the ship passed by a bright red torii sitting in Lake Ashi, close to the shore. The torii is associated with the reason I chose to get off at Togendai-ko.

Hakone Shrine is there. (That link in the preceding sentence goes to a Japanese-language site. Your browser can probably translate it for you. Mine could.)

Hakone Shrine

To get to the shrine, after leaving the ship, I walked along a lakeside walkway for a piece. I then saw a red torii (not the one in the lake) in front of a path through a forest on the other side of a road. I figured, correctly it turned out, this was the way to the shrine.

I crossed the road, walked under the torii, walked along the forested path, and came to a long set of stairs proceeding up. The shrine was at the top of it. Before getting to the main shrine, I passed a cute little red shrine. There was also another small shrine in the compound.

The main shrine is not huge, but it’s probably very attractive when the roof is not shiny copper and not yet the least bit oxidized. The shrine probably also looks better when there’s no construction hoarding around the lower portion of it or scaffolding on the sides. But that’s what I got today.

There was a large sign filled with text in the compound. It was entirely in Japanese. I used the camera function of Apple Translate to translate a few paragraphs of it. The shrine is, indeed, undergoing renovations, and, while that’s going on, adherents worship in front of the shrine.

That’s a rather lacklustre effort by the Hakone chapter of the DLJSSIA. Most chapters do a much better job of obscuring whatever it is they close when I’m around. Here, I could still see much of the upper portion of Hakone Shrine, even though I couldn’t get particularly close or go in.

Furthermore, other chapters often include at least some English in their made-up excuse for their actions. That wasn’t the case here.

When I walked back down the steps from the Hakone Shrine, I noticed that there was another shorter, narrower staircase proceeding directly down past the path I had come along. I could just make out through the trees the red torii in the lake at the bottom of the stairs.

I walked down that second staircase. At the lakefront, there was a long line of people by the torii.

A small stone pier juts out under the torii and a little piece into the lake. The line-up was of people waiting to walk out onto the pier so a companion, or a kind fellow visitor in some cases, I imagine, could snap a picture of them under or a little beyond the torii.

There was a whole lot of slow posing going on at the torii. I think that’s a normal occurrence. There were a few large identical signs there. These had both Japanese and English. The English said:

Please cooperate
Please take a commemorative photo within 3 minutes.
This is a sanctuary. If you do not understand, such as giving in, we will close it.

I didn’t add the red to the text. That’s the way it appeared on the sign. I thought that last part was rather high on the passive-aggressive scale.

I didn’t join the line or stay very long, but while I was there, only one couple was posing at the torii. I think they were pushing up against the three-minute limit. I hope nobody swooped down and closed it.

I then walked back to the pier, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and caught the continuation of the cruise back to Togendai-ko. That’s a good place to leave this for now. So I will.