Travel Hiccups

 I don't even know I've messed up yet.

I can’t tell you how it ends yet. I'm still in the middle. I'm still in the flux of this leg of my journey. And good or frustrating, this is the part I like. The part that doesn’t have a pat ending and has potential to unfurl amazing things or simply quiet time by the ocean.

I spent a few days in Hakone. No particular plan other than to search out local cuisine and soak my body in the hot springs.

I was ambivalent to people’s excitement about the Hakone Open Air Museum. I’m not sure what changed my mind. But on my last full day in the city, after a second person mentioned it and I google some images and was taken by the beauty of some of the work, I decided to navigate the bus and search out beauty.

It was an amazing day and unexpected in the best way.

At first, I balked at the price...$16...but I'd braved the bus walked the meandering road into the mountains, so paid my admission and began to wander anew.

The gray sky threatened rain but held itself at bay, save a few drops here and there. And I marveled at what people create when they have time and intention.

That was a plan-less day. A day without an itinerary or even expectations that ended with me at an onsen and an amazing dinner. A day that went according to the of plan I didn’t have.

Then there was another day.

My sister is a voracious reader and she sends me articles of interest as I journey. One about ways to meet people when you travel, stories from women who travel alone (like me), and most recently – one about a noodle shop that is opening in New York but whose original store is in Japan. I was intrigued and so I checked a map and realized that Kamakura (the site of the original shop) fell on my trajectory to Tokyo. So little distance between Hakone and Tokyo in fact (especially with express trains whizzing by every few minutes) I planned (Planned! A word I use so infrequently my parents have stopped asking me.) to leave Hakone in the morning, have lunch in Kamakura, and then head on to Tokyo.

Mistake number one wouldn’t become evident until after mistake number two.

Not the best presentation but delicious!

I arrived at Hanon at 12:30pm. According to google, it opened at 11am and didn’t close until 5pm so I had plenty of time to eat and be on my way. But when I walked through the narrow alley flanked on both sides by fish and vegetable vendors, my heart sank.

The sign read Hanon but the rest of it read Korean cooking class and deli. Who knew there was more than one Hanon...clearly not google maps because I had to do a separate more intentional google search to identify my mistake.

The view from my mistakes was delightful.

Now the question of the day...”do I call it a wash an head to Tokyo or do I stay overnight (which had been my original thought when I didn’t know how close the cities are to each other)?” My onsen glow had dissipated by then. I hadn’t eaten, in giddy anticipation of special noodles, so food was the only thing on my mind (even more than usual).

After a surprisingly delicious bowl of soup and a promising looking hostel (something I had yet to secure in Tokyo) I decided to stay. I made my way to my hostel and that is when I discovered mistake number one…

I left my passport in my bed at the my last hostel.

Sigh.

Anywhere other country I might have worried rather than simply being irritated, but Japan has a lovely way of restoring my faith in humanity. A friend lived here a few years ago and he recounted to me a time when he left his phone on a train and somehow it was returned to him.

My passport arrived the next day. It cost me 500 yen, a lowly $5 dollars – less than it would have cost to take the train back.

Yes! I made it to the noodles and they were wonderful!

My lack of discrete plans made this hiccup relatively inconsequential. I didn’t have reservations...anywhere...not hotel or train, not food or cooking class.

All I had was anticipation...anticipation of my passport’s arrival, of noodles I only knew about because my sister was the original Google in our family, and for whatever awaited me when I made it to Tokyo.

My tomorrows are full of uncertainty, and in my travel life, I like it that way.