Japan Series - Pola Museum of Art, Hakone

It was a long trek to the Pola Museum of Art at Hakone. The JR Tokai line from Yokohama to Odawara took an hour, and then from Odawara I took a train to Hakone Yomoto Station before catching the Hakone Tozan Railway to Gora. From Gora, it is a bus ride to the Pola Art Museum. End to end 3 hours. It was a wet and cold day to boot.

Odawara Station

The Odwara station, like all the train stations in Japan, has a variety of shops mostly selling bento boxes, local produce, sweets - products that can be consumed during the train journey. Here I purchased a Hakone Pass, and a young male employee who spoke English translated for me. In addition, he gave me a pair of chopsticks as souvenir.

En route to Gora

The route to Gora passed through the country side. A large number of blooming cherry blossoms lined the way. The Hakone Tozan Railway is the only mountain railway in Japan and climbs over 500m to Gora. For the first time, I experienced switchbacks, where the driver and the conductor changed shifts and the train switched to reversed travel direction. Due to the dismal weather, the mountain scenery failed to sparkle. Besides, the train was packed and there were many visitors taking selfies or photos of each other. A couple beside me was shooting a video of their baby, all the way, making a big fuss of the baby. From their speech, I gathered that they came from Korea. Quite a noisy bunch really. 

Gora

Finally, on arrival at Gora, I was greeted by a sleepy village, drenched in a blanket of rain. Not much happening here, so it was a quick dash for the bus stop to take me to the Pola Museum. A couple from Spain was covered in see through rain wear and was told to have it removed by the bus driver. Quite right too because the wetness of their rain wear would have soaked the seats. 

Gora station

Gora station is really just a small station, with two platforms. Most visitors who get off at Gora have other plans - visiting onsens and Gora Park. Gora Park is a French styled landscape park and since I come from Europe, I gave it a miss. Overall, on a dull and dreary day, going out and about was not an uplifting experience. Even the cherry blossoms looked dejected in the rain. Or perhaps that is part of the charm of a rain-soaked country side?

Approach to Pola Art Museum

Light and space, Pola Art Museum

Modern architecture, Pola Art Museum

Cafe, Pola Art Museum

The Pola Art Museum is probably one of the most underrated small museums. There was a fabulous collection of Degas, Matisse and a few Renoirs. It also had Monet's Water Lily Pond. For a small museum, the quality of the collection was first rate. By far the painting that capture my imagination on the day was Renoir's Girl in a Lace Hat.

Renoir's Girl in a Lace Hat

Bus station outside Pola Art Museum

Finally it was time to go. It was snowing by that time. The Museum very thoughtfully provided umbrellas for their patrons to use. Obviously they are not to be taken home, but the fact that in Japan, public property like these are not appropriated by private individuals is genuinely a humbling experience.

Savill Gardens, Surrey

It was bank holiday Monday in the UK and we visited the Savill Gardens near Virginia Water. It was a sunny day, it was spring time, azaleas were in bloom and it was time with my loved one. 

The undulating roof of the entrance to Savill Gardens

Japan Series - Objects of Beauty

Fauchon poster, Takashiyama Department Store

Flowers, flowers, flowers

Ferris wheel, Yokohama

Sculpture at Yokohama Art Museum

Sculpture at Yokohama Art Museum

Sculpture near Yokohama Station

Aah, this cute thing at the Queen Square building, Yokohama

Japan Series - Out and About in Yokohama

German Beer Festival at Yokohama

On the rare occasion when work finished early, there was time to visit the German Beer Festival at the Redbrick Warehouse area near the Yokohama Harbour. Here, the locals had gathered for a beer or two - each beer is 800 JPY. There were some fruit beers, e.g. apple or pineapple beer, something new to me, although I once tried orange beer in Croatia. Although this was a beer festival, no drunkards or bad behaviour were spotted.

Beer tent at the German Beer Festival, Yokohama

More drinking inside the beer tent. Later on, an Austrian band appeared on stage in mock lederhosen, singing songs from the 70s and 80s. There was a young, pretty Japanese girl on stage whose sole role was to encourage the audience to clap, and the audience duly obliged. Everyone was on best behaviour, even those with red faces as a result of a bit too much to drink.

Redbrick warehouse district, Yokohama

Flyover near Sky Terminal, Yokohama

I came across this pathway next to the flyovers when I tried to find my way from the underground to the West Exit of Yokohama Station. I don't see enough of the overground since I walk to work everyday using the massive underground network at the Yokohama Station. It was a welcome relief from the hustle and bustle of the underground passages.

Aerial view, Yokohama station

The view of the taxi stand at Yokohama Station reminds me of the orderliness in Japan. There is no queue jumping in Japan at all. In some some stations for example in Nagoya, there are taxis for shorter and longer distances. Once at Nagoya, I must have got on a taxi that goes out of town and the driver was reading his map to find his way. Not a common occurrence in Japan since the Japanese are ultra safety conscious.

The cavernous station at Queen Square, Yokohama

On the Minatomirai line, the exit from the underground to Queen Square is via a series of near empty walkways. The sheer size of these passages, the emptiness of them all on a Saturday was an experience to me. Like most things in Japan, the public places are spotlessly clean. I would rate the public Japanese toilets as one of the best in the world - always immaculately clean and usable.

Part of the Queen Square complex, Yokohama

Queen Square complex, Yokohama

Yokohama Bay

Japan Series - Food, glorious food

After some grim experiences eating with a group, solo dining has been more satisfying. Surprisingly, I had reverted to eating Chinese food because I got rather tired of eating Japanese food day in and day out.

Sushi at a local sushi restaurant,where the menu is entirely Japanese. Here the chef made for me his choices, including a sea urchin (on the extreme right) which is very much an acquired taste. The octopus is cooked and frankly speaking, is a bit chewy. 8 of these little pieces of food cost around £15. Some rare pieces of shell fish can cost as much as 600 JPN each, roughly £3.75. 

A different take on sushi. Here the restaurant offers a choice of 13 pieces for a set price that includes miso soup. This restaurant, on the basement of the Diamond Centre at the Yokohama Station, is almost packed most nights. I feel completely at ease dining solo at Japanese restaurants because no one ever stares at me, and the queuing system is strictly in the sequence the diners appear at the door.

This is probably one of the more expensive tempura restaurants I have eaten at. It's on the 8th floor of the Takashiyama department store. The place is nearly almost empty, although the tables around the cooking area where food starts at 8000 JPY (£50) are almost always fully occupied. I love the freshness of the food and the dash of soya sauce in the rice. I haven't quite figured out how and when to eat the pickled vegetables.

Another tempura restaurant, but offering set meals with soba noodles. It's located also on the 8th floor of the Takashiyama department store, where a series of restaurants form the Rose Dining Room. Mine was hot soba noodles but the other diners were mostly eating the cold variety. There are tempura dishes and tempura dishes, and this one is not a patch on the one shown above. 

Ah, Tonkatsu, the fried pork cutlet that is served with shredded cabbage and bean sauce. Most of these shops also serve friend shrimps or a mixture of pork and shrimps. It's a tasty dish, but the sauce at this restaurant was a bit of a disappointment. I remember the fantastic sauce at a restaurant at the Kyoto railway station - there you can make your own sauce and add sesame seeds to the sauce to enhance the flavour.

A simple dish of rice noodles with one vegetable and a few pieces of sea food. I had this at the Pola Museum restaurant at Hakone, where waiters and waitresses were dressed in western attire and have acquired a whiff of the French garcon's stuffiness. This dish is almost a cross over between Chinese and Japanese food; its clean taste and simplicity left me feeling hungry afterwards.

And how about some Chinese food? Here, I had beef brisket pieces in noodles and two red bean paste buns. I forgot what the soup base was, since I was never much of a street food fan. The good thing about a noodle shop such as this is that I can reacquaint myself with Chinese food and eat rather simply. The queue for this restaurant however is often very long, sometimes the waiting was as much as 20 minutes.

Another Chinese dish, won ton noodles and some fried vegetables. I love won ton noodles, it's a dish that I seldom eat in the UK because there are more Chinese restaurants than noodle shops. Food portions in Japan are just about the right size for me, even though I often cannot finish the whole plate. It is much easier to dine solo in Japan than in China simply because the Japanese cater for individual diners than en masse.

A mix of sushi at a restaurant at Osaka. It was the first time that I ate sushi served in this manner. It was also very reasonably priced and the place was packed with office people. In addition to sushi, the restaurant also offered other set meals. When entering the restaurant, all the diners had to remove their shoes and store them in a locker located at the door. No slippers were offered.

My breakfast at JAL Sakura Lounge at Haneda Airport. Often I prefer Japanese breakfast and I've grown to like the pickled vegetables and the fermented beans. The Sakura Lounge (near gate 144) is a very civilized place: the welcome at the door is always warm, everyone talks in a whisper, and there are certain areas where mobile phones are banned. It's just the sort of environment that allows one to have some quiet moments to read the newspaper and watch the planes being prepared for take off.