Three Rings in Hakone

June 19, 2023

I recently visited Japan for the first time and spent 9 days there. When I was being dropped off at the airport in Toronto I cried big fat tears before going inside. The friction of the journey made it feel difficult to get started. All the money spent, the time away, the approaching discomfort… It begins to feel easier to not leave at all. I could stay home, continue my small projects, see friends and family. Time would pass seamlessly. My anxieties crept out of the fact that I was doing this trip alone, after I told myself I’d no longer pursue solo travel. Prior aches came rushing back to the surface. None of my experiences abroad will be meaningfully shared with those close to me. If I die I take all this with me. I dreaded that loneliness and detachment.

Those feelings left me when I stepped on the plane. It was my first of two flights, from Toronto to Denver then to Tokyo. I found myself switching into second gear au natural. Life felt like it was tremendous and mine again, a fruit I could reach to pick off a tree and take a bite from. I sat surrounded by people and they all felt like my people, people I was happy to be around. I realized a thing about myself then: I cannot fathom things other than what I am experiencing. When I am hot I cannot imagine being cold, when I’m cold I cannot imagine being hot; when I feel dread I cannot imagine excitement. Thus I become trapped in all my temporary experiences, at times cycling deeper into all those feelings and thoughts.

On the second leg of my journey an older man in his mid-fifties struck up a conversation with me just before boarding. We continued chatted while loading onto the plane, and he convinced someone to let us sit in two open seats next to them to continue our conversation aflight. I obliged and we spoke for about two hours, eating our meals together and having some wine. He had enjoyable perspectives on my industry, environmental-social-governance, and the implementation of sustainability programs in a manufacturing setting. I grew uncomfortable when he invited me to Assim, the capital of Tibet with him. I politely declined and he was saddened, offering instead to get sushi with him during his layover in Tokyo, which I also declined. As a woman it’s often a dance between ascertaining whether these interactions are dangerous or whether they’re harmless moments of connection with a stranger. While he is having an enjoyable conversation, I am constantly wary. I am cautious about every detail of myself or my trip that I offer, and I am suddenly regretful of writing my name and email on the back of my Kindle that he can see on my tray table.

Orphaned from my old seat, I said goodbye to him and found a new one for the duration of the flight. The lights went out shortly after. When the plane landed I bid him farewell. It was just after 3 p.m. on a Monday and I floated through Tokyo Narita airport in a state of jetlagged joy. I was sweating; I for some reason felt nauseous when descending in the air. In my visa photo my face was horrendously red with beady blue eyes. I breezed through the long corridors and straight through immigration, picked up my bag which was already waiting on the belt for me, and cruised through customs with a big stupid smile on my face. This made me a prime target for interviewers from some Tokyo tv channel. The three of them, reporter, translator, and cameraman, had bright smiling faces and wanted to know if they could ask me a few questions. The reporter began and we went back and forth through the translator. Sometimes she would be laughing too hard at my responses before she could translate them to the reporter; the cameraman would also giggle while he zoomed in between my face, my backpacks and the Minolta camera I showed them.

The TV crew loved asking about my camera, photography, motivations. In my haze I told them I was there alone, knew nobody in Japan, and was planning to go to Kyoto, Osaka, Miyajima and Tokyo. We spoke for about twenty minutes; they asked me why I wanted to come to Japan and what I wanted to photograph. People. I love people. It’s a beautiful country with beautiful people. At my request the interviewer and translator taught me how to ask a stranger if I could take a photo of them in Japanese, and the cameraman laughed while recording my failed attempts at repeating what they told me. Eventually they wrote the words phonetically on paper, in capitals - KONNICHIWA, SYASHIN WO — TOTTE MOII DESUKA?

I got onto a train from the airport to Tokyo Station. The only seats on the train lined the walls, facing into the centre, with many handles hanging from the ceiling. Some handles were especially long, for shorter folk. Everyone was well-dressed. Through the windows of the train the land and flora appeared richly green and so lush. I wondered if this was an illusion caused by being deprived of vegetation for so long during Canada’s winter. Japan felt as good as it looked.

I didn’t get to spend much time with Japanese people during my stay. Language barriers added complications to the universal difficulty of breaking into new social circles, but I did make many small connections. On my first train ride into Tokyo, the man next to me noticed my Minolta camera with great interest, surprised that I shoot on film. He was very kind and wished me a nice rest of my trip when he disembarked. In the more intimate izakaya, and even larger bars, Japanese people drinking with their friends around me would sometimes come over to ask about my thoughts on Japan, or how long I was there for. They’d almost always wish me a good rest of my trip. One evening in Kyoto I decided to visit an onsen for the first time. The bathhouse was separated by gender, the dividing walls spanning most but not all the way up to the ceiling so you are still able to hear the other side. There were cold baths, hot baths, one with an electric pulse, a pink-coloured salt bath, and a sauna. I was confused in the bathhouse, and an older Japanese woman who was washing herself indicated that I need a stool and bucket, pointing where I needed to grab them. I sat next to her on a stool in front of a tap, along a wall of nude women in a lineup washing themselves. I felt the absence of a male gaze positively. Very quickly did I forget that I was naked along with the others. Eventually I felt I had washed myself thoroughly enough. Not a word was shared between us but the lady who showed me what to do seemed pleased—I was cleared and ready enter the baths. Little moments like those became the highlights of my day.

I didn’t get to spend much time with Japanese people during my stay, but I spent plenty of time around them, sharing experiences with them. As the quiet traveller does, I spent most of my days people watching. Taking trains in the morning during rush hour while everyone is off to work, ducking into bars and restaurants where the menu had no English, sitting on benches and watching streams of people on bicycles go flying by. It seemed to me that in Japan the ideal number of children to have is two, precisely because you can easily fit one on the back of a bicycle and one on the front.

When it was time for me to take the train between cities or within them, every receptor in my mind exploded from stimuli. The stations were fast-paced, loaded with people, signage, shops, smells, winds, sounds. Of course it was extremely confusing. I asked for directions many times, and more than once did a Japanese person notice my confusion and come over to help me. I actually spent enough time on the train during my days in Japan that one evening while I was taking a shower I began to hallucinate the chimes heard on subway platforms from inside my tiny, insulated shower cubicle. It reminded me of when I would visit Canada’s Wonderland as a child and ride the rollercoasters all day only to come home and lay in bed still experiencing the sensations.

In the mix of all that I also found connection with fellow tourists. I’d visit popular landmarks on my own and feel too nervous to ask others to take photos of me. This led to me taking photos of other tourists posing in front of monuments and scenery, which I developed quite a fascination for photographically. There’s something very human about it. Some people pose in a coy way, quite shy and simply seeking to record their visit; others put on their biggest possible smiles with grand stances and wide arms. I also found that tourists and I would connect simply on the basis that we could recognize each other as foreigners. This brings to the surface obvious questions such as where are you from?, how long are you here for?, what have you enjoyed so far? There was a blatant recognition that we were both paying a big compliment to the country we were visiting—that we had travelled far and expensively to experience it—and that was enough to form some great friendships on the road.

On my second last day in Japan I decided to escape Tokyo’s bustle and make a day trip westward to Hakone, in hopes of peering across Lake Ashi to see Mount Fuji. I bulleted across the region on the Shinkansen and then took a bus that wound through curvaceous mountain roads into the national park that is Hakone. The greenery was stunning and delightful, enough to not be disappointed when I arrived and Mount Fuji was hidden behind clouds. The day was cool but the sun came out and I sat on a bench to watch fishermen both by the shore and on the water do their thing. I basked in the sun and took off my three rings to put lotion on my dry hands. I wrote on some postcards I’d picked up earlier in my trip then walked further along the lakefront, closer to the water. I watched as a towering pirate-themed sightseeing boat loaded people on and motored away with the sails rolled up. The pirate ship felt like a poetic image representing how manicured—and subsequently empty—travel can feel at times. I was tired and began the journey back into the city.

I’d been sleep-deprived for over a week and unable to get more than 4-5 hours of rest a night. Combined with walking around 20 kilometres daily, I grew more and more scraggly as my trip progressed. By the time I arrived back to my hostel I was quite exhausted; I rested for 45 minutes before going to meet some people for drinks in town. I dreadfully crawled out of my wooden bunk bed, that reminded me so much of the casket that Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill is buried in, and hopped on the train into town.

It was at this point that I noticed my fingers were empty of the rings I’d had for so many years, passed down to me from my Nonna and my mom.

That night I drank and chatted and laughed with a pit in my stomach, the cocktail of my own self-disappointment, regret, and frustration. I could not forgive myself for distractedly standing up from the bench and simply walking away from the rings I’ve worn for years. It drove me nuts, how avoidable it was. I had not even a photo of the rings, and I mourned knowing that I would never be able to see them again, including the wedding band that my Nonna trusted to me. Two Frenchmen I met at an izakaya a few days before comforted me as we crushed a couple cans of Strong Zeros from 7/11. They insisted that I do my due diligence and return to Hakone, if only to be sure that the rings were gone for good. I was on the fence about this, trying to say goodbye to the rings mentally, but I knew that if I didn’t give it a shot I’d look for them hopelessly for the rest of my life.

Thus my second Monday in Japan, the last full day of my trip, was assigned a mission. I knew that I had to return to Hakone to give rest to the hope that they might be found - although deep down I still carried that hope with me as I took that scenic bus for a second time. In the Lord of the Rings Frodo must go to a volcano to destroy a ring, and in my story I had to go to a volcano to hopefully get my rings back.

I’d been drinking a bottled coffee beverage on the bus that I got from a Japanese convenience store. The packaging had little to no English on it except for something I spotted after I finished it: The number “60”, some Japanese kanji, then “100 mL”. Suddenly attuned to my heart rate I realized I had accidentally consumed 240 mg of caffeine! This became more apparent when the bus arrived at my stop and I sprinted off of it and straight to the bench I had sat on the day before.

The bench was empty of course. I searched the grasses growing through the cracks around the base of its legs, the water nearby, crevices in the pavement… I asked a local business if they received anything. I banged on the door of the police station for some minutes, waiting blankly before a quiet officer emerged from the back. Nothing had been turned in. I gave him my WhatsApp number but had zero faith I’d receive a call. I finally returned to the bench to have a cathartic cry. My mom comforted me on the phone but asked that I never let my Nonna know the truth, and shamefully I agreed. I was preparing to write a note with my WhatsApp number to leave in the vicinity if anything showed up when I noticed the fishermen back at it to my right. I walked over to them.

Only one of them spoke English and he asked me what was going on. I told him the story, and motioned to my fingers having three rings. The fishermen were enjoying each other’s company that day, sitting on the beds of their trucks chatting and chuckling together. As I motioned one fisherman, who was in a bright purple jacket and sage green pants, lit up in the face and lifted his hand. I burst into tears instantly while they spoke Japanese, and two other fishermen sitting on the bed of their truck started laughing while I sobbed. I began laughing too. The fisherman with that vibrant jacket that I will never forget reached into the pocket of a pair of pants in his truck, and in his large and calloused hands he produced my three rings. I could not resist giving him a big hug while sobbing hysterically—he gave me a small grin.

They wished me a good rest of my trip and I stumbled away. I ended up crying between two parked cars in a random parking lot for over half an hour, flooded by all sorts of emotions and disbelief, and then I began my trip back to Tokyo.

Riding the Shinkansen train back, I watched an elderly couple sitting across the aisle from me, sleeping in their seats beside one another. Something about them really made me feel that people are intrinsically precious. I noticed that their fingernails had the same vertical ridges that my Nonna’s do. As the train passed a riverbank that afternoon, I saw a family of five standing together underneath the spring foliage, the father excitedly showing the kids to wave at the train, all of them smiling.

Some time ago a friend told me a story about how he had spent money and many hours germinating marijuana seeds indoors in the early spring, growing seedlings, planting them in the backyard, and maintaining the plants throughout the summer for a harvest at the end of the season. Everything was done very meticulously. He looked forward to sharing the fruits of his labours with friends and family, experiencing the reward of dutiful attention to detail and tediousness. One morning he went to check on the plants only to discover that in the middle of the night someone had broken into the backyard and ripped them all out of the ground. The trails of soil leading towards the gate showcased the quick and merciless extraction of the entire plant down to the roots. Not a single one was left behind. Though he has healed from the heartbreak of that incident, it showed my friend a side of people and their cruelty that would not soon be forgotten.

On my trip I met someone and told her the story of my three rings and she shared a story of hers in return. Working on a small Spanish island a few years ago, one evening she realized that she forgot her most special notebook on the park bench she had sat on earlier that day. It was gone when she went back to check, and friends told her that she would probably not find it. I could not believe that, she told me. Her friends insisted that someone might have picked it up and tossed it away, or that they would have taken it with them but she probably wouldn’t get it back. Fuck that, I was thinking. I expect more from people. She made little notes, describing the notebook and providing her number to please call if found, and left them on the benches around the park. Soon after a call came: A man said he had her notebook! I hoped very badly that he was not joking with me. She offered to go to his house to pick it up, but he said he preferred to drop it off where she worked. It was back in the early days of COVID, and he turned out to be an elderly man wearing two face masks. He passed her the notebook wrapped carefully in a plastic bag, and when she tried to give him a hug he waved his hands to decline. She asked his name and he replied Angel.

Why do we perceive beauty in others, and luck in ourselves, as I do? These things go hand in hand - I’m lucky because most people are beautiful and I am bound to cross paths with them. Time and time again I try not to let go of that belief, that affection for people. Sometimes it leads to the heartbreak of disappointment, that will find all of us at some point or another, but I must keep my satellite open. I must acknowledge the beauty, and no matter how hard I try to seek it out, I know that it will come to find me on its own instead.

Feel free to send in thoughts on the piece, I'd be interested to hear them: