After a week of vibrant Tokyo life, we thought it was time to leave the city and see litle bit of the countryside. From Hadano, which is close to the place I lived for half a year during my internship in Japan, it would be convenient to visit Hakone, a popular tourist area with volcanic activity, to climb Oyama, a sacred mountain closest to Tokyo. After that we could move on to visit one of the lakes around Fuji.

In the little city of Hadano we rented a room via airbnb (private room/apartment renting website). The room was very cheap, but, we later found out not without reasons. First of all, Hadano. It is really the last place you want to be found dead. Furthermore, the room we rented was in a dormitory – probably ment for students – that felt somewhat prison like. The romantic itself was spacious, but the futons where really thin and old. The rooms smelled bad and we had to chase out a cockroach that was staying under Sanne’s futon. And although we kept everything closed, we had to kill about ten mosquitos every night that feasted on our blood.

A day latter we met four woman in a pizza restaurant in Odawara,  a much bigger and fun city. They asked us where we were staying and after answering “Hadano”, they asked us: “Why?!?”. Now we ask ourselves that same question…