Hakone is a famous oasis at the foot of Mount Fuji near Tokyo.Adrian Lee/The Globe and Mail
In October, still bleary with jet lag, my wife and I wandered down a warren of side streets in Tokyo’s buzzing Shinjuku district in search of coffee. But what we found, too, was a stretch of surprising quiet, interrupted only by the occasional chirping of birds or the rustle of some breeze-tousled leaves or the squeak of a cyclist or the tinny hum of Japan’s sidewalk vending machines. It was as if we were in a small town from a Studio Ghibli movie.
What made this stillness so striking was how suddenly we found ourselves bathed in it. Just 15 minutes before, we were mere specks in Tokyo’s dense madding crowds, caught in the morning rush to the subway under the neon lights of the Kabukicho entertainment district and the selfie-seekers at the Godzilla Head, before having our senses assaulted by a packed Don Quijote, Japan’s beloved discount megastore, where a too-catchy Bruno Mars jingle played on a dystopian loop.
Your imagination will probably conjure scenes of similar urban intensity when you think of Japan. But while the pace in its cities is breakneck – and getting even more so, if the record-setting 36.8 million people who visited in 2024 is any indication – that’s what makes them so great, so alive. So we savoured the moments of solace we stumbled upon, and came to understand that they were as essentially Japanese as the glittery baying of the cities: the quiet that falls just outside the bustling strip of Kyoto’s Nishiki market, or in Shimokitazawa’s alleys in Tokyo, or in so many six-seater ramen shops.
Sculptures such as Carl Milles’s ‘Man and Pegasus,’ line a peaceful garden path at the Hakone Open Air Museum.Adrian Lee/The Globe and Mail
In that context, the promise of Hakone – a famous oasis at the foot of Mount Fuji near Tokyo – feels almost suspicious. It’s such a sharp contrast, this idyllic resort destination seemingly engineered for peace, just a couple hours from the world’s most populous city. Surely, Hakone must be a Disneyfied idea of Japan, a Potemkin place like Juliet’s balcony in Verona or Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin: iconic representations that everyone seems to have forgotten are mere replicas.
On the contrary, though: Hakone is deeply Japanese. People have sought solace in its onsen (mineral hot springs) since the time of the samurai. And during our one-night stay at Gora Hanaougi, a ryokan (traditional inn) on Hakone’s volcanic outskirts, I was able to experience, even more profoundly, that ineffably Japanese sensation I felt in the clashing city streets: the collision of the calm and the clamour, of the soundlessness and the fury, and the understanding that you can’t truly have one without the other.
It starts when you arrive. You could do so in a state of calm – you can glide in on tour buses or the winsomely named Odakyu Romance Car – but we decided to leave busy Kyoto by train before a wildly confident bus hurtled us up a series of mountainside switchbacks, our bulky luggage crammed underfoot. Exiting the bus to a 7-Eleven parking lot, sweaty and harried, felt inauspicious.
But our first stop, the Hakone Open Air Museum, set us right again. A triumph of playful site-specific curation, its highlight is a peaceful garden path lined with sculptures from the likes of Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore. Carl Milles’s Man and Pegasus soaring against the verdant mountains – that’s worth the ticket price alone.
At Gora Hanaougi in Hakone, guests can enjoy traditional kaiseki meals plated on ceramics.Adrian Lee/The Globe and Mail
At Gora Hanaougi, the resort staff embodied Japan’s held value of omotenashi (deep hospitality in daily life). The outdoor onsen were silent but for the spring replenishing the baths; every deep breath of crisp forest air while submerged in the warm water was a balm. Many ryokan provide kaiseki meals – traditional and seasonal multicourse extravagances, plated creatively on beautiful ceramics – and when our hostess brought each glorious course into our private dining area at a deliberate pace, it felt like she slowed down time.
It was all perfect, basically. But earlier in our trip, I’d learned about wabi-sabi: the Japanese philosophy by which perfection is not only an impossible pursuit, imperfection is what makes things beautiful. It means living simply, and accepting that all things are ephemeral. I’ll admit that this is not how I live; I prefer to be in constant motion – pursuing, optimizing, doing. But during those long onsen soaks where I had nothing on me but my thoughts, I could see the pleasure of slowing down, being present and floating above.
The next morning, we left Gora Hanaougi for Tokyo, blissed-out from a kaiseki breakfast and one last soak. But when we just missed our scary switchback bus and had to wait half an hour, then got delayed at the train station by another tourist whose ticket-line fumbling made us miss the optimal train, forcing us to pivot to a roundabout route, all with our luggage in tow on an unseasonably hot day – I did not float above. The peace I’d tried to squirrel away from Hakone burned off quickly. But I see, now, the wabi-sabi of it all: that accepting the imperfections accentuated the beautiful parts just a bit more.
After all, an oasis is only an oasis if it’s surrounded by its desert-sand opposite; otherwise, it’s just a patch of water. So I will remember the serenity in Hakone and the stress that sandwiched it, because somewhere in that imperfect totality is something true.