A tea pot that has been warm for four hundred years.

懐かしい · Natsukashii · A longing for something you have never lost

By the time my wife and I reached the Hakone Checkpoint, we had stopped pretending the rain was charming. The old Tokaido road climbs out of there along a cobblestone path under a tunnel of cedars, the kind of trees that have clearly been there longer than the idea of tourism, and somewhere along that stretch, soaked and not talking much, we found Amazake-chaya.

It's a teahouse, thatched roof, dark wood, the kind of place that looks less like it was built and more like it grew there. Inside, a wood fire was going in a sunken hearth in the floor, an irori, the kind of fire that doesn't just heat a room but seems to have been heating this particular room for about four hundred years, because it has. The same family has run this teahouse for thirteen generations. I did the only sensible thing, which was sit as close to that fire as etiquette allowed and drip quietly onto the floor.

There wasn't much to decide. Amazake, a warm, sweet drink made from fermented rice, and mochi, grilled over the coals until the outside went slightly crisp. That was it. That was the menu. It was exactly right.

Eventually we had to leave, because Hakone doesn't stop at one teahouse. Lake Ashinoko was a short way further on, with Mount Fuji doing its occasional thing of actually showing up instead of hiding behind cloud, and the whole area is dotted with onsen towns that make a very good case for staying a few days rather than passing through. We didn't manage all of it that trip. That's normal here, and it's part of the reason we went back.