Day 52 (Saturday) was Hakone day.
I visited this place when I came to Japan in 2007. I would have to say it was one of my highlights of that trip and after a return visit, I love it all the same. Such a beautiful place, and so many fun things to do. It's just a shame I had to spend my time there with Mr swine flu :( Ok sorry, no more mentioning of swine flu. I made this trip to Hakone with Katharina and her sister Sophia. There were meant to be others coming with us but they all pulled out for whatever reason. I'm getting used to that sort of crap from people now. We got the train from Shinjuku at 08:01 and arrived at Odawara about an hour and a half later. When we arrived we needed to take one more train to reach Hakone Yumoto where our "hakone loop" would begin. Not knowing which train to get on we jumped on any one which turned out to be the Romance Car. This is not good. That short 10 minute trip costs 870yen each....if we get caught anyway :) Luckily we managed to avoid the ticket collector and escaped at Hakone Yumoto with our 870yen still in our pockets.
The first part of the loop is the Tozan Railway. It's a very slow rickety train that takes you up in to the mountains. Lots of stops while the train changes direction but you do get a great view of the Hakone woodlands.
We took this train most of its route up to the Hakone Open Air Museum for another return visit for me. I first visited this museum with Brooke, Brian, Betsy and the Essential Honshu crew of 2007. Back then it was raining and cloudy and generally not such a great day weather wise. This year, the sun was out and while the surrounding mountains and altitude lowered the temperature, it was generally a pleasant day. It was really enjoyable to see the things again, and to see some of the things I missed the first time around. No climbing on eggs this time, no rain meant multiple children so unless I wanted to kick them off, there would be no yolk stamping this time around. Found a Sky Hole that I didn't see/wasn't there last time around and managed to go through the wrong way :) Played in the maze, took a footbath, tried to get Katharina to eat a floating kumquat (she nearly did it for 1000yen), climbed the pretty tower, slid down the slide and got a wet arse, skimmed the shop, enjoyed. This time around everything was open as it wasn't raining. Some of the kids climbing frames are really dangerous looking here, especially the one that looks like it cooks children O.o Finally, before we left we had a look around the Picasso gallery. I'm not sure if this was there last time but I haven't been in before. It was pretty damn cool to see so many of his works, even if he was a complete nut job. His art is so strange, some of it is amazing, some it just utter turd (I'm thinking of the plates here). Great museum though, I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Hakone, or even Japan.
The next destination of choice was the sulphur pits (Ōwakudani)and the black eggs. Those who were with me last time or have listened to my endless tales of Japan will know that we trekked all the way to the egg hut only to have the "sold out" sign put down in front of us as we arrived :( Not this time though XD Oh yeah! I got my egg! That's an extra 7 years of life for me. Celebrated finally getting an egg by eating egg ice cream. Om nom nom. No Fuji however, too cloudy.
Another cable car back down the other side of the mountain (the omg kid was hilarious) and on the pirate ship. We were on the green one this time around along with a bunch of random pirate figures. Beautiful views across Lake Ashi and I'm pretty sure I saw the Lake Ashi Monster as we were sailing along. I could have spent all day just sailing back and forth across that lake. It's just fab.
Once we arrived at the other side we departed in search of the trick boxes. I'd promised Mr Davies I'd find him a really difficult one for his birthday and under no circumstances was I going to leave Hakone without one....but the shops were not there. Crap! We walked around and I didn't recognised anything there. I was beginning to lose hope and genuinely believed I'd missed the shops on the other side of the lake but ah ha! Some shops! Not the one's I remember but they had boxes and picked up a 35 move piece. The man and woman in the shop laughed at me for buying it but I told them it was a gift (in Japanese of course...so I win my points today Jonna) so they wrapped it up, took my money and sent me on my way with a "がんばれ" (ganbare....good luck).
After this is was time to head home. We needed to catch a bus but weren't sure which one to get so we ended up walking about a shop trying all the free samples. I bought some Ultra Cider which wasn't so great and we made Sophia try jelly fanta. Poor girl. Not long later we found the right bus and began our incredibly long journey home. But after only being on the bus for 10 minutes I notice the shops I was looking for!! I remembered then, we were meant to stay on the boat until the second stop, not the first one. All those funky shops that I was looking for were here all along! Ah well, I got the box I came for so it's no big loss.
An hour of scenic bus ride later were were back at Odawara Station and then back on the train to Shinjuku. Very long day but a heap of fun. I love Hakone. The only thing that spoiled it was my cold. High altitude plus heavy cold = inability to breathe or in many cases hear. That was uncomfortable for most of the day but I didn't let it get me down and still had a great time.
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