June 15, 2013
Today we decided to do the recommended circle tour of Hakone
(which is near the base of Mt. Fuji, however it was completely overcast the
entire time we were there, so we never actually saw Mt. Fuji L). The surrounding area
is beautiful though and we still had a fun/very relaxing time. We started by taking a bus down a super,
crazy, winding road to Gora. Ben saw a Skyline go up the road ahead of us and
he was so jealous that he didn’t get to drive a fast car through the twisty
mountain roads; and they were shockingly twisty and the bus driver wasn’t
messing around, he was going as fast through the turns as the bus would allow
(pretty freaking fast).
Whenever we were approaching a particularly aggressive
series of turns, an announcement would come on saying “we are approaching a
meandering part of the road, please take care of yourself and your belongings”.
When we reached Gora, our next leg was on a cable car to Sounzan which went
straight up the mountain. Then we transferred onto a ropeway (gondola) to
Owakudani.
There is a stop at Owakudani where you can get off and
explore the mountain a little. This area is famous for its hot springs, so it
smelled like eggs up there. But it was pretty cool, we could see the steam
coming out of the mountain, and they were boiling eggs in the sulfurous water,
which turns the shell black, so everyone was eating black eggs. Also, because
of all the hot steamy water, it was super humid up there. After walking around
a bit and watching Japanese tourists chow down on black eggs and egg flavoured
ice cream (neither of which appealed to us so we didn’t partake), we got back
on the ropeway which terminated at Togendai-ko on Lake Ashi.
Thus began the next leg of our journey, which was on a
pirate ship across the lake! It was pretty sweet, but also a little weird to be
on a boat that large on a lake with now waves, so it was smooth sailing. From
the lake there is supposed to be a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji, but as I said
earlier it was too cloudy to see. This time of year apparently is the worst and
most days you can’t see it. Ben said he heard winter is the best time, but who
knows. I think that maybe if we had left Tokyo earlier when we were heading to
Nagoya we may have seen it because the skies were pretty clear that day, but we
left at night so we’ll never know.
Our pirate ship left us on the shores of Hakone Machi-ko and
from there we walked to Moto Hakone-ko through an “ancient cedar grove”. I must
say it was pretty underwhelming and nothing compared to some of the ancient
groves we have at home. But it was a nice walk through the woods. It was wet
though (the weather in Hakone was nice during the day but wet at night) and I
was wearing my flip flops, so my feet were wet and gross when we got out of
there. I washed them off in the lake and Ben was pretty certain that I would
fall in (for some reason he thinks I’m accident prone, based only on the fact
that I tend to drop things, usually food onto my clothes…). I didn’t fall in so
all was well. Also, we found another 7-11 that sold pork buns, which Ben had
been searching for over the last few days; he was pretty pumped because this
was his last chance to have a delicious warm pork bun before we head home.
From Moto Hakone-ko we caught a bus down some more crazy
awesome mountain roads to Hakone-Yumoto Station. We wandered through some shops
before catching our final mode of transportation, the local train, back to Gora.
The train was super cute but super slow and, to be honest, a little boring.
There was a family with a small child seated near us and the little girl was
grumpy and fussing a lot. She also kept staring at us so Ben was making faces
at her (which just made her stare more). The scenery from the train was quite
beautiful though, while we missed the cherry blossoms it is now hydrangea
season and the tracks were lined with blooming hydrangeas.
Back in Gora we caught the bus back to our guest house and
relaxed for a while. There was some drama on one of Ben’s car forums, so he was
busy getting caught up on all the latest news while I caught up on my journal
(which I’m glad that I did, but at the same time it can get tedious to write
every day when I’m not used to doing so).
We have eaten a lot of “snack meals” on this trip but we
wanted to make sure we had a real Japanese meal as our last dinner before going
home. The guest house had a binder of all the local restaurant menus so we
could choose a restaurant instead of just wandering around aimlessly like we
did the day before. We chose a restaurant down the road that the guest house
described as “traditional Japanese country cooking”. We got to the restaurant
between 5-5:30pm and were the only ones there (which was fine because there
were ashtrays on the tables and we didn’t want to eat with people smoking at
the next table). I ordered teriyaki chicken and Ben got ginger pork, but meals
came with rice, cabbage salad, miso with tiny mushrooms, Japanese pickles, and
a little bowl of something black that I’m still not sure what it was but it
tasted good.
We also ordered agadashi eggplant, which was a bit of a gamble but
I wanted to try something new. Ben was skeptical when it arrived on our table
but ended up loving it, it was super tasty! However the portions were very
generous and we left there totally stuffed. We also finished our meal at just the
right time, because some people had come into the restaurant and immediately
lit up (it’s so gross, so many people smoke here and I’m just not used to
having to avoid smokers in restaurants).
We had a nice walk home (even though Ben wanted to take the
bus I figured it would be better to walk off some of our dinner), and we just
chilled out and relaxed until our scheduled onsen time, again at 8:30pm.
Afterwards I had seen that I had a few messages from home that the job posting
that I had been waiting for (for months!) had finally come out, so I sent in my
application.
We were pretty tired (and relaxed from the onsen) so we went
to bed around 10:00pm,
