Today we’re touring the Mount Hakone and Lake Ashi, we’re also hoping for a glimpse of Mount Fuji. Fingers crossed!
We’re awake by 8am and have breakfast in the hotel cafe. The options are an almost western style breakfast or a small selection of lunch dishes. I order the Japanese style spaghetti which comes with seaweed and a poached egg on top. It’s not what I would usually call breakfast but I’m still committed to eating Japanese food at every meal!
After breakfast, we walk the short distance to the Hakone train station and wait for our guide. We’re there for 9:45 as prescribed but he turns up just a couple of minutes before ten and we’re left wondering if he will turn up.
After the introductions, we get started, and the guide leads the way through the ticket barriers after scanning his card, assuming that we will follow. We don’t have tickets or have our phones setup so we’re left stranded on the other side. After a quick chat to the station attendant the guide comes back and helps us to buy the right tickets, and off we go.
Our guide, Yuri, is from California originally and moved to Japan two years ago with his Japanese wife. He’s very friendly and we enjoy chatting to him throughout the day.
On the train to our first stop, Yuri helps us to get IC cards setup on our phones so that we don’t have to keep buying tickets with cash at every station. It’s a very simple process and all built into Apple Wallet, easy when you know how!
On arriving in our first stop, Gori, we switch to a funicular which takes us to the “ropeway” aka cable car, which will take us to the top of Mount Hakone.
In the cable car station we notice advertisements for the Bernese mountain express and for Switzerland - the whole setup does feel very Swiss.
After a short cable car ride over the trees and sulphur vents we reach Owakudani. On leaving the cable car, someone calls out to Alex and we just happen to be on the same car as Rhys, a boy in Alex’s year from school! What a small world.
Owakudani famously sells black boiled eggs which have been cooked in the hot springs. There’s a whole building dedicated to it and everyone is excited to try them.
We buy four from the counter and go outside to eat them. It’s just the shells which are black, the inside is like a regular boiled egg, just with a subtle extra taste. Bella is not wild about boiled eggs, so we give hers to Yuri who’s happy to join in.
We then take another cable car over the trees, down to lake Ashi. The trees and the lake below, look just like Switzerland! The cable car was stifling since there was no aircon and the fans were not working.
Upon arriving at the lakeside we stopped for a quick lunch at the lakeside restaurant before boarding the pirate ship to take the tour of the lake. Apparently the only reason the tour company has pirate ships is because when they were setting up, they’d gone on a trip to Disneyland and were inspired! It’s a fun way to enjoy the lake though.
The lake is the result of a very large volcano which erupted millions of years ago, creating a crater which filled with water. The water itself is very clean and clear and the lake is lined with forest, it’s all very beautiful. There’s very few buildings, just a resort hotel halfway down the lake, the rest is unspoilt.
Unfortunately it is cloudy today so we’re unable to see Mount Fuji, which is a shame.
Nobody is swimming, which seems very strange to us, since it’s a hot day and the water looks very inviting, but apparently fresh water swimming is not a popular thing in Japan.
On arriving at the other end of the lake we took a short walk to the Hakone temple, which is famous due to a visiting samurai who then went on to win a great battle.
Yuri explains the ritual to prey and we line up to have a go. We are supposed to throw money in, bow, clap twice and then bow again. We all line up together and each of us throws a few coins in an unsynchronised fashion and we then perform various combinations of clapping and bowing, it is a complete disaster, and we all burst out laughing which clearly isn’t appropriate for the tone of the establishment. Thankfully we are the only people nearby so it goes unnoticed apart from Yuri who’s having a great time watching the show!
The temple was the final stop on the tour, and we walk back to the boat terminal where we take the bus back to Hakone town. It’s our first opportunity to use our new IC cards for travel and they work without a hitch, so much easier!
Mount Hakone was really beautiful, and it would have been amazing to be able to spend a few days hiking in the area. Next time!
On returning to Hakone, we say our goodbyes to Yuri and go for a walk in the forest beside the river, it’s very steep, hot and humid and when we’ve finished we’re feeling rather thirsty.
The kids go back to the hotel, while Diana and I go and hunt for a cold thirst quenching beer. Clearly drinking beer before evening time is not the done thing around here as the only places open do not serve beer, they’re all cafes for tea and sweets. We settle on buying two cans of Asari from the local convenience store and went back to our hotel to enjoy it in our lovely room.
After showers, a quick nap and a change we went in search of dinner. Today we have the same problem as yesterday but in reverse, all the restaurants which were open yesterday are closed, including the pizza place with the big queue the girls had their eye on yesterday. We decide to try the local Japanese curry restaurant which is basic but highly reviewed on Google Maps.
Alex orders the deep-fried steak, which Yuri had told us about, I ordered the chicken and pork cutlets, and the girls ordered chicken curry. The curries all came in sizzling skillets and we washed it down with cold sake. Delicious and the whole meal costs less than yesterday’s main course for 1 person!
After we’d finished our meal we ordered another round of drinks and the place had started to empty out, which seemed a little strange. It turned out that they had closed at 7:30pm and we were keeping them open! Early diners, the Japanese! Once we realised we quickly finished up and paid the bill, apologising and leaving a tip since they had a tip jar!
It’s still quite early, so we walk back up to the waterfall near our hotel, to find it closed, and then to the convenience store to buy some more sake. I can’t figure out which bottle is sake and Google Translate doesn’t seem to think anything is. Diana asks the girl behind the counter, who points us to the whole shelf, so we’re none the wiser. We pick a nice looking bottle and the check out girl very proudly practices her English with us.
It turns out we’d bought plum wine which was tasty, by very sweet! We sat on the floor in our room in our yakatas, drinking plum wine and listening to Japanese relaxation music before bed.
Another exciting day, and we’re off to Kyoto tomorrow!