Hakone [Part 1]

Our well-worn tour book describes the journey:

Starting out by train from Tokyo, you switch to a small two-car streetcar that zigzags up the mountain, then change to a cable car, then to a smaller ropeway, and you end your trip wth a board ride across Lake Ashi. From Lake Ashi, you can then board a bus bound for Odawara Station where you board the train back to Tokyo.

Sounds whirlwind, right? While it seems like we spent the better part of the weekend “in transit”, it still felt like an adventure.

it was kind of like this

On the zigzag parts, the streetcar conductor would actually hop out of the train and run along these little platforms to the other end, where he’d start driving again.

The train was standing-room-only packed which added to the craziness of it all, but really detracted from the picture taking.

Midway up the mountain we stopped for lunch. This is me, jill and wally (jill and stephen’s houseguest):

The only place open (on a Saturday at noon?) was this little korean place. Which is cool because we’re going to Korea in three days. (more on that later)

Stopping randomly in a little mountain town sounds like a great spot to have a little mountain town adventure, right? We hopped off the train midday to find some lunch and explore a bit. We stumbled on into this really old hotel that has awesome architecture and really cool gardens.

And I met a monkey.

And in true form, Jon fed some fish. If only there were a petting zoo. I’m going through goat withdrawals.

So what’s the deal with peace prevailing on earth? I see this shit everywhere. I mean, i’m peace-lovin and whatnot, but come on.

Okay, okay, after that we hop back on the ziggy mc zaggerton and up on the ropeway to the top of the mountain. But wait! On the way, we stopped at this place… we’ll call it the Hell’s Valley… it was this mountain full of sulphuric smoke and seismic activity.

Okay, so what’s the very coolest about this is that they do this thing called tamago onsen. Tamago means egg. Onsen is a hotbath. So a tamago onsen is an egg hard boiled in the hot springs! omg! and the shell turns black.. and look! here’s Hello Kitty as a tamago onsen!

What’s even awesomer is that the tour book billed this as a 30 minute “nature hike”. hahaha. here’s the nature hike. check it:

AND … stay tuned for part 2.