Japan 2010

 

We took a few days off to visit Japan again last year. I planned our itinerary around Tokyo as well as Hakone.

(Am having some mixed feeling writing this blog post as Japan faced a powerful tsunami triggered by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake today. Hope you can stay strong and hang in there, Japan)

Waiting for our Narita express train to arrive to go to Tokyo. The plan is for us to travel to Shinjuku, find the Odakyu Sightseeing Service Center, and get the tickets to go to Hakone from there.

After hunting and asking around, we managed to buy ticket from the Odakyu ticketing booth. We decided to ‘upgrade’ the tickets to the Romancecar as it is faster to travel this way. The surcharge is 870 yen and can be done from the nearby vending machine after you purchase the Hakone pass from the counter.

 

After travelling for about 1.5 hours, we finally reached Yumoto (湯本), Hakone.

At the bus stop waiting for our bus to our hotel.

Post trip note: I heard from a friend that you can actually use the luggage delivery service for just a few bucks. This can save you tremendous amount of time and less hassle to lug the luggage onto the bus.

Our hotel in view and the buses plying the narrow route.

Finally our hotel, hotel Tonosawa ichinoyu-HONKAN

The hotel staff wrote the guest names on their board at the entrance. Makes me feel very welcoming :D

The nearby streets where we stayed

To save time, we left our luggage at the hotel and directly went to start our Hakone loop trip to sightsee Hakone.

The bus is packed and we had to stand at the front part of the bus just next to the driver. But the fun thing is you can observe how careful the Japanese drives. The driver drove the narrow and curvy road with ease and maintaining at the speed limit of 40km/h the whole time. Very interesting to watch. lol

Post trip notes: If you can afford the time, do stay here for minimally 2 nights. Especially if this is your first stop upon arrival in Japan. It is definitely way better to start the loop early in the day so that you can take your time to do the loop.

We did the Hakone loop in the clockwise direction and for the first stop, we alighted at the Motohakone stop where the pirate ship is

The timing is perfect. The ship just arrived! :D

Couldn’t help but to think that the design of the ship is a little..erm.. cheesy.. lol..

Nice view from the ship

Motohakone-ko (元箱根港)

Here we go!

Can you spot Mt Fuji? :P

Spotted another ship plying the same route. Erm.. the design is cartoonish as well.. :P We alighted at Togendai (桃源台) after about 40 minutes

From Togendai (桃源台), we took the Hakone Ropeway to reach Owakudani. This stretch is about 20 minutes

This is the magical view of Mt Fuji. After taking in the view of Mt Fuji from the Ropeway, I begin to have new perspective of the mountain and some understanding of why the Japanese have so much respect for it.

As the sun is setting soon, we quickly took a walk up the walking trail leading to where we can see the steam vents and bubbling pools up close. I was planning to buy the black eggs, cooked in the naturally hot water from here but too bad, it was already closed.

Legend is that each egg prolong one’s life by seven years. :P

Steam vents

The hut at the back is where they sell the black eggs

After some struggle, we finally managed to get our hands on these! The black eggs! Luckily my buddy is persistent enough.. lol.. These kept getting sold out!

Took a last shot before we continue on our journey

View from the ropeway from Owakudani –> Sounzan. This takes about 10 minutes

Sounzan –> Gora via Hakone Tozan Cable car. About 10 min

The view from the cable car

Gora -> Hakone Yumoto via Hakone Tozan Train. About 40 min

By this time, we were already exhausted and we dozed off in the train after non stop sightseeing since arriving in Tokyo early in the morning.

Finally we managed to check in to our hotel! Traditional ryokan! My first time staying in a traditional Japanese room

And the best thing about the room.. it comes with our own onsen bathroom with an outdoor view!

Sorry, this photo doesn’t do justice to it :P But you get the idea..right? hehe..

One thing though, they should probably consider upgrading the room. The bathroom curtain and the sliding door in the room are stained.. I wished they look better..

Nice teapot and cups

We were a little worried about the food choice available around Yumoto in the evening as we did not choose the hotel’s dinner option. We bought quite a bit of food earlier in the day as much as we could. See the amount of food we have for dinner! lol..

Rice cracker.. yum yum ~~~ I realised that you can’t go wrong with most Japanese food, most of the time.. :P

Here’s how the black egg looks like with half of it peeled :P It’s YUMMY ~~~!! (or was it because we were starved?? lol.. )

Finally good night for day 1.. Oyasuminasai ~~~