Friday, March 11, 2011

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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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Finally our hotel, hotel Tonosawa ichinoyu-HONKAN

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

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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.

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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.

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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

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

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

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Nice view from the ship

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Motohakone-ko (元箱根港)

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Here we go!

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Can you spot Mt Fuji? :P

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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

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

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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.

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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

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Steam vents

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

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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!

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Took a last shot before we continue on our journey

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

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

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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.

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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!

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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..

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Nice teapot and cups

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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..

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

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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 ~~~

Japan 2010, Day 2

Good morning! We checked in after dark yesterday and didn’t get the chance to see the view outside. It was almost pitched dark and we could hear very loud water gushing sound.. so zen ~~~~

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And then… I woke up to a fantastic view outside!!

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Awesome colors!

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The view right outside of our window at the side

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View from another corner

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Breakfast included. Actually it is quite nice :P Warm breakfast on a cold morning

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Soup. Nice way to keep warm :D

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Our room name is displayed on the table. Each table are pre-assigned to your room. Meaning no choosing of seats :P

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Breakfast ended with nice cuppa coffee ~~~ ah……… perfect!

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Back to our room. A nice corner to enjoy the view

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So sad that we only stayed one night here. Have to check out today :( Next time should really plan for at least 2 nights.

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After checking out, we deposited our luggage at the hotel to take a stroll around the area since we have about 2 hours to spare before taking the train back to Tokyo

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Nice autumn color in Winter :P

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Another hotel in view. Looks nice! Probably should consider to stay there on the next trip :)

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Autumn leaves on the railing

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Interesting shadow cast by the furniture

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Mini greens. How nice ~~~

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On the way, we found these statues. Happy way to start the day :)

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We passed by a narrow stretch of road towards the central of Yumoto

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Some graffiti in the tunnel

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40km/h. That’s the speed the bus drivers really adhere to.

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I like how the plant grew over the metal pieces. Looks like art.. :)

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Nice views along the way. Very relaxing with the cooling weather

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We chanced upon this sign board and decided to go to Tamadare falls since it is only 8 minutes away :)

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Along the way, we saw this artistic cascading river. It’s like abstract painting!

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I like the red flower against the river as backdrop :)

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We arrived at the one of the fall!

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Natural drinking water. We tried and even filled our bottle with it!

There is a small sign next to it that says ‘Tamadare no taki, Enmei no wakimizu’ (延命の湧き水) which means ‘Tamadare falls, spring water for longevity’

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A bamboo door

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Tamadare no Taki

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Very refreshing to view the fall up close

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On the way back to our hotel, we chanced upon this nice little path. The signed board says that it’s only for their hotel guest. We decided to go explore a little anyway. :P No harm I supposed.. hehe..Anyway, one of the staff spotted us while we were there and is nice enough to let us wander around ^^

After a short walk there, we head back to our hotel, collected our luggage, struggled up the bus and went to take the train back to Tokyo

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We checked in to Toyoko Inn located at Ikebukuro. Nice, clean room as always…

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After taking a short rest, we went out to explore the Ikebukuro surrounding. We are a little puzzled at the long queue outside Auntie Annie’s. I have never seen such crowd back home :P

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Vibrant lighting. A nice stretch of shopping area

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Here’s my late lunch. Not too bad. Initially we were seated inside the restaurant. However, after telling the staff that we were interested to order from the lunch set, the staff politely tell us that we should be seated at the counter seat outside the restaurant.. even though the restaurant at that time was relatively empty. lol.. kinda funny

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Saizeriya. We have one in Singapore as well :)

We decided to window shop at Yodobashi, Japan electronic store . (Actually I prefer to shop at the Yodobashi outlet in Sapporo, Hokkaido instead. It is more spacious and easier to walk and shop there.)

To give you some idea of the building, I shot the left and right view of the front entrance.

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Yodobashi – Left side view

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Yodobashi – Right side view

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After the disappointing and brief window shopping at Yodobashi, we dropped by Mister Donuts for some drinks and donuts. So sinful.. lol

Good night for day 2 ~~~ Oyasuminasai ~~~