Hakone

Wednesday, June 26th

From Odawara station, we needed to take a bus to get to Hakone. Amelia noted that the Katakana for “bus” was literally “basu”, (it’s supposed to emulate English pronunciation). The thought of that made me chuckle on and off for days.

The bus ride over was really beautiful, up a gently curving mountainside and alongside a river at times

We stayed at Mount View Hakone (seems we can’t get far from Mountain View, eh?) in which we reserved a traditional Japanese room. We sat on cushions on the floor and had a tea table that was whisked away in the evening to make room for Japanese mattresses (no bedframe, just the bed!). While we were at the hotel, we got to wear Yukatas, which felt really nice to wear!

We all visited the onsens before dinner, which are traditional baths. You strip down, sit down on a stool and shower (no standing allowed), then hop into a hot bath. One of the baths (the outside one) had some sulfuric salts in it for whatever reason (medicinal? hygienic?). Of course Nick, Forest and I were a bit awkward about it at first but we enjoyed soaking in the hot waters. Honestly, the water is arguably too warm for my tastes, we couldn’t stay in for too long.

Dinner was a blessing that night. We reserved dinner at the hotel, and they pulled out all the stops. I’ve never seen so many vegetables served all at once.

Inside some of the closed containers were steaming/roasted vegetables. I think it took me over an hour to eat all the food. I think my stomach/appetite had shrunk from the past week of not eating well, so I took my time and enjoyed myself. We went back to our room and played cards for a couple hours, and slept early that night.

Thursday, June 27th

It was a rainy day in Hakone, which is a shame since the main reason we came here was to see Mount Fuji. This unfortunately wasn’t possible this time around due to the weather. After another convenience store breakfast, we took a bus over to Lake Ashi (Lake Ashinoko), where we decided to take the boat cruise across the lake despite the fog. There wasn’t really anything else to do, so we might as well go!

The lake was very foggy, as expected. But it was still beautiful!

We disembarked at Hakonemachiko and ducked into a coffee shop to escape the rain. We played some codenames on our phone as we waiting for delicious Japanese matcha pancake!

After a short bus ride to Motohakoneko, we walked in the wind and rain over to Hakone shrine.

We all drank from the traditional fountains, where you use the ladles of water to first clean your hands, then drink from your hands. Let’s just say some of us were more graceful than others…

Hugged by dense forest trees, the stairs up to the shrine were shrouded in fog. It made the whole experience feel more spiritual in a way.

The shrine had a straw circle that you could walk through. It seems its meant for couple to walk through in a figure 8 pattern to symbolize long life together. I think for single people it just symbolizes long life.

There was a gate right on the lake’s shore as well!

Afterwards, we went to a soba shop, which was alright but not as good as the stuff in Tokyo. The noodles themselves lacked something. Nick followed up lunch with karage next door.

We went back to our hotel, which required only one confusing bus transfer. We played lots of ping pong, got sweaty, took a hot bath at the onsen, and had another excellent dinner.

Nick carved into a honeydew melon later that night (he was sorely disappointed it wasn’t cantaloupe). At least the head/stem of it fit very satisfyingly on top of our glasses

We realized late at night that our train ride the following morning to Kyoto would be quite the pretty penny, about $120 for the 2-3 hour journey. Bye bye Hakone!