Hakone--On Our Own!

On our own in a Japanese city for the first time.  No college buddies, no tour guides, and no known person who can  translate for us what we need said.  The only phrase I remember?  Sumimasen! Eigo wo hanase masu ka?  Yes, sad to say but several hours of the Japanese Rosetta stone ain’t gonna cut it.  So, what better way to show the natives that you at least tried than by to say “So sorry, but you do speak in English” in their native tongue?  There are words that I remember in Japanese, but it helps me so much if they can speak a little English.  And it makes the conversation go faster, because believe you me, they know more English than I do Japanese.

So, Hakone.

More specifically, Motohakone-ko--which is the bus stop we got off of from Ashinoyu.  I’m not really sure what the “ko” means…but just as an FYI to anyone who may travel this route, “Motohakone” and “Motohakone-ko” are two different stops J  Good thing we asked the bus driver (well, as much as we can make ourselves understood with our very limited Japanese) if Motohakone was our stop.

Once we got to Motohakone-ko, we found someone who was able to direct us to the route for the Cedar Avenue, where we walked through woods that reminded James of a miniature version of the redwoods in California.  It was a nice and not so crowded route where we met some owners walking their dogs and encountered stone monuments whose purpose we can’t determine.

From the Cedar Avenue, we were led to a park that had the trail that led to the Hakone Checkpoint.  I’m not going to put a lot of background or history in this blog, and instead just hopefully put a link where you can go find out for yourself what the history behind all the places we visited.  My blog would be more focused on the pictures that we take J

From here, we visited various small shops, most of whom sold those puzzle boxes that I loved so much.  There was a paid part of the checkpoint…I think if you wanted to see some of the demonstrations by the stalls, you had to pay extra.  For the most part, James and I just walked around and took pictures of what we can.

Yes, I took a picture of this stand because of Kitty-chan wearing a kimono

I think James had to kneel down for this picture.

At the end of the trail that started from the Hakone checkpoint, we had to orient ourselves and find the Hakone-Machi stop, where we can catch a boat ride to our next destination, ???  It took us a couple of stops and a few helpful Japanese to figure out where the Hakone-Machi finally is.

When we got there, it was to find a boat that was made to look like a black ship—or so James says.  I don’t really know what a black ship is.  They had life sized figures of British soldiers and mutineers.

Check out that guy pointing something at James ;-)

There were some beautiful views for pictures to be taken during this ride.

More pics of Fuji-sama. If we knew we were going to get these many chances to take a snapshot of Mt. Fuji, we wouldn't have worried so much during the tour.

Well, our stop from this boat was at Togendai (I think, I lost my map!!!), and from here we decided to go to lunch at Ki No Yakata--at least I think that was their name.  All the menu said was "Restaurant Cafe" and I just happen to glance at the window and see that one sign.

I had the Japanese curry, which I remember tasting back in college when my roommate, Kyoko made it.  It's a bit different than the usual Thai or Filipino curry but it still tastes good.  More importantly, it was spicy.  It was accompanied with some sort of salad which did not leave an impression.

James had the spaghetti.  He's been jonesing for what he calls "real" meat, aka not fish, for awhile now as well as pasta so it was the perfect choice for him.  He claims that it was not as good as the spaghetti he made at home :P

After the meal, we decided to walk of the calories (ok, not by much) by going towards the entrance to the Hakone ropeway.  Yes, it is the same as the disembarkation of the cruise boat.  On our way there, we were greeted by some stray cats who seem to know of James's antipathy towards them due to his allergies ;)

Despite being a National holiday, the Hakone Ropeway queue moved pretty efficiently and they didn't pack us in like sardines the way they did at the other ropeway from the tour.

We took the ropeway to head towards Owakudani, a valley known for its sulfur vents.  And yeah, you can definitely smell it the moment we got there.

This is a view from where we got off at the ropeway

We climbed up to the mountain as far as they would let us.  Here are some pictures of the pools of water with sulfur.

At the very top, we did what everyone did and bought some hard boiled eggs which were boiled using these sulfurous water.  It is apparently traditional (or a marketing gimmick) to eat these eggs in Owakudani and so we did as the natives did :)

After stuffing ourselves with eggs (and if you see the pictures, there are several other tables with just as much black egg shells), we decided to take the opportunity to relax and take some pics.  The hike to the  top was brutal--especially in heeled boots!

James squishing Fuji-sama

James...contemplating on Mt. Doom.

After the pictures were taken, we decided it was time to venture down.  This time, gravity was with us :)  So the descent was much faster than the climb up :P

To celebrate, James found himself his very own "precious."

James and his deep fried baked potato ("precious")

Big stick of butter that accompanied the baked potato...

Since James found his "precious," it was only appropriate that I took pictures with mine--Kitty-chan.

Kitty-chan at the shop where James found his precious.  Kitty-chan is my precious.

Kitty-chan in a sulfuric egg suit.  Kawaii!!

Okay, so we took a few more shots of Mt. Fuji before finally leaving.

Okay, so we took a lot of pics before finally going back to the Hakone Ropeway and heading towards Souzan, to catch a cable car to Gora.  Here are the views of Owakudani from that ropeway ride.

And here is a view of James once we caught the cable car to go to Gora station.  

From Gora station, we caught a local train to head to the Yumoto-Hakone station, where we had asked Yunohana hotel to deliver our heavy backpacks so that it didn't interfere with our traipsing around Hakone.  And lucky we did because I don't think we would have made it up the side of the mountain from that valley in Owakudani with our backpacks.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our public transportation going towards the Yumoto-Hakone station.

As you can see, James was not quite so thrilled to have not snagged a seated position, especially after all that walking we did.

Here is a pictures of a shrine we passed through during the train ride to Yumoto-Hakone station.

I think we were technically supposed to catch a bus from the Yumoto-Hakone (Y-H) station towards the Odawara station, where we had tickets to the Shinkansen bullet train.  However, after picking up our backpacks from the Y-H station, we saw a train that said "Odawara."  Since we were still at the station...we caught the train.  Not really sure that our Hakone free pass covered this transpo, but we figured it might be the quicker route to Odawara.  The bus we rode at the very beginning made a LOT of stops.  So, because we caught this train...we really don't have any pictures from the Y-H station as we were in a bit of a hurry.

In Odawara station, we made our way towards the Shinkansen platform.  Here is a picture of our ticket.  As you can see, our ride number is "666."

Our ticket to ride the bullet train, the Kodama Shinkansen.

And here are James and me at the end of the day inside the bullet train.

Yeah, we were tired.  But wow!  That bullet train took less than an hour to get back to Tokyo.  Just as a reminder, it took us about three hours by bus to get to Hakone :)

And so, we arrive back to Tokyo for the last leg of our Japan trip....