Crystals, Black Eggs, Sulphur, and a Crater Lake

No, these are not from a sci-fi movie or a mystic tale; they are all things you can see around Hakone.

There are quite a few museums in Hakone including a museum for the Little Prince (the little kid who lived on his own small planet with a flower he kept watering) recreating the streets of Paris during the lifetime of the author of the story, an outdoor sculpture museum featuring sculptures based on designs by Picasso and even a hotspring museum where one can sample different kinds of hotsprings. I went to the Venetian Glass museum which is home to very beautiful works of glass as well as jewellery. The museum itself is very pretty - designed as a big Italian mansion complete with its own ponds, a beautiful garden, and lots of sculptures. I also tried out its restaurant which has Italian dishes. I recommend the "Fruit Tea" which is made from real fruit soaked in tea and brought to the table in a glass pot filled with fruits. There is also live music from an Italian band. I was surprised to see that Japanese visitors to the restaurant actually took pictures with the singer...

In order to get to the "Black Eggs", or 黒たまご, one needs to take the ropeway up onto the top of the volcano. This meant taking first the cable car from Gora to Souunzan（早雲山） and then the ropeway from Soounzan to Oowakudani （大涌谷）. The view is amazing as the ropeway makes its way to the top of the mountain. After it goes above "the hump", suddenly the trees make way for a much more barren looking terrain and the smell of sulphur. This is the source of the hotsprings with smoke rising from the fire burning deep underground. The pipes carry the hot water down the mountain but there is more up here than just a pretty view.

On top of the mountain, over 1000 meters high from the sea level, a short walk from the Oowakudani station is the souvenir store which sells world famous "Black Eggs". These are eggs cooked in the minral rich water which turns them solid black. The legend is that eating one egg would increase one's lifespan by seven years! Beware if you are not too big on eggs though. They taste just like normal eggs and the smallest portion you can get is 6 eggs for 500 yen. I ended up eating three which was actually great given that I had to skip lunch. Sometimes the top of the mountain can be very cloudy cutting the visibility down to no more than a hundred meters. The store also sells other "black" souvenirs such as manjou with a black "skin". Almost everyone makes a stop at this station even though it is possible to just switch to the final ropeway connection directly if just going to Lake Ashi.

The ropeway continues on in the opposite way from Gora down to a beautiful crater lake called "Lake Ashi" or 芦ノ湖. The view of the lake with the ships is mindblowing from the ropeway. There is a "Pirate Ship" that takes visitors from the last stop of the ropeway, Tougendai　（桃源台）. The tickets for the ship and the boarding point are connected to the station. I got the "Hakone Freepass" which lets one board any of the trains and even the ship free so I did not have to get a ticket though for the "first class seats" one can buy an upgrade for a few hundred yen if desired. The ship goes through the lake coming to stop at the other end. From here on it was time to get back to Hakone Yumoto for the train to get back. Fortunately Free pass also covers the bus from the port to Hakone Yumoto which takes about only a half hour.

I thoroughly recommend Hakone to anyone living in or around the area including Tokyo. It may be slightly expensive but it is definitely worth it.

Snow, Moon, and Flowers in Gora

I stayed at a very nice hotel close to the Gora Station named Setsugetsuka（雪月花 - literally "Snow, Moon, and Flowers"） which truly deserves its name. Situated on a small hill close to the station, you realize that you are entering a very traditional hotel when you enter the garden and are greeted with an entrance and lobby designed with very Japanese overtones with the hotel staff all dressed in kimonos/yukatas. It is at the lobby that you learn that you can indeed choose a yukata yourself for free that you can wear while you stay at the hotel. I strongly recommend doing this - yukatas are so comfortable even if a little hard to take long steps in ;)

The room design manages to fuse together traditional with the newest technology. From the beds to tatami floor it's a clearly Japanese design. There is even space and equipment for a traditional tea ceremony. However, the room squeezes in a nicely sized LCD which can accept SD cards for viewing digital camera pictures, a digital A/C unit mounted to the ceiling so that it is completely out of the way, heated toilet seats, and a 100 MBit internet connection. The food was very traditional (unlimited sushi and tempura for dinner, grilled salmon for breakfast).

Of course the hotel is famous for hot springs more than anything else and there are both private and public hot springs. The public ones allow quite a few number of people to make use of them at the same time though male and female public baths are seperate. The private hot springs are smaller - there are three of them, all with different designs. The use of the private springs are on a first come first serve basis so one needs to watch a special board listing their availability that is visible from all rooms' balconies. The hot springs is... hot... I got a chance to try one of the three private hot springs and I was completely red after staying in the water for 15 minutes or so. I could not help but think though that it must be an awesome experience during snowing in winter.

There is so much more to say about the hotel but I think this is enough to give you an idea ;) Tomorrow, onto other things to do at Hakone...

Travelling to Hakone（箱根） and then Gora（強羅）, from Tokyo

Hakone is a popular destination for both domestic and international tourists. During local holidays such as the Golden Week it is extremely hard to find vacancy in hotels or transportation short of driving there on one's own - it's a good thing I managed to find both but ideally you would want to make a reservation at least a month in advance. I used Odakyu Travel （小田急トラベル） for booking both the hotel and the train trip but I get ahead of myself. Let's get back to the actual travel...

The hotel I stayed in was in Gora, one of the "hot spring centers" which is about 500 meters above sea level. Going up the mountain is possible using the Hakone Tozan Railway, Japan's only mountain railway. The train follows an interesting path, going back and forth as it ascends the mountain and earning it its name - "switchback". The trip up the mountain takes less than an hour and Gora is the final stop. As there is only one line serving the stops on the mountain the train is almost always full to capacity. The first stop of the line is Hakone-Yumoto （箱根湯本） which is where I boarded the train. Of course this meant getting to Hakone-Yumoto first.

Odakyu has a regular Semi-Express service called "Romance Car" （ロマンスカー） which runs between Shinjuku and Hakone-Yumoto covering the distance in about an hour and a half. There are a few different types of trains used ranging from relatively old (called EXE which literally stands for "Excellent Express") to put in service less than a few years ago (called VSE). All trains have reserved seats, a bar, menus to order food from, and some like the VSE also offer a really nice view as the train is controlled from the "second floor" meaning there is a huge window in the first and the last car to watch the outside.

Waking up around 6:30 am I was in Gora around 10:30 am which is not so bad when one considers how radically different the two locations are - from tight, crowded streets of Tokyo to open mountains. Tomorrow, onto describing Gora and the hotel (which I do a disservice by just calling it a hotel - it was more like an experience ;) I will give a hint - think Kimonos).

Golden Week trip to Hakone （箱根）

I just came back from a two day trip to Hakone and I am extremely tired from all the travelling. Even though I spent most of the day Saturday in hot springs relaxing, I spent the day today travelling around Hakone using the Hakone Ropeway, Tozan Cable Car and even a ship on the crater lake Ashi （芦ノ湖）. I know this will be somewhat of a teaser but I am way too tired to do the trip justice if I write about it now. Instead I will just paste one of the pictures I took today and I promise tomorrow I will start writing about the trip itself and not skimp on the details ;)

Golden Week is almost upon us...

There are flowers everywhere, the sun started to shine more often than before and the temperatures are lingering between 15 and 20 degrees Celcius. Yup, it's official - Spring is well on its way.

Golden Week, which takes place in the first week of May, is a series of consecutive one day long public holidays in Japan. For "lucky" years the first day of the 4 day long series occurs on a Monday making for a 9 day holiday (with pretty much everyone taking the Friday off either as a paid or unpaid day off). Unfortunately this year the first day falls on the worst possible day - a Saturday, cutting the holiday to only two days (Monday and Tuesday).

For me May is going to be a balancing act - a mixture of holidays and deadlines. I guess I will take it one step at a time... First target - Hakone （箱根）for the Golden Week (next weekend).