To get to Hakone, we first bought Hakone Free Passes, which offers unlimited access to most forms of transportation to and in the Hakone area at a fixed and discounted price, then took a train to Odawara, switched trains, took a train up into the mountains to Gora, and then took a cable car up to our hotel's stop. We had originally thought to take the cable car to the ropeway and find out if we could see the sun setting behind Fuji that night, but they close the ropeway at 4PM so that is impossible and we headed right to the hotel.
We'd picked a less-expensive ryokan but it still pretty nice, and it was quite close to the cable car stop as well. The point was to introduce the sisters to the traditional Japanese hot spring hotel experience without being too rough about it, so the hotel was a little more foreigner-friendly than some and they even had a vegetarian dinner option for our vegetarian guest.
I requested and we got a Japanese-style room.
Ana got them all in their yukata and I took a whole bunch of pictures to make sure we had some good ones, before she lead them off to experience the hot springs and being naked in front of strangers. I went to the men's side afterward and was momentarily convinced I had entered the wrong facility as another guest had his two very young daughters in the bathing area with him and one ran by naked before stopping to inspect the foreigner, also naked. I was immensely relieved to find out I had not misread the sign and I was clearly more shaken than her.
The reviews for the ryokan had emphasized the excellence of the food, but as the English-language ones were being written by foreigners, most of whom had little experience with Japanese food, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. As formal Japanese dinners go, I thought it was pretty good. There have been two posts in the recent past doing dish-by-dish coverage of such dinners so I'm going to skip it this time, though the pictures of all the courses are all available on Flickr.
The main dish was shabu shabu, or basically cook-your-own-stew. After dinner we headed back to the room and they watched movies on Ana's laptop while I ignored their regrettable cinematic selections and played games on my own laptop.
Breakfast was quite Japanese, which was expected, but I had never encountered this dish before and found its inclusion in a breakfast menu so arresting that I wish to share it here. Note that the small white pieces are not noodles or shredded cabbage, but very small fish. The paste is daikon, and we were instructed to mix soy sauce in to create a semi-liquid mixture before consuming it. I had to try it - tasted like soy sauce. I don't think anyone else bothered with this one.
The roasted fish was freshly grilled and therefore warm instead of cold. I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of fresh and warm roasted fish instead of cold in a Japanese breakfast, and it was a large improvement.
I bribed one of Ana's sisters with my strawberry to try the fish.
It really wasn't that bad - it was the for breakfast part that brought on the disgust, but I got enough drama on camera to justify the expenditure of the strawberry, and she had a real Japanese experience as roasted fish for breakfast is par for the course.
The weather was looking outstanding, so we had high hopes for the views when getting back on the cable car.
From the cable car we got on the ropeway, which is more like a ski-lift gondola than anything else.
Started getting pretty good views almost immediately. It should be mentioned that of the four people / groups we've sent to Hakone, none have had good weather. Looks like we saved that for ourselves.
Even Fuji was mostly clear for us.
The ropeway has a stop in an area that is still venting fumes from a volcanic eruption 3000 years ago - we disembarked to investigate.
The warning sign uses three exclamation points.
Fairly impressive quantities of volcanic gas were in evidence. We stayed on the paths.
One of Ana's sisters employed unique photographic postures trying to get Ana and I into frame with some of the scenery behind us.
A normal person might think, sulfuric water boiling with all kinds of questionable substances - better stay away. However, the Japanese set up a stand selling eggs cooked in the water, known in English as Black Eggs.
For obvious reasons. We didn't buy any, I just grabbed a picture when someone else held theirs up for their group's camera.
Re-embarking on the ropeway, we got more views of Fuji and the Hakone region.
The leg of the trip beyond the ropeway can only be accomplished by pirate ship, it would seem.
The pirate ship moved pretty fast for not having the sails up, and there was some decent scenery on the sides of the lake.
The other end of the lake would be our last really good chance to take pictures of Fuji, so we loitered a while and I messed around with the camera settings. We also checked out a preserved section of the old Tokaido Highway (dating back 400+ years) but unfortunately they built the new highway right next to it so it wasn't very atmospheric.
Looking carefully, you can see some of the trails zig-zagging up it.
After that, we took a bus to a train to Odawara, and had waffles for lunch.
After waffles, we walked to Odawara Castle, which is only a few minutes from their train station. Odawara castle was fairly well restored and most of the moats had water in them, so the sisters saw a pretty good example of a Japanese castle. As is pretty common, the interior is now a museum so we went in to inspect their cultural artifacts. I found it amusing that the most famous things about Odawara Castle were almost all to do with the fact that the local ruling family, who built it, totally got their butts kicked by the guy they built the castle to defend against.
Nice views from the top of the keep, too.
After the castle I dragged them all to Helmsdale because I might not get a chance to go again, and we ate the excellent fish and chips (the non-vegetarian sister commented "This is how fish was meant to be eaten") and they had hard cider and I had whiskey. Ana won at cards. Was a long day, but we had a lot of fun and great luck with the weather. Ana will be blogging the rest of the sister's trip, so there should be another entry or few entries soon.
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