Days 18-19 - Hakone - Part 1

 

This Hakone post will be split into two parts as I took loads of photos and we crammed as much as we could into the two days that we were there. The photos were taken mainly on the first day as it poured with rain on the second day and we spent much of the second day indoors, which doesn't bode well for photo taking. This one will focus on the trip up to Hakone and the ryokan we stayed in and the food...oh so much food served at the ryokan...

To get to Hakone, we took the shinkansen from Shinagawa station to Odawara, a trip that lasted about 30mins. At Odawara, I highly recommended that you get a Hakone Free Pass, which gives you free access on the Tozan line trains (which you need to use to actually get to Hakone), the cablecars, ropeways and selected buses in the area. We got a 2 day pass from Odawara station for 4000 yen each. It is very easy to get it at the station, it will be the area that has loads of tourists crowded around. there are also English speaking guides to help you with the process.  Once we got the pass, we hopped on the the train up to Hakone.

The  main street of Hakone has big fish statues too...

We wanted to experience a full ryokan stay with the dinner and breakfast. We chose Hotel Senkei for this, a short 15 minute walk from Hakone-Yumoto station.

That's hotel Senkei with the brown facade. On the right is a river and hubby was busy watching a fisherman.

I wonder if he was fly fishing, such a long rod!

Looks like he caught something.

When we checked in, this was our room.

It was a nice and large room with a balcony view over the courtyard. Unfortunately, during the day, we could hear construction work on the hotel next door. You can just see the crane in this photo.  Thankfully, it was all quiet at night.  In the room, a maid came in to show us around the room and to make sure that our yukata fit us. They even provided tabi socks (which I took home. I mean, who would want to wear socks that someone else wore?)

Some welcome sweets that we had with tea. They provided some really nice green tea at this place. No instant stuff here, real leaves in a teapot.

Hakone is known for hotsprings, you even pay a hotspring tax on your hotel bill! Hotel Senkei has an outdoor pool and an indoor one. The outdoor pool has a schedule for females and males. The indoor pool is divided into two.  But what I thought was great, is that each room has an ensuite bath and hotspring water is piped up to each room too! So you have a choice of indoor, outdoor and ensuite.

Of course, I had to try both indoor and outdoor.  My first stop was the outdoor.

When you go to public baths, you are always elated when there is no one else there to see you in the nude. I tend to do a slipper check, no slippers out front means no one else inside. The outside bath didn't provide any shampoo or soap in the washing area, so I just rinsed myself and hopped in. The water was hot, but not too hot.
 
 By the time I got back, the maid was there asking what time we wanted dinner. 7pm was chosen and when it came around, the maid was back, with a helper. This very strong helper brought in loads of trays. I could see why when the maid started laying out the dishes.  We were told to sit at the balcony and wait.

Our balcony looked into the courtyard. The building directly across from us housed the indoor baths. Women on the left, men on the right.

Seemed simple at first what she laid out...then the dishes came....

 

So it didn't look too bad at first, some sashimi, pickled vegies, followed by...

Prawn and simmered daikon, followed by....

Shabu shabu, where you throw all the meat and veg into the pot of boiling water. Actually, we got a bit confused here. The maid told us to wait for the fire. So we waited and didn't do anything with our meat. It wasn't until she came in (with another course) that she exclaimed "aaah...soon no more fire!". It turns out that we were supposed to wait for the fire to start boiling the water before we put the meat in. We'll remember that for next time.

This is what my shabu shabu looked like. Anyway, this was followed by...

 Some tempura. You can add the amount of salt you want to your tempura. I think this one was wasabi flavoured salt. I have no idea what that pink thing was, but I ate it.  This was also followed by...

A clear broth with mushroom, tofu and noodles.  If that wasn't enough, we each had a pot of rice to go with everything. It wasn't just plain rice though.

It was yummy flavoured rice!

The maid judges the time well and when we were about to pass out from so much food, she (and her helper) came in to clear the dishes. Again, we were told to sit at the balcony and we were served with some dessert. Pineapple chunks and wagashi.

Sweet, with some sort of bean paste inside.

Once cleared, the helper pushed the table to one side and brought all the bedding out of a cupboard. Then he hauled all the trays of dishes away. The maid also bid us goodnight, but first requested a time when she should serve breakfast! I think we tried to make it as late as possible, to give us time to digest dinner.

Giraffeys got first dibs on the bed. Food coma induced sleep came quickly.

The next morning, I rose really early as I wanted the indoor public bath all to myself. So at 6 or 6:30 (I can't remember, it was the time that it opened) I was in my yukata and slippers flip flopping my way down to the bath. Again, so elated to have the place to myself. Also allows me to take a pic!

They had some weird horse brand (horse oil) shampoo and conditioner. Anyway, raced through that shower and into the pool to relax. It was warmer than the outdoor pool, but not by much.  You know when it is time to go when other people start arriving.

This is posted in each room and at each of the baths. I'm pretty sure that it shows the salts present in the spring water and at what concentration.

Anyway, bath done, time for brekky. After an "Ohayo", the maid (and the helper) bundled the bedding back into the cupboard and brought the table forward again.

I couldn't believe this was for breakfast....

Fishcake and little whitebait followed by the main...

She called this an "onsen egg". It was a soft boiled egg with a bit of shoyu or something like that. We were told to add the side dishes to the egg and mix. So we did. The side dishes consisted of spring onions, a bit of grated yam I think, a bit of tofu and some minced fish. But the WORST thing was that dish in the bottom right. IT WAS NATTO!

This is what it looked like mixed.  Didn't look great and the addition of natto didn't make it any easier to eat. I reckon if I didn't add in the natto, the dish would have been great, but that slimy natto and and smelly sock after taste meant that I couldn't finish this.  Luckily there were MORE things to eat.

A tomato in some sort of jelly, pickled veg. The dish on the top left was actually yoghurt, didn't really go with any of the other stuff.  And in the dish on the bottom right...

Chawan mushi, a savoury egg custard. But wait, there was more!

Miso soup with some veggies aaaannnd...

A whole fish! Of course, you get rice to eat with the fish. So full by the end. I don't think I could do this two nights in a row, one night is enough. For Hakone, you should be able to see all the major sights in one day. We basically had 1.5 days and one night as we didn't have to catch our train out till the afternoon.

The hotel staff were really nice. Not great with English, but they get the message across. On the day we checked out, we left our bags at the front desk to pick up later. It was pouring with rain and they lent us umbrellas to take for the day.

Would I stay here again? Probably, but I wouldn't do the whole dinner and breakfast, it was just too much! I would probably do just the dinner or just the breakfast. If I just wanted to explore the Hakone area, I would probably just stay in a normal hotel. One of the reasons why I chose Hakone to do the whole ryokan experience was that I read that not many places are open in the evening, so it might be hard to get dinner. Well we did pass a noodle restaurant walking from the station to the hotel. Plus if you continue walking up the road past the hotel (and past many yukata clad couples strolling around), you will come across a massive hotel at the end. I'm sure they would have a dine in restaurant for dinner.

All in all, it was an enjoyable experience (except the natto for breakfast!). Undoubtedly it is expensive (we paid over $400 for one night), but why come to Japan and not experience this at least once?

I hope you enjoyed this, the next and hopefully final Japan post will be on what we did in Hakone. I really like Hakone and I would love to explore the Mount Fuji area a bit more.  Thanks for reading!