Days 19 - 20 - Hakone - Part 2

The last post of our Japan tour is up. Hot on the heels of hubby heading off to Japan for business purposes (I'm so jealous) but there might be an opportunity for me to head over there for business too...(fingers crossed, but what to do with our chickens?!?!)

So this post focuses on the main things that people do when they come to Hakone. This is the general route that we took. Train from Hakone-Yumoto (where we were staying) > Gora, where we changed to a cable car>Souzan, where we changed to the ropeway>Owakudani for the eggs>Togendai-ko for the pirate ship>Hakone-machi then a bus back to Hakone-Yumoto.


Let's kick off with the train. Expect a nice slow train that rattles along the windy track. It has several "switchbacks" where the track has such as tight turn that it can't complete it stopping, the driver getting out and walking to the other end of the train so that it runs "backwards". The scenery is pretty and there is an entertaining sign on board.

Once you get to Gora, which is pretty much a place for accommodation and a few shops. It is also where you get off the train and get onto the cable car. This cable car is a train pulled by a cable, hence the name.

It's pretty steep going all the way and there are small stop points along the way, which I think are for people who have accommodation in that area.

By the way, all this transportation is included in the Hakone Free pass, which you get in Odawara.
The cable car brings you up to Souzan and we got onto a ropeway car. We were lucky, there were only 4 other people in our car so we all got a good view.

It's a slow and quite silent ride. Again, lucky that we had Japanese tourist on board. Don't get me started on Chinese tourists >.<

The ropeway car climbs higher and higher until you reach this crest. When we went over this crest, there was a collective "oooohh!" from everyone in the car! Because we saw this:

 It opens up to a massive valley and it is the location of Owakudani also known as the "Great Boiling Valley".  It is an active volcanic valley where they mine it for sulphur.

The yellow sulphur pits/mine sites can be clearly seen. Owakudani is a very touristy site, with a rest centre, souvenir shop and several restaurants.

It's also the place where you can buy black eggs. 5 eggs for 500 yen. Of course we had to try them.
Legend has it that eating the eggs will extend your life by 7 years. Although you are only supposed to eat two of them, eating too many negates the effect! So hubby and I had two each and split the 3rd.

What we were given. The bag was warm and they supposedly only sell eggs boiled that day.

Black eggs are normal chicken eggs that are boiled in the hot spring waters. It must be the high sulphur content in the water that reacts with the shell and causes the shell to turn black. Only the egg shells turn black. The inside is your normal egg colour.

The yolks were quite yellow, looks like the chickens were fed well.

The taste? Tasted like a normal egg, didn't need any salt. Might have absorbed enough minerals from the water to make it slightly tastier than normal. I can't say that for a fact until I have one of my chicken eggs tasted side by side though!

Around Owakudani you can take a walk to look at where they boil the eggs. The path is rather uneven and there are stairs involved, but not particularly steep. They do have warning signs out too and there is a slight sulphur smell around the area.

Steep-ish stairs, but not really that bad.

 Some views along the path

There are small hot streams along the path, some are hot and some cool. This is the main pool where they boil the eggs. The man there is lifting the lid on the boiler.

Out comes the basket of eggs. So it's pretty hot in there.

Some signs explaining the vapours. It wasn't that smelly. More likely to be smelly back at the hotel room from people who have eaten the eggs so sulphur smelling farts!

  
Another pool that we passed. There was no access to it, but it looked like a nice hotspring! No steam coming off from it, so not that hot?

In the pic above you can see in the background the main rest area of Owakudani. So it is a fair distance to walk from the rest area to the active valley area, but for us, it didn't take that long.

The path culminates in a Mount Fuji viewing area. Can you see Mount Fuji in this photo?

 
Fuji-san is famous for being very shy, especially during the hotter months where there is a haze hanging around. It was no different for us, Fuji-san could only be partially seen, hiding behind a veil of mist.

My photoshopped rendition to see the top a bit better.

This was basically it for Owakudani. We headed back to the rest area to catch the next ropeway car down. On the way back, we passed this sign. I did a double take. Was that a rabbit doing the digging? and wait, is it smoking?

Before we got on the ropeway, we got some Mount Fuji lemonade, blue and red.

They both taste exactly the same. I love the design of the labels though

Hello Kitty gets the kura-tamago treatment. Kura=black, tamago=egg

The rest of the ropeway was rather uneventful and at the bottom we boarded the famous pirate ship (also included in the Hakone freepass).

Again, you are supposed to be able to see Fuji-san from the trip down the lake. Nope, he was shy today. We actually did this trip twice as we came down the next day to see the Checkpoint museum (coming up next) but it rained heavily that day and on that day, we didn't hang around on deck.

At Hakone-machi, there isn't much. Most people will take a walk to see the shrine along the lake coast, or walk through the cedar forest. The first day, it was getting late and we had to be back in time for our dinner at the ryokan, so we took the bus straight back to our hotel after the pirate ship.

The next day poured with rain and that struck out any walks along the lake. We did go and visit the Checkpoint museum.

This place was where travelers would get their papers checked and a means to control traffic entering/leaving the area. It was rebuilt to its original form and includes a small jail (really small, you have to crouch in there). Anyway, I was hoping it was a bit more weather proof. Nope. 500 yen for this.

Yup, it was wet.

In the buildings there are a few creepy statues and scenarios, but all in Japanese. Interesting, but really dampened by the weather.

There is also yet another Fuji-san lookout at the top of the hill above the checkpoint. It's a steep set of stairs in the rain and you should be able to see Fuji-san peeking out from the mountain.

Instead I saw this

No surprise really...

There is a small, under cover museum further down from the checkpoint, but no photographs were allowed inside.

By then, we were wet and it was nearly time for us to catch our skinkansen back to Osaka for our flight out that night. So we got on a bus back to Hakone-Yumoto which drops you off at the station. We didn't fancy walking with our luggage from the hotel to the station in the pouring rain, so we caught a cab, had a funny (very) broken Japanese explanation to an elderly taxi driver that we wanted to go to the hotel and then come back to the station. Anyway, I think he got it and it only cost us 1000 yen.

So that was our wet end to our trip in Japan. If I ever get to go again, I will be sure to post about it.

Thanks for reading.