Hakone

We had a really great time at Hakone this past weekend, it's a gorgeous area. Here is our Hakone trip photo gallery.

The tour bus first took us to the 5th station at Mt. Fuji which is the highest point you can get to by car. This time of year it is too humid to get good views of Fuji-san. So unfortunately we couldn't see much there or on the way there. You can see a little of the snowy trail here:


Then at Hakone, we took a short boat ride on Lake Ashi. Beautiful lake:


We took a ropeway up to the top of Mt. Komagatake. Amazing views from up there:



And we even saw a tiny piece of the top of Mt Fuji above the clouds:



Kenn and I stayed the night at Hakone Prince Hotel and had Sunday to explore the area on our own. After visiting Hakone Shrine and taking a sightseeing boat across the Lake, we took another ropeway to Owakudani. It is the area around a crater created in the last eruption of Mount Hakone 3000 years ago. Sulfurous fumes, hot springs and hot rivers can be experienced on a walk around the area. Eggs, boiled in the naturally hot waters, are said to prolong one's life by seven years and are readily available for sale:




Then we hit a glass museum which wasn't that great. Glass and crystal Venetian jewelry, some modern glass sculptures, and glass trees. Last stop was the Hakone Open Air museum which has modern art sculptures around the beautiful grounds and there was also a great Picasso exhibit there.

Great weekend trip outside of Tokyo! Summary of interesting highlights:
- Mt. Fuji/Hakone day trip tour is not worth it this time of the year because you can't see Mt Fuji.
- But Hakone is gorgeous on its own and worth the trip.
- Hakone Prince Hotel has open air hot springs (onsen) which I took advantage of
- I accidently walked into the hotel room beside us because the garden entrance looked exactly the same! Oops- luckily the couple was just lying in bed watching TV...
- Picasso didn't just paint really weird stuff. He did a lot of cool paintings, sculptures, pottery in his later years.

Our friend Karl booked a last minute trip to Tokyo and arrives today! Should be a fun week and we're really looking forward to him being here!