Today was a trip to Hakone, and I may have bit off a little too much for 1 day. Honestly, with all the traveling I did in Hakone I should have scheduled two days to see everything. Despite wracking up 15 miles of walking today, I had a great time seeing all the sights. Traveling in Hakone presented some of its own challenges that I’ll get into, and I missed out on some things that originally I had planned.
I woke up early and grabbed a taxi to Kyoto Station. This was my first time managing to communicate my intent fully in Japanese. No need to use a phone or map to show where I wanted to go! I was trying to figure out what to do with my large suitcase and I knew I didn’t want to try to haul my suitcase around on the bus. I bypassed the skywalk in Mishima, and instead head to Odawara as that station had a shop that I could store my suitcase at. During the Shinkansen ride, I was able to snap a great photo of Fuji. This was actually the only time I got to see Fuji my entire trip.
The trip to Odawara was my first chance to try out a proper Ike-Bento or Station Lunch Box. These are everywhere in the large train stations and there was quite the selection to choose from. To be honest, I had no idea what a breakfast bento would look like, so instead I just looked for something I thought would taste good. I found a bento with some folded eggs, teriyaki chicken and other assorted bits. Despite being cold, the eggs were great; they had almost a sweet taste to them. I couldn’t quite place the flavor, but it’s definitely something I need to look up when I get home. I was worried the chicken wouldn’t be good cold, but the chicken in Japan does not have the same oily feel to that it does in the US. Overall the entire meal was pretty good.
I picked up my Hakone free pass and dropped off my large suitcase for the day. From Odawara I had a 1 hour 20 minute ride to Matahakone Port, which put me within walking distance of my hotel. I say walking distance, but I found myself walking uphill everywhere in this town. My calves were burning by the end of the day. My hostel for the stay was RoheN Resort & Lounge. Not sure why the N is capitalized, but it appears that way in all their listings, so I’m going to follow suit here.
I swung by the hostel early to drop off my backpack, so I didn’t have to carry around all my gear for the day. It was a bit of a strange experience, though. I came in and there was no one to be found. Even after I rang the bell a couple times and shouted, no one showed up. I was ready to find a new hotel since it just felt off to me. A quick walk to another hotel and I found they were booked solid and looking online. That was the case for all the hotels in the area. After hiking back up the hill, I found a person cleaning the capsules at the original hotel. I got a key for a locker and dropped off my backpack. I didn’t realize, but I had forgotten my battery pack that I was using to keep my phone from draining while using GPS.
I discovered Hakone has 2 pirate ships you can ride across lake Ashi, which is a quick way to get over to the ropeway which takes you up Mt. Hakone. I queued up for the boat and despite it only being 10am, my feet were already getting sore just standing around. 5 days of walking was wearing on me, but I knew I had to fight through it and keep moving. The boat ride was rather peaceful, and the boat itself was in stellar condition. Everything was very nice looking, maybe a bit too nice for a “pirate ship.” I had read that you could see Fuji during the ride, and well it was a beautiful ride, I wasn’t able to spot Fuji since there were other mountains blocking the view.
The boat ride ended at Togendai Station, the lowest of the ropeway stations. It was here that I found out that the ropeway from Sounzan Station to Gora Station and there was a bus route to take to get between them in the meantime. This turned out to be a blessing as I likely wouldn’t have stopped at Sounzan and would have just continued on to Gora as my original plan was. Hakone was a major location in the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime, and as such there was some cool callouts to the series all around the station like the elevator doors and a EVA-01 statue in the waiting area.
Since landing in Japan I was searching for a small coin wallet. I knew that much of the Japanese currency was coin (anything under 1,000 yen) but I was not prepared for how quickly I would accumulate a huge pile of 1, 10, 50 and 100 yen coins. I was on the lookout for a wallet the whole time, but found a very cool looking one in the shop here and I was able to pick up a couple souvenirs for myself and the kids.
The ride up to Sounzan was incredible. At first it was just a nice mountainside landscape, but slowly I started to see sign of volcanic activity. I had the entire ropeway car to myself so I was able to walk around it and grab some neat videos and let my wife Julie know as she loves geology being a former Earth Science Teacher.
Sulfur gas was neat to see, but then the ropeway broke down. Had to find a bus, then transfer to another one. A kinda Japanese driver told me how to make my transfer, and even drew me a map. He was a hero, because I would have not seen the bus stop otherwise. Sitting on the bust heading back to the hotel I was getting restless and checked my phone to see if there was anything of interest on the way back. I found a label for “Carved Buddha” statues 1 stop before my hotel. I got off the bus early to do some exploring.
Their bus stop was just a small pad off the side of a winding highway. Looking around, I found a sketchy looking staircase leading down to an ominous tunnel that ran under the roadway. I was worrying that I had made a mistake. Was I about to be crawling through overgrown bushes and trekking through mud? Thankfully, the tunnel opened up to a cleared pathway that had some incredibly carved statues nestled into some rocks. The entire area was stunning to walk through. Some of the pathway was well tended and others were just large stones on the ground to walk along. Someone was caring for the pathway and statues, but the area was rarely used. I didn’t see another person on the path, and the walk down to the hotel explained why.
I ended up on a 2 miles stretch of winding mountain road with no sidewalk to get back to the hotel. The hotel was truly about half a mile away, but the elevation change required me to stick to the extremely winding road. After a bit of walking, I made it back to the hotel and I picked up my battery charger from my locker. From there I had about 2 hours of daylight left and wanted to checkout the Haokone Shrine.
Hakone Shrine was quite beautiful, but at this point I was starting to get my fill of shrines. The big difference between Hakone Shrine and the others I’ve been to was the steps. Oh boy were there a lot of steps! 86 in total, and I had to climb all of them. Getting to the top was worth it though. The shrine had a lot of intricate detail work to see. I really liked the dragon, and that was on the water basin. After the shrine, I wanted to check out the Torii gate that sits in the water just across from the shrine. Sadly, they had the entrance blocked off for the season and I could only get a small glance through the tree line.
Feeling utterly exhausted, I made my way back to the hotel for dinner and rest. The fried chicken I had for dinner was great. I sat in the common room for a little bit, enjoying the fire and letting my feet recover from the day before heading to my “cave” for sleep. The rooms at this hostel were super tiny, barely enough room to sit in and the entire ‘floor’ was the mattress. About the time I was falling asleep, I kept hearing loud bangs. At first I thought it was another guest, but when it continued, curiosity got the best of me and I crawled out of my capsule.
There was a small balcony just outside the set of capsules. Stepping out onto the balcony gave me a great view of the lake and the firework show! I don’t know the reason for the show, but I have to assume it was a special occasion just because of the size of the show. It went on for about 20 minutes and was a great way to wrap up my evening in Hakone.
Very interesting. Nice!