If you ever liked puffing billy or those little towns with a handful of attractions just close enough for a weekend visit, but far enough to actually make it a trip, then welcome to Hakone, Kanagawa prefecture! This town has a diesel train that runs up and down the mountain, a cable ropeway that cuts across the mountain, and countless hot springs, resorts and more hot springs! A quick glance at the map makes it obvious that the residents thrive on tourists, with a novelty theme park, a pirate ship cruise and lots of museums containing very random items!
Getting there, as usual, is really easy. It took more than a few hours to get to the station, and then a 45 minute bus ride to our youth hostel - Hakone Sengokuhara. When I booked this hostel I had serious doubts - the website looked like it was made in the early 90s, back when HTML was only capable of letters and tables, and frames was the latest feature. From the low quality pictures it didn't look very appealing, but the rate was over $140 a night! Trouble was that everything else was even more expensive. But when we dropped our bags in our room I was really impressed - tatami mats, comfortable futons, TV, WiFi, a great view of the greenery with the sound of a river in the background. Now THIS is a getaway!! Let's go!
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| Our room! |
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| Front of our hostel |
Since we got to the hostel rather late in the day, we spent our first day exploring the local area fully equipped with a map from the hostel, leaving the full on stuff for tomorrow. We step out and there's a Lawson across the street, how convenient! For some reason, Gerald was hanging to see the Glass Forest museum, which to me sounded like a place with all the different types of windows and the different shapes and sizes they come in. Kind of like a box factory...zzz... Anyway we spent a couple of hours there and I wasn't far off from what I thought. There were lots of old glass artifacts and ... that's pretty much it, I can't find anything else to say about that place! I'll be honest - I was bored!
We had lunch at a local Japanese restaurant that specialised in 'don' dishes (rice bowl served usually with meat/veg). We were the only ones in the restaurant at the time, but the waiter asked us where we're from, then disappears behind the counter and comes back with a little Aussie flag on a stand, we are now on exhibition...for nobody! The food was great, I especially liked the little entree dishes, they had some sort of flavour that I had never tasted before, the texture was like tofu, but firmer, and the only bad thing was that it only mouthful size. The staff were really nice, since it wasn't busy the chef talked to us on our way out. He only spoke Japanese so I did my best to translate, damn I've forgotten so much of my Japanese! I think the worst thing I that I'm using direct translations from what I would usually say in English. For example if you misheard someone because they spoke too fast or something, you'd say 'excuse me?'. That can be 'sumimasen' in Japanese, but they don't use that word for this kind of situation. So it usually results in both of us standing there in a few seconds of silence. Fail!
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| Whatever this was it was good! |
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| Beware of the gaijins |
At mid afternoon we decided to write the rest of the day off since anything we wanted to do would take too much time, so we wandered back to our hostel for a nice private onsen. Well, it wasn't exactly private, you book the outdoor onsen, close the gate and hope that no one walks in on you. Geez we were super paranoid about people looking over the fence, I think I got undressed with a towel just to be safe. You know it is a real onsen when it smells...well, kind of bad. The hostel pumps the natural waters from the nearby volcano, so the slight stench of sulfur was in the air. But once you are in, all there is to do is relaaaaax...
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| Dinner at a traditional restaurant |
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| Steamy! |
Our second day was dedicated all to the touristy stuff. We rode the steam trains, and the cable ropeways from mountain to mountain. It was interesting passing the volcano because it STUNK and there were cries of 'kusai!' in the cable car. There was steam seeping out of various cracks on the surface, and you'd think you'd see something really cool down there, like strange plants or even lava! But we got down there and there was a souvenir shop that sold eggs that have been boiled in the volcanic water. Their selling point was that eating an egg that have been cooked in the volcano will increase your life by 7 sevens. So naturally, I ate 5 of them.
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| On the cable car! |
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| +7 years! |
The last really touristy attraction we went to was the pirate ship that took you from one end of the lake to the other. I don't think there was any story behind the pirate ship that linked it to the town's history, it's just there! Nothing special about this ride, just one of those 'kick back and enjoy the view' times.
Hakone reminded me of a taking a trip to the quieter parts of Victoria, there isn't smashing attractions, but you can expect there to be great food, fresh air, and a relaxing time!
