Fuji-san

We wook up to a beautiful day yesterday which meant we could see Mt. Fuji (if the weather is not great usually the mountain hides in the cloudes). Our upgraded room though didn't mean we got the beautiful view from our window.

After having our brought breakfast (the breakfast at the hotel was expensive) we headed out to catch a cable car on the Hakone Ropeway. It goes from Togendai by Lake Ashi, past Ubako and Owakudani to Sounzan. We got on at Ubako which was a short walk from our hotel.



Our first stop was Owakudani ("valley of great boiling") where steam jets from the crevices and fumaroles belch sulfurous vapors. One of the main attractions here are the black eggs that are cooked in a hot steam spring. The inside of the egg gets a weird and loose consistency that you don't get from boiling eggs at home. They almost tasted like ice cream!


We've come to love the English signs that you can find all over the place. This one on the inside of a cable car says "Door will open automatically, so pleace refrain from putting your hands".


We also liked the sign at the different stops that said which station it was followed by "Please teach the station employee the person who gets off".


After going to Sounzan we headed back down to Togendai for a trip on Lake Ashi with replicated ships of old historical ships. You had a pretty good view of Mt. Fuji from the lake as well.




After stopping at Hakone-machi and Moto-Hakone we headed back to Togendai took the cable car to Ubuko to get our bags at the hotel and then took the bus back to Odawara for our last Shinkansen train ride.