Hakone Ropeway

After one last bath (and another great Japanese breakfast of fish & vegetables) we headed off to see more of the mountains.

Unfortunately I didn't get many photos, because the weather turned bad (cold & very foggy) - so I'll just have to describe it.

We took a cable car further up into the mountains, which had some good …

Hakone, part of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, is a popular onsen (hot spring) resort with easy access from Tokyo and given the right season or some luck spectacular views of Mount Fuji. We didn't get our hopes up too high given that we were in the middle of the rainy season with few clear days but given the natural beauty of the Hakone area …

I woke up extremely early around 5am. I got ready and called down to get a bell service person to help with my luggage. I met the tour operator in the lobby of the hotel. We boarded a bus. We took this one bus that took us around to a lot of different hotels and then we went to the bus terminal. I met with the tour company and they gave me the tour …

We woke up very early due to jet lag and the fact that we actually needed to be up early to meet our tour bus. The drive over to Mt. Fuji area took about an hour and a half. The highways are flanked by opaque fences so that the views from the bus were quite limited on the drive over. The guide was useless today and barely told us anything. At least …

... Ropeway we were going to take. It looked big and old, we hoped it would take us safely to the top of Mount Hakone. The Ropeway was interesting. It was a weird sensation to be hanging off a few cable lines and dangling over forest which we were told had ...

... green.)  With hindsight, we should have eaten before getting on the ferry, where there were more options. Next up was the "ropeway" which is what I'd call a cable car.  (They also have something there that they call a "cable car," which I'd ...

... . That's 1 kilometers from the ground. I'm shaking and trembling and Jordy is comforting me as he nearly drags me into the ropeway and next thing I know, I'm dangling above the ground. I just gave up the camera to Jordy at that moment to take pictures ...

... station and got on the cable train to start out up the hill out of Gora. Then it was into a cable car as we call it , Ropeway as they call it, up to the high point where we got out first sight of the magnificent mount Fuji, and as it came into view the ...

... of tolerance, understanding, patience etc was sorely tested! Once S n A had arrived we left for Togendai and then the shuttle bus to the ropeway - part of the ropeway was closed for repair. The bus took us up the mountain to a volcanic area, not quite ...

... have to describe it. We took a cable car further up into the mountains, which had some good views through the forest. The Hakone Ropeway took us further to the top of Mount Hakone and gave great views of the surrounding valleys. We passed over on of ...

... caught our first glimpse of Mt Fuji – any photo you have seen does not do it justice. It is amazingly huge. The second ropeway went over a sulphide mine – they call it hell valley – and the rotten egg smell filled our noses. We bought a ...

Today we had a huge day in the picturesque town of Hakone. I have read that it is very beautiful. The ropeway that we went on, which is the 2nd longest ropeway in the world, apparently gives breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains, and ...

... , can't win them all. We followed our original travel plan in reverse to return to Shin-Yokohama: Galleon, Ropeway, Cablecar, Train, Train and finally Shinkansen, all of which we got seats on. We got takeaway from the ...

... a while.       We spent the first day doing a loop of the national park using train, cable car, ropeway, boat and bus. We stopped off at Owakudani, a volcanic valley which was created by an eruption over 2000 years ago. People ...