Fruit Land Gallery Numazu

... town, we got off and walked through the picturesque cedar avenue to the next town, Hakone-Machi. From here we got on the sightseeing boat to cros the lake (Ashino-Ko) - a pirate ship nonetheless. I kid you not! We also managed to not get a glimpse of Mt. Fuji all this time (the whole reason for coming this way) because of the poor visibility and low cloud. At the other side of the lake we caught the ...

... weird, but once you crack them they just look a regular old hard boiled egg. They give you some salt but no pepper!
After that we took a cruise on Lake Ashi which is a lake made by a volcanic eruption thousands of years ago. It was a little rough on the lake due to a windy day so we rode in the enlosed part of the boat.
Lunch was at a local restaurant and we tried some interesting foods ...

... first stop on the bus – still going up the mountain – was Gora where we boarded the cable car which took us up at a very steep angle to the top of the mountain (or so we thought...). We then jumped on the first of two ropeways (a gondola hanging from a cable strung up to hundreds of feet above the ground). The views over the foothills, countryside and mountain peaks were just breathtaking. We caught our first glimpse of ...

... system, we had no trouble making our way to Tokyo station and got our first taste of the bullet train. It is smooth, sleek, and fast; and like every train we have been on in Japan it is clean and efficient to the max. When the timetable says it is leaving at 12:06, it leaves exactly on 12:06 to the second.

It seemed that Tokyo stretched on forever, and it is just one huge megalopolis beyond Yokohama to the south. As suburb after suburb whizzed by we ...

So yea! To summarize:
Walked about 10.2km downhill (which isn't so easy on rocky surface n stuff) from Station 5 of Mount Fuji to the bottom. Took about 5/6 hours but YAY! I used my hiking boots again (count so far: 3 times!) and it didn't feel too bad so I'm pretty glad, good chance to work off all the pocky!

Stayed in an epic Hotel Ohike which not ...

... Edo).

W okolicy jest stary punkt kontrolny (checkpoint), którego zadaniem było kontrolowanie przepływu ludności przez wewnętrzną granicę w starej Japonii. Szczególnej kontroli podlegały osoby opuszczające dawne Tokio (dawniej: Edo). Dlaczego? Powód jest bardzo ciekawy. Szogun przetrzymywał żony i dzieci samurajów w Tokio, podczas gdy mężowie służyli gdzieś wewnątrz kraju, z dala od rodzin. Była ...

... shuffled (as quickly as we could) to our respective changing rooms, feeling a bit stupid. The onsen itself was amazing and soooo relaxing, and was just like a huge natural outdoor Jacuzzi, and the water felt so hot compared to the cold air. I did spend a while waiting for Sam to come out of his changing room before realising there were separate onsens for men and women.

Afterwards, and back in the changing room I reluctantly donned my outfit once more and tried to leave ...

... rolling hills and mountains, with scattered Japanese style dwellings.





At arrival, I connected to the Hakone Tozan railways (for more info see here), which took me to my ryokan one station away – the Ichinoyu Honkan. The ryokan will be my ...

... feel getting chill, I became worried of getting pneumonia (Luckily, we did not catch any afterall). All of us were drenched and felt so miserable when we arrived back to the 5th station.

Later at home:
There were many thunder struck near the house through the middle of night, we jumped out of our futons and were awake. It was very loud and scary. (Fortunately, we did not came across any earthquake during our stay)

... and the privilege of a toilet can be theirs for a mere 200yen... Most of our party settled down to pass the afternoon playing cards, and one of the three permanent station staff kindly gave us some green tea, which was a rather welcome addition to our table of sweets and unhealthy mountain snack foods. It turned out that the packet of biltong / beef jerky I'd bought a couple of days ago was in fact dried fish- not unpleasant, but a little ...