Toyoko Inn Numazueki Kitaguchi Hidari

... an hour on this train we switched to another bound for Hakone-Yumoto. Once we arrived we changed to a bus heading for Moto-Hakone. The further along the journey we went the colder it got. Unfortunately the bus we got on took us on the indirect (and possibly less scenic) route (about 40 mins), but it was irrelevant as the weather was so bad you couldn't see much, certainly not Mt. Fuji!

Arriving at the ...

Today we had a great day exploring outside of Tokyo at the Hakone National Park. It is about 80 km outside of Tokyo. We took a bus to the park where we took the ropeway (gondola) up to the area where there are sulfur springs due to the volcanic activity in the area. We had beautiful views of Mt. Fuji, who had had her first snow the night before. Once we got to the area of the springs, our guide told ...

... 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 black egg, which is an egg cooked in the sulphide water which turns the egg black and gives it a slight smokey (dare we say "*****" smell). Although an acquired taste; local legend says that eating one will ...

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 ...

... views of the surrounding mountains and forest. We decided to take advantage of the nearby village onsen (a communal outdoor hot spring bath, found everywhere in Japan). Upon finding slippers and a yukata (traditional Japanese gown) in our wardrobe we followed the cue of the other guests and got dressed. After receiving some confusing directions from the guesthouse manager (who spoke limited English, and in retrospect, did seem to be laughing at us) we soon became lost, dressed ...

... 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)

... any place looked like a bus terminal or bus stop and were paniked. There was no sign and our cab driver had no clue where it was. Then i spotted a stair leading to the overpass, which kind of looked like a highway. At the top level, there was a door and had a tiny sign saying "Bus Stop" were hidden by the bushes on ...

... the shrine a bit and then took one of the paths leading away from it. Came across a nice park with like...millions of dragonflies darting about. The path led to the museum, which was unfortunately closed. Entering a nearby public bathroom, I discovered yet another kind of waste management system commonly used by the Japanese. There is thing that looks very much like a urinal...except it's horizontal with the ground instead of vertically on the wall like you'd see in a male bathroom. It ...