Hakone

On our 2nd day in Japan, we took an overnight trip to Hakone. We were hoping to have clear weather for some good views of Mt Fuji and winter-time tends to be the best for that. We had reserved seats on the Odakyu Limited Express “Romance Car” (https://odakyu-global.com/passes/romancecar/) – the front and back of some of the trains have a big window on top so you can potentially get some great views. The seats open up a month out and I logged on probably a day after they opened and those seats were already gone but we got regular seats no problem. The train leaves from Shinjuku station and is an 80 minute ride to Hakone-Yumoto station. It’s not a regular JR train so it took us a bit of searching to find the gate for it in Shinjuku station – it’s actually very well marked but Shinjuku is a HUGE station so I was glad we had figured out where to go the night before.

The train was running about 30 minutes late, which is really unusual in Japan – they are world-renowned for their punctuality (for example the average delay on the Shinkansen is 1.6 minutes – including delays for natural disasters). Not the end of the world – we got there even if it was a bit late. But the next night as we were on our way back, I got an email that they were refunding our train ticket for that leg due to the delay! Wow!

Once you get to the Hakone-Yumoto station, there is a bus that will take you into Hakone proper (Moto-Hakone is the stop right on the lake and a short walk to our hotel). It’s about a 30 minute bus ride.

Then it was about a 15 minute walk to our hotel – we went there first to drop off our backpacks then headed back to the lake to catch the pirate ship cruise. We did the 2-day Hakone Free Pass (https://odakyu-global.com/passes/hakone-freepass/) which included the base fare for the train (the Limited Express ticket is the extra for the express train/seat reservation but you still have to also have the base fare) plus all local transportation in the area. This included not only the bus but all of the other tourist transport options – the pirate ship cruise on Lake Ashi, the Hakone ropeway, the Hakone Tozan Cablecar, and the Hakone Tozan Railway (I also love the fun maps they have on their site!).

We took advantage of all of these! While we were waiting for our Lake Ashi cruise, we swung into the 7-11 to get lunch and walked over to the lake-side to enjoy the view – and we got lucky with an amazing view of Mt Fuji! The last time I was in Hakone it was late summer and was cloudy and rainy the whole time – we never saw the mountain.

We decided to splurge the extra 700 yen (about $4.50) per person for the First Class add-on to the cruise ship. That got us seats in the front of the ship and also space on the upper deck (outside) with really great views. I peaked at the view and went back inside (it was cold!) and left Chris to take all the good pictures while I stayed in the warm cabin and enjoyed the view through the window.

We could also see our hotel from the ship!

Once we got to Togendai on the other end of the lake, we disembarked the cruise and got on the Hakone Ropeway. The ropeway has amazing views and stops at Owakudani and Sounzan. We briefly stopped at Owakudani but because it was pretty late in the day (the last car runs at 4:15 pm, which was about when it was getting dark), we ended up getting back on the ropeway on the last car up to Sounzan .

Then we switched to the Hakone Tozan Cablecar to Gora.

We got off the cable car at the 2nd to last stop to go check out Gora Brewery & Grill (https://en.japantravel.com/kanagawa/gora-brewery-grill-in-hakone/66241) – we enjoyed a beer each and a light dinner (sushi and tempura) then walked down to the Gora station and caught a taxi back to Moto-Hakone. On the walk from Moto-Hakone back to our hotel, we stopped at the Hakone Shrine (https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5204.html). This shrine is right on the lake (you can see it in the pictures above) and is a popular sight – it’s usually packed! We had it to ourselves since it was late-ish (I think most people must do dinner as part of their hotel because the surrounding area was like a ghost town by the time we came back around 6:30 pm).

We stayed at the Hotel de Yama (https://www.hakone-hoteldeyama.jp/en/) – it’s right on the lake and has an onsen (as do most traditional Japanese hotels). We got back to the hotel and changed into our Yukata to head to the onsen. Chris has never been in one so I was glad he got to try it out (in fact we went again the next morning after breakfast!). Onsens are one of the things I miss most about Japan – so relaxing! You can’t take pictures (it’s gender-separated baths and you can’t wear clothes/swim suits so understandably you also can’t take photos) so I borrowed a couple of photos from the hotel website – I love the outside baths, especially when it’s cold outside. There is etiquette to the onsens – you sit on these small stools and wash off (each station has it’s own shower head and shampoo/conditioner/soap) so that you are clean going into the public bath. They did have some helpful signs – in Japanese and English plus funny caricatures – to explain how this was supposed to go. I found a website that had a good description of this here: https://www.kashiwaya.org/e/magazine/onsen/rules2.html (also many public onsens don’t allow you in if you have tattoos – in Japan they are very much associated with the Yakuza or Japanese mafia; this is changing some, especially in higher tourist areas – and generally if you can cover it then you’re fine). We both ended up with the public bath to ourselves both times we went so I guess we went at off-peak times.

The next morning we got up for breakfast. We had 2 options: western breakfast at the French restaurant or Japanese breakfast. We opted for the latter and it was really good!

The hotel also had an observation deck on the top floor so we went to check that out and had more amazing views of Mt Fuji! It was definitely more cloudy that day but still pretty great views.

Because of the routing of the transit options (pirate cruise, etc), we could actually do the loop again and end up at the train station to head back to Tokyo without looping back to our hotel. So it came in handy to only have small backpacks with us (we had left our suitcases at our hotel in Tokyo since we were returning to the same hotel). We checked out of the hotel and headed into town again for the pirate ship cruise. Then the ropeway again but this time we stopped at Owakudani. This spot is notable for white smoke coming from the ground and a distinct sulfur smell. Owakudani is a volcanic valley formed by the eruption of Mt Hakone over 3000 years ago – and white smoke still arises from the mountainside. We sadly missed out on trying the Owakudani Black Eggs (boiled in Owakudani’s hot springs – the mineral content of the water sticks to the shells and turns them black) because you could only pay in cash for those and I had used up most of our cash – and there were no ATMs to be found. Oops. Lesson learned. We also got more incredible views of Mt Fuji!

It was pretty windy up there so we decided to hop back on the ropeway to Sounzan before they shut down the ropeway due to winds (they kept making announcements that if it got any more windy they would stop running). Once we got to Sounzan, we took a look around this station before switching over to the Hakone Tozan Cable Car. Sounzan is basically a transfer station to the cable car but it also has a foot bath on a terrace with great views. So we decided to stop there and relax for a bit.

While we were sitting there, a Japanese man sat next to us and broke out some coffee and a pack of TimTams – we had these in Australia (at the recommendation of our Qantas flight attendant) and they were so good! It was pretty surprising to see them in Japan! We asked him about it and he has an Australian friend who sent them. And then he very kindly shared them with us – and took a selfie to send back to his friend. It was such a random fun encounter!

After that we hopped on the Hakone Tozan Cable Car down to Gora then switched to the Hakone Tozan Railway to Hakone Yumoto station. We enjoyed the area around the train station then caught our train back to Shinjuku.

We grabbed some convenience store dinner for the train ride back (egg salad sandwich and Shu-hai!) and even got one more view of Mt Fuji from the train!

We got back into Tokyo and checked back into our hotel then headed back out to see the lights of Shinjuku.