Hakone

Last weekend the encho-sensei and his wife took us to Hakone, a beautiful mountain resort town.  On clear days you can see Mt. Fuji in the distance, and the place is full of differently-themed museums and onsens.

However, the two days we went didn't have the best weather.  But that's okay!

On the way there we stopped at a gas station and were told that we had a flat tire.  The gas stations in Japan are very nice, with most being full-service.  The attendants pump your gas for you, pay for it with your card, and do things like check the pressure on your tires and wipe down your windows.  And this one, of course, saved us from what could have been a bad situation on the mountain.  The culprit was a metal nail.  In the station I used the restroom and came across something pretty ingenious.  Instead of a disposable paper towel dispenser, there was a cloth/resuable towel on two rolls.  So you would tug it and the cloth you used would go onto the second roll and be hidden, presumably to be washed later.  I'm sure I've seen this in the States before (maybe?) but I thought it was pretty neat.

Our first stop in Hakone was Owakudani, a valley with an active sulfuric hot spring.  We took a rope way (basically an aerial cable car) to get to the top, and it was super scary!  For some reason I've been finding myself getting more and more scared of heights as I get older, and I was at the point where I was just severely okay in the cable car.  Then the wind started blowing, and we were shaking back and forth!  Encho-sensei's wife, who was with us, was so terrified she sat on the floor of the cable car.  She later said that when you reach the top cable route, you normally can see Mt. Fuji and it's really pretty, but the day we decided to go was really cloudy up top on the mountains.  When we got off of the cable car the wind was pretty strong.  All it was was people walking back and forth, their hair lashing everyone because of the wind.

We got to the actual hot spring and it was really pretty.  The water was boiling like crazy and there were workers there boiling the famous black eggs.

The springs also served as the home to two cats!

One thing I noticed was that while there were a lot of foreign tourists groups (maybe even more than the Japanese there on that day), not many were actually from the U.S..  In fact, there were few "white" tourists, and those that were were generally Europeans from countries that don't speak English.  The vast majority were Chinese tourists who came to the site on tour buses.  And when you did see the few white tourists, it was generally just a family group.  We did see a group with teenagers speaking English on the way back though, and I was pretty surprised.

We went to a Le Petite Prince museum afterwards, and it was adorable.  I wanted to buy all the items at the souvenir shop.

Then we finally got to the ryokan!  We started at Lodge Fujimien, basically a traditional Japanese-style inn, with tatami floor rooms, yukata to wear, and an onsen for its public bath.  I was really happy to have this experience, as so far my stays in Japan have all been pretty much home stays.  Apparently, the hotel had a view of Mt. Fuji from all of its rooms, its restaurants, and its public bath.  But the weather was bad so one couldn't really see anything.  For dinner we had kaiseki and it was fun.  Some of the food was a little too Asian for me, and of course I had problems because I'm slightly allergic to shrimp, so we just asked for them to take that all out of mine.  Yumie and I also spent a lot of time in the onsen just relaxing.

The day after we were planning to take a little ferry cruise in the lake around Mt. Fuji, but due to the weather the business running it was closed.  A little bummed, but still enjoying Hakone, we went to the famous Venetian Glass Museum.  There was a really cute Crystal-Playing Trio.  One gentleman played crystal classes, the other set that looks like a crystal xylophone of sort sort, and the other crystal/glass tubes that he blew through.

Afterwards we went to eat and the bus woman was really nice.  When a spot near the window opened up, just as we were starting to eat our food, she cleaned the table immediately and said we should sit over there for the view.  And then, since the table next to us was unoccupied, she pulled over the chairs so Yumie and Encho-sensei's wife could put their bags on them.  Downstairs, while Yumie and I were waiting for our hosts to buy some souveniers, we a cashier offered us some tea and asked if we wanted to sit down.  Such good service.

The way back we met up with a past employee of Bott Home.  She is a newlywed of a year, and she and her husband have this really nice condominium in a city by the ocean.  We visited the beach for a bit, but since I was wearing socks and shoes I didn't go in.  It was really pretty, despite the lack of the typical beach sun that day.  There were people playing beach soccer, beach volleyball, and even a couple of guys windsurfing.

On the way back home we had kaitenzushi, or sushi boat sushi, and I ate practically every type of tuna they offered.  We were so stuffed after that!