Hakone

Decided to go to Hakone today, rather than next week, to make better use of my rail pass. The Shinkansen to Odawara is only a few stops from Tokyo so it's a short trip. At the station, I looked around for a bank machine that would accept overseas credit cards. FYI, look for the big Vierge department store and there's one near the entrance.

I bought a Hakone Freepass (cash only) which is good for a few days and lets you use all the forms of transportation in the area. Jumping on the Hakone-Tozan train to Hakone-Yumato, I crossed the platform and went on to Gora on the "toy" train. It climbs several hundred metres and so has to zig-zag up the mountain, reversing direction occasionally. This makes it difficult to know which side to get on if you happen to stop at a station! I stopped at Chokoka-no-mori and walked to the Hakone Open Air Museum. Make sure to use a stamp from the coupon book they should have given you when you buy the Freepass: there's a small discount on area attractions.

Let's just say this is definitely worth the price of admission. The grounds are fabulous to explore with modern sculpture installations everywhere. The Picasso building didn't allow pictures inside, but do look at the mosaics made out of chunky coloured glass just to the left of the entrance. Lots more pictures on my Flickr stream.

Back at Gora, I took the short cablecar ride to Sounzan, then the breathtaking ropeway to Owakudani and went looking for these black eggs I heard about. You can only buy 6 at a time and I was disappointed to find out they tasted like normal eggs. By the way, if you're coming here before Summer 2007, they're doing upgrades, so the cablecar continuing to Togendai has been replaced by shuttle buses.

From Togendai, I took one of those outrageously decorated pirate ships for a cruise across Lake Ashi. The ride is quite pleasant and there's a constant stream of announcements about things on the shore too far away to see clearly.

At Moto Hakone, I wandered around loking for the Stone Paved Road which the map showed would lead to the Amazake Tea House. Unfortunately, signs were few and in Japanese, so after twenty minutes of climbing wet, moss-covered rocks, I gave up and took the bus back to Odawara.

Back at my hotel, I went looking for dinner again and tried out one of those 24 hour restaurants where you buy tickets from the vending machine. You put money in, choose your dishes (noodles, meat topping, beer) and it spits out tickets that you give to the waiter. Less than a minute later, your order comes out from the kitchen. That's what I call fast food!