JAPAN 9 DAYS Series | Hakone Day 1

Hakone is my favorite part of our trip. If we were not pressed in time (and budget), I would have stayed 2 nights here. The place is just picturesque. The weather is perfect for strolling. Eventhough, we have unlimited passes to all transportation means (except taxis), the place is just so nice for walking.

HAKONE 2 DAYS PASS

We got our sightseeing pass at Odakyu Travel. There was a long queue at the Odakyu Sightseeing Service Center and not one single person paid much attention to the office of Odakyu Travel - wherein they can get the pass for the same price - and no queue. Good thing we immediately saw it. We were out of the office in less than 10 minutes. Other people came when they saw we purchased our tickets there. The cost of the 2 days Hakone Pass is 5,140 Yen, and it includes a roundtrip transpo from Shinjuku Station to Odawara Station on the Odakyu Line. The pass gives you an all access to 8 mode of transportation in Hakone including the cable car and the Hakone Ropeway. To know more about the pass, you may visit http://www.odakyu.jp/english/deels/freepass/hakone/ for more info.

ACCOMMODATION

One of the many reasons why I want to include Hakone in our Japan trip is that I want to try the onsen bath. There are a lot of nice hotels in Hakone but the rates per night are ridiculously high. Good thing I chanced upon Suirinso Ryokan. The rate is just fair enough. We got a big room so I guess the price we paid is just fair. The room we got is cozy and comfortable, with a wonderful view of the mountains outside. Since it's just a small ryokan, the onsen don't get too crowded and that's what we wanted.

SIGHTSEEING

Owakudani

TIP! Depart early at Shinkuku station so you can maximize your day 1. We got on the train at around 8:00AM and were only able to do sightseeing not until 12NN.

Well, to justify it. After we got off Odawara Station, we tried to look for coin lockers first. We brought our luggage to Odawara - since we were not coming back to Tokyo - but instead we're heading to Kyoto. We found many coin lockers at the Daiyuzan Line, and it cost us 1,000 Yen for more than 24 hours use of the lockers.

First stop, Owakudani. After 1 1/2 hours travel from Shinjuku Station to Odawara Station, another 50 minutes trip from Odawara/Hakone Tozan line to Gora Station, plus about 10 minutes Gora Station via Hakone cable car to Sounzan station, and lastly a good 10 minutes from Sounzan station to Owakudani station - we reached the sulphuric and volcanic zone of Owakudani. That's a total of almost 3 hours traveling to get to our first stop. (Well, we made a few stops - to the coin locker at Daiyuzan line and a stop at our Ryokan at NakaGora station so in reality, it was a total of 4 hours for us before we reached Owakudani).

It was cloudy in Hakone when we visited, so we missed the sighting of the ever elusive Mt. Fuji. Owakudani is a great stop. Some people like to skip it because of the smell of sulphur, but it really did not bother us. We had a great time here, plus the fact that this is where we tasted the best curry ever.

Lake Ashi

Aboard the ropeway again, we moved down to Lake Ashi. It was about 20 minutes from Sounzan going down the Togendai station. The sceneries going down is as good as the view going up. We got on the Lake Ashi sighteeing cruise for free, because of our Hakone FreePass. It's a scenic 30 minutes cruise from Togendai station to Hakonemachi.

HAKONE SHRINE

After we got off the ship, we went to the bus stop and took Bus #2 for a quick ride to get to Hakone Shrine. It was a short bus trip, and about 15 minutes walk to reach the shrine.







































































We left Hakone Shrine at around 4PM, and was hoping we can reach Gora Park before the last park admission which is 4:30PM. But to our dismay, and without much thought, Hakone Shrine is way too far from where Gora Park is located. hahaha. We need to get on 2 buses, walk uphill for about 5 minutes to reach the place. By the time, we got there it was already 5PM.

We just ended up buying our noodles dinner at Daily Mart across it, because it's just too hard finding open restaurants at Hakone. Almost all the restaurants we passed by are closed.

We got back at our hotel around 5:30PM. We ate early dinner, had an onsen bath, ate ice cream (which is free at our hotel) and watched the news on TV. Surprise, surprise. There was a 6.2 magnitude earthquake in Japan. It was in Kurayoshi, Tottori prefecture - west of Osaka. It is about 3 hours away of Kyoto - where we were heading the next day. Oh boy!