Tokyo 2017 Day 4: Hakone

DAY 4: 14 JUN 2017

Hakone Shrine

Another day at this beautiful place.
Breakfast this morning was great as expected.

We checked out of the ryokan after breakfast as we had to explore two places today

before taking the romancecar back to Tokyo.

Railway station

The weather today is definitely better but cloudy.

Our first destination was the volcanic area which was covered in fog yesterday.

We took the same route up and I could finally see what I have missed.

View from the cable car

The final uphill revealed Owakudani.

As I have been to Mt Ijen in Indonesia, I wasn't awed by the sight of the volcanic area.

But it will definitely be something new for those who have yet to hike up a volcano!

The black egg is one of the snacks to try at Owakudani.

If you are observant enough, you will be able to see small little baskets moving from

up and down a pulley.

The little baskets contain the volcano eggs.

Black egg

There are quite a few food stalls selling the eggs but you will need to buy them in packs of 6

if I remembered clearly.

Not to worry, only the shell is black.

The egg itself isn't.

After spending some time exploring the area,

we decided to make our way to our next destination: Lake Ashinoko!

As there were some maintenance going on, we took a bus to Togendai station instead of the ropeway.

From there, we took a sightseeing cruise, which was included in our free pass,

 to various stops along the lake.

Along the way from stop to stop, there will be viewpoints to see Mt Fuji.

However, as it was cloudy, we didn't get to see Mt Fuji through our entire boat ride :/

Oh well.

After 30 minutes on the boat, we arrived at our first stop: Hakone-machi.

There were many eateries available and you can actually do a lunch stop here.

But we decided to have lunch at the next stop.

After exploring the area, we took the next available cruise to Moto-Hakone.

The famous Hakone shrine is situated here and you can easily spot it from the boat.

You will need to take a 15 minutes walk to get to the shrine.

After spending about 2 hours here, we took a bus back to Hakone-Yumoto station,

where we will take the romancecar back to Shinjuku.

Rice cracker with seaweed

If you have time to spare just like us, you may wish to take a walk down the streets 

along the main road near the train station.

There were many interesting shops available and great for gift shopping if you want to 

purchase their local products like mochi.

Omoide Yokocho in the night

It was dinner time when we arrived back in Shinjuku.

We decided to try out a yakitori shop located along the narrow alleys of Omoido Yokocho.

Yakitori is basically meat on skewers, but there are vegetable options available.

Not sure if I am using the term "yakitori" loosely though.

The skewers were good but not fantastic.

But they definitely went well with beer (:

After dinner, we headed back to Ikebukuro.

We passed a pastry shop situated near the Tobu line entrance at Ikebukuro station.

This shop is called DOU and they only sell one item: Dorayaki!

The dorayaki is made up of castellas, a layer of whipped cream, red bean paste

and white mochi pieces sandwiched in between.

The dorayaki was not as sweet as expected and the castellas were really soft.

Like all Japanese pastries, they tend to be a little pricey.

But having travelled all the way here, you might as well just buy one and try it!

You will not regret it (:

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Click here for our Day 5 adventures,

or retrace our steps here for our Day 3 adventures!

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