Day 53: Hakone, Japan

We got up bright and early after our night in the ryokan to hit the Hakone circuit. The circuit consists of different modes of transportation to view all of the Hakone area (scenic railway, to cable car, to ropeway, to sight-seeing cruise, to bus, to train). Once we checked out, walked to our first mode of transport and put all our luggage in a train station locker, we took a look at the river running near the train station.



Then we jumped on the scenic railway train.



We made a stop to look through the Hakone Open-Air Museum which had some pretty interesting pieces to look at.





(A multi-story cyclindrical building made of stained glass)

(This piece had us both cracking up)

Next we jumped on the cable car that took us up the mountain side.



Then onto the ropeway.



(Sight from the ropeway car)

Midway through the ropeway portion of the circuit we got out for a walk around the geothermic activity in the area. Unfortunately we had enough of this sulphur smell from New Zealand so we didn't want to stay long.




(They make hard boiled eggs in the sulphur-heavy boiling water. The egg shells turn black but after smelling the nasty sulphur in the air, who really has the stomach for eggs!)

Next was the sight seeing boat cruise on these replica pirate ships across Lake Ashi. The countryside here in Japan is really beautiful. Tranquil lake with rolling green mountainside.





The next stop was lunch!



Then a brief walk through a preserved portion of Old Tokaido Highway that was used during the Edo Period. Cedars where planted here long ago to protect travellers from weather (sun/snow).



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkaid%C5%8D_(road)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo_period

Then we grabbed the bus back to the train, then the train to the Shinkansen station to catch the bullet train to Kyoto. We had an hour to kill so we went to the nearby Odawara Castle for a look. Odawara has an intereting part of Japanese history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odawara


(Originally built in 1416, rebuilt in 1960, after being dismantled in 1870 by the Meiji gov't because of the castles association with the shogun regime.)


(Ilana snapped a picture of the sunset while I slept on the bullet train)

We arrived in Kyoto and needed to get a bite to eat so we went to this sushi place that has plates rotating around the bar on a conveyor belt. Each plate contains 2 pieces of sushi and every plate costs 137 yen. When you are done eating they simply count the number of empty plates you have.



Tomorrow we explore Kyoto!

FJ

TJ & Christohper: I got some good pictures of the Shinkansen!!! Let me know if you like these. I can try and take more when I ride it again in two days. All I can say is that these trains go FAST! The last item below is a video I took of the train. I don't think the video does it justice, I think it looks much faster in person, but you can get an idea of how it looks. While we were sitting on the platform waiting for our train to arrive, other bullet trains would go speeding by. I'm not sure exactly what speed they go but they are very FAST!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen