With the aid of some bacon breakfast sandwiches, the four of us managed to remove our Robot-hangover and make it to the train bound for Hakone. Hakone is located within Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park and is about two hours (by train) southwest of Tokyo. It is known for it’s scenic views of Mt.Fuji and the onsens (traditional Japanese bath houses).
We purchased the Hakone Free Pass, which made our travel throughout the day much easier, and departed from Shinjuku to arrive in Hakone-Yumoto. Once in Hakone-Yumoto, we boarded a bus bound for Hakone-moto and hopped off the bus to visit the Amazake-jaya, which is an isolated and traditional teahouse serving amazake (a thick sweet drink made from rice used to make sake) along with some tasty mochi. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures because the space was super dimly lit.
We then followed the Old Hakone Highway, which was part of the Edo-era Tokkaido Highway that runs between Moto-Hakone and Hakone-Yumoto. It was a beautiful walk through the woods and a great way to stretch our legs after lots of morning traveling. The section of the hike we did was short (~45 minutes) but if you’re interested in more hiking the entire trail only takes about 3.5 hours of winding up, down, and around the mountains.
We had a quick lunch in Moto-Hakone (nothing to write home about) and hopped on the ferry towards Togendai. Unfortunately, it was a foggy day so we had no view of Fuji but it did allow for some cool photos of the Hakone-jinja:
The next leg of our journey was going to be a cable car ride through the mountains but due to volcanic activity this section was closed and we instead took the journey between Togendai and Sounzan by bus, followed by a brief cable car ride down the mountain to Gora.
In Gora we walked to the Hakone Open-Air Museum. This was a fail – we didn’t realize the museum closed at 4:30 (which seems rather early) so we missed our opportunity to enjoy it by 45 minutes. Instead we opted to hike from the museum to Miyanoshita. We got a few glimpses of the Open Air Museum along the way and came across a few beautiful waterfalls.
Once we reached Miyanoshita, we explored around Fujiya Hotel, which is one of Japan’s finest Western-heritage hotels dating back to 1878.
We then took the Hakone-Tozan trolley line along the sides of the mountains to get back to Hakone-Yumoto, which was a fun experience and allowed for views of thousands of hydrangeas along the train line.
It was a lot of traveling for one day so if we were to return to Hakone I think we would stay at a ryokan (traditional Japanese Inn) and visit an onsen to have a more relaxing experience. If you find yourself in Tokyo and have time for a day or two trip it is definitely worthwhile and I can only imagine how beautiful it is on a nice day when you can see Mt. Fuji.
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