Taking the "Romance Car" to Hakone
The 4th and 5th day of my trip to Japan was my most ambitious one yet, seeing Mt Fuji and staying at a ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese hotel.
Using booking.com I had reserved a tatami room at Mount View Hakone with the intention of staying the night there before going through Japan-Guides recommended Hakone Full Course.
The most comfortable travel arrangements I could find was Odakyu Limited Express "Romancecar", which was noticeable not only for its speed but for its comfortable travel arrangements. So, bright and early we wandered over to the Shinjuku Train Station aka the RPG Dungeon to find the Odakyu train counter to order tickets.
After making our way through the busiest train station in the world we managed to find the ticket counter and it was at this point something clicked for me. I had noticed this in passing before but this time it really hit home, the railways in Japan are big business, very big business indeed.
The reason why it clicked into place, Odakyu not only had their very own entrance to Shinjuku but they also had a very impressive, high-end mall connected directly to the station. Since we still weren't confident in using the ticket machines we waited in line for an hour before getting our tickets and setting off on the train for Hakone, with free complementary Odakyu branded chopsticks for taking the Romance Car.
The travel to Hakone was very comfortable, though the free wifi provided by Odakyu was frustratingly spotty with random outages. It was great seeing the scenery change from skyscrapers to urban and for the first time countryside. Eventually, I knew we were getting close to our destination when we started seeing mountains and soon enough we were at our destination or so I thought.
Mount View Hakone
Turns out Mount View Hakone wasn't as close to the train station as I expected, we would have to take one of the buses for 40 minutes following a small, mountainside road. The scenery outside the window was incredible as we winded our way through the mountainside but I really couldn't enjoy it all that much on the trip due to how crowded the bus was. It was standing room only and by standing I mean being scrunched up enough that I didn't even need to grab the pole for balance most of the trip because the crowd would hold me up regardless.
The mountains around Mount View Hakone still had snow which was great, though our view from the room wasn't very good. My main regret with Mount View Hakone is that I forgot to take my camera with me to dinner, the food was incredible in every way and I really loved it. I did manage to snap a few pictures of breakfast though.
The next day, after checking out of Mount View Hakone we traveled to Lake Ashi and rode the pirate ship across it. After that refreshing experience, we hiked through Onshinhakone Park, taking in the views of nature before riding the pirate ship back across and taking the Hakone Ropeway gondola to Owakundani.
The view of Mt Fuji from this area full of sulfur springs was incredible, too bad I wasn't able to eat the famous hard-boiled black eggs of Owakundani. They are cooked in the in sulfur springs and are thought to bring good luck.
Due to maintenance on the ropeway, we were unable to ride over the sulfur springs, so we had to take a bus to the next stop where we then rode a trolley down the mountainside before taking an old, historic scenic train to the Odakyu Romance Car for the ride back to Tokyo.
My next post on my Japan trip will be about Yokohama and Hakkejima Sea Paradise.