Scenic Hakone (Part 1/2)

  Two months ago, I requested a week off from work during June. It's tough to get in any kind of request of the sort. My workplace only allows one person in the company to take a day off at any given day, and it just so happens that, when I was looking at the calendar, two months ago, July and August had already been booked by my co-workers. And so I took a week off in June. "What luck," I thought.

 Japan's rainy season is in June, folks. And I am a dumb-ass.

 And so Ken and I tried to figure out what we could do with a week off in rain season. The days closed in on us, and we threw several plans out the window and ended up with a single one. A three day trip to the mountainous area of Hakone.

 Hakone's just a side trip from Tokyo. A train leading out of the city can take one there in an hour and a half or so. But despite the short distance, there's no comparison to establish between Hakone and Tokyo. This is a tropical country. Hakone's there to remind us of that.

 The area has a network of cable-cars and railways and boats going to and fro and across mountains and lakes. Though the area isn't huge (nor small, by any means) there's lots to see.

Hakone's got the mountains. It's got the trees and the rivers and the lakes. It's got a steaming volcano and hotsprings. Hakone's amazing. Buy purchasing a 3 day pass for just around 65$, one gets to and from Hakone for free, and gets to use all the transportation within the area for free as well, with a bonus of a bunch of small discounts on some touristic activities. Considering the round trip without the pass is already 40$ or so, the pass is altogether a great move. 

Our first stop was Odawara Castle. Though technically not in Hakone, whatever, man, it's a fucking castle. It's awesome. Ofcourse we stopped here on our way. The place is surrounded with a colorful garden, there's a cage full of monkeys right outside, and there's this shack with two old men who rent out samurai costumes for the likes of 2,50$. The inside of the castle itself was turned into a museum, which, to me, seems kind of too bad. But hey, whatever pays the maintenance fee to keep the place running, I guess. Odawara Castle is one of the many traditional old castles in Japan that still stand to this day. There's more than a good handful of them dispersed around the country. Odawara's I don't think is one of the most famous or nicest of them. But hey, I got to dress up as a samurai for 2,50$. It's all good.

Out of Odawara we headed into the actual Hakone area. We booked into a quaint little hotel, enjoyed a hot bath, and were up the next day to witness the best of what the area had to offer. A rail-car leading someways up the mountain brought us to the foot of a suspended car-lift, which whisked us off the ground and over the volcanic valley formed by the topmost peaks in Hakone. Damn right, I said volcanic. The hot springs in Hakone are natural, fueled by a steaming subterranean volcanic source water. And, using said lift, up the volcanic valley we went.

The top of the mountain attracts quite a number of tourists, for its obvious sight-seeing value as well as its one promised delicacy: the specialty "Black Eggs" served at the small restaurants crowning the valley. The black eggs are made through some process involving the volcano or something, but I wouldn't know, because I don't eat eggs. Ken didn't eat the eggs either. As a matter off fact, I couldn't really be bothered to give a damn about the eggs, so read about 'em off wikipedia or something. But damn did they advertise those eggs like crazy. Mascots and posters and all that stuff.

Asides from the fuggin' eggs, the volcanic valley itself was quite a sight to behold. Poisonous vapors rise from the cracks in the mountain stone, though, threatening to blind, intoxicate or kill any adventurer manly enough to stick their head in them, so walking in the shadow of the valley itself was prohibited to tourists. But to merely see the smoke rise out of the valley is enough to draw the awe of tourists. And the smell of sulfur permeating from the area had me not quite willing to venture any closer even if I could.
 From here, we took the suspended car down, and over to Lake Ashi, a lake formed by a volcanic crater many thousands of years ago.

Alright, I'm sure none of you want to read more than that much at a time, so I'll cut here and post more about Hakone tomorrow. Here's a picture of me and Ken being gay ropeway attendants, the way we often are on our free time when no one's watching. Part two coming soon!