Scenic Hakone (Part 2/2)

Continued from yesterday, this is the second part of our Hakone trip!

And so, down to lake Ashi we went, using the ropeway cars. As I had begun mentioning yesterday, the lake is actually the result of a thousand-year-past volcanic eruption. Today, it's kind of a touristic spot. Cradled by the mountains, the area does have a primordial charm to it. I do find it interesting what they've done to the place to gather tourists. I mean, the swan boats and canoe rentals I can understand, but they also put a pair of pirate themed ferry-boats going across the lake. Eh, I can dig it. Pirates are cool.

As we landed on the other side, we decided to take a trail leading up one of the peaks, which was rewarding in its own way. The hike was short, but provided us with plenty of opportunity to carve stupidities into trees and whatnot.
 The day was nearing its end, though, so from the end of the trail we took a bus back to our Bed & Breakfast place, which, for some reason, reminded me of some kind of mental institute. Not necessarily a bad thing, I figure. It did have a hot bath, so that's an added bonus.


 The Bed & Breakfast place we established base in was also part of some kind of resort network for the damnably rich, called Yunessan. Although things in the resort were somewhat pricy (20$ to go into a swimming pool? Hell no!) There was some good to be found there too, including a museum of trick photography, where visitors were invited to take part in optical illusions formed by cleverly done paintings on the walls. Such as the following!
I'm actually laying down on the floor on that picture.
But of course, I couldn't be bothered to take all these pictures properly, choosing instead to deliberately mess around with the optical illusions, producing something the likes of the second picture, here. I think it has its charm.

But alas, all good things have to come to an end, and so too did our trip to Hakone. That being said, though, many more adventures and misadventures await me back home in Tokyo, and I'm quite excited to write about how things have been developing at my workplace.
All in all, Hakone's definitely beautiful and worth a visit or whatnot.