Japan Trip - Sunday, January 13th, 2008
7:00am
Me and Ayakas’ father woke up early to take a bath in the hot springs downstairs, breakfast was served afterwards at 8:00am.
We spent the day driving around the Hakone area, first stop atop the summit of the mountain our resort is built on. There a visitor center is mount, with a few resturaunts, a shrine, and plenty of hot jets of steam poking out of the mountainside.
10:00
From there we headed to the Tokaido Sekishou. This used to be the gate barring people from leaving or entering Edo (now Tokyo) during Edo period Japan (1600s to the 1860s). It was really interesting to walk along parts of the Tokaido knowing its history.
Noon
We had a nice drive around Hakone perfecture afterwards, going through various mountain passes. The City of Hakone itself is unique, in that it has so many modes of transportation to get around in, including: Car, bus, bike, boat, cable car, and pirate ship. Yes, thats right. On lake Ashi, there is a pirate ship that takes tourists around the lake, despite being a landlocked lake that is nestled inside an ancient volcano around 3000 feet above sea level. I’m not talking small pirate boats, but 100% full scale pirate ship replicas. These things are huge, and people just accept them as normal everyday things. “Oh, its pirate ships, its FUN!”. This is why I love Japan, because pirates are accepted everywhere.
15:00
Eventually we ended up in the port/castle town of Odawara, where we had a late lunch along the harbourside. The place we ate at was really a marketplace, but it had a outdoor eating area with grills to cook the fish you bought in the market. Here we grilled up some fresh Aji, Sanma, Saba and a few others. Easily some of the most fresh fish I’ve ever had. Aya was eating the stuff up super hard, shes’ really been missing this style of cookery back in Boston.
Afterwards we headed back to the resort for more onsen time.