Breakfast today was a bit of an adventure by itself. We trundled upstairs in our slippers (which really don't stay on going up stairs whilst wearing socks!) to find a place set with smoked fish (butterflied and whole), various tofu things, fermented beansprouts, miso soup, a vegetable soup thing and rice. Needless to say, Emily ate mostly rice with a bit of vegetable for breakfast.
We were banking on the weather clearing a little, as the reports suggested it might, for today's outing, sadly that didn't really happen. We saw bits of blue sky briefly in passing but it was mostly overcast. That spoilt the chances of us getting the classic view from Hakone, out over mount Fuji. The cloud wasn't much higher than the peaks of the local mountains (1400m ish) and the combination of switchback railway, fernicular railway and cable car took us up high enough to realise this.
The first peak is an geothermally active site too, there are "famous eggs" that come from here, having been cooked in the hot spring water high on the mountain top. These are then sent down to the road via a little cable car big enough for a box full of cooked eggs. At the top here I also tried a wasabi flavoured ice cream. One of the more odd culinary experiences of the trip...
It was in the cable car here that we found giant apples and Rolf is pictured next to them. They are almost bigger than he is!
Further down in the cable car and we reached Lake Ashi. From here were got on one of the warship themed sight seeing boats to the other end of the lake. We stopped for lunch, me eating a japanese deef fried beef burger type thing (it looked like a fish cake from the model outside, once I saw the english description I decided to have it anyway) and Emily once again ate katsu curry.
From here is was a short walk to a reconstructed outpost, as was on the same spot during the Edo period. After visiting this and a small museum, we walked through a cedar tree lined path to the other ferry port at this end of the lake for the journey back to our hotel.
On the way back we tried to visit the Hakone Open Air Museum but we were a few minutes too late to get the last entry time. We had a look in the shop, bought a few bits and bobs and returned to the train station to get the next train down the hill.
We've an early start in the morning but will post the final entry on return to the UK.
Home tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment