Hi everyone! Due to the recent coronavirus panic, I have been given two weeks off work so I have a bit of time to catch up on all my Japan-antics (Japantics?) since the last post. In case anyone is worried for my personal safety, I am almost one hundred percent sure that I won’t catch coronavirus so I’m quite excited for my two week holiday!

Last week, Kate and I took the train from Tokyo to Hakone, which is a mountainous town a few hours outside of Tokyo. We left early Monday morning and took a train and then a bus before arriving at our hostel, Hakone Tent. We paid about £40 each for a triple room to ourselves. The hostel was really nice and included two private onsens, which we made good use of – but I will get to that later.

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We started off the day by taking the bus to Sounzan, another part of Hakone, where we embarked on the cable car up to Owakudani, a volcanic valley with active sulphur vents and hot springs. The views were incredible and we were lucky that it was a clear day because we got some particularly great views of Mount Fuji. Unfortunately, it was very windy up at the top of Owakudani and so the cable car was swinging in the wind above the valley whilst we were inside it, which was kind of terrifying.

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It is custom to eat a sulphur-boiled egg at the top of Owakudani, which is basically a salty black hard-boiled egg. Supposedly, each egg adds seven years onto your life! Kate didn’t want to eat an egg and they only sold them in packs of two so I bought myself quite a lot of extra time at the top of the valley. They were actually really delicious and kind of tasted like smoked cheese. Here are some pictures for reference.

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Next we took the cable car down to Togendai, where we boarded the Hakone sightseeing cruise. We bought a ticket in Tokyo called the Hakone Free Pass, which included a return trip to Tokyo and free use of all transport in Hakone so we never had to stop and queue for individual tickets. The cruise was amazing but very windy and it took us over to another part of Hakone, where we stopped and had some ramen lunch.

After lunch, we attempted to stroll around Hakone. We walked to Onshi-Hakone Park, which has an imperial palace and great views of the lake and Mount Fuji. We continued walking for about half an hour and eventually made our way to Hakone Shrine. By the time we got there, the sun was beginning to set and long queues were forming to take a picture at the shrine. We didn’t get in the queue because we were quite tired and hungry so at this point we took the bus back to the hostel for a hot-spring session! We soaked in the hot springs for about an hour and once we were sufficiently relaxed and our fingers were all crinkled from too much soaking we went back to the room.

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Our beds were traditionally Japanese and consisted of futons and different layers of blankets on the tatami floor. We eventually figured out how to make the bed and then we drank tea and read our books for a few hours before heading to the hostel restaurant in our pyjamas later that night for some pizza.

The hostel owner was very friendly and poured us both some whisky on the house whilst we had dinner. We chatted to him for a while but the hot spring-napping-pyjama-whisky combo meant that we were exhausted so we didn’t stay for very long.

At 6:30am, we got out of our futons and went to the balcony to watch the sunrise. It was quite cold outside so we only watched it for about ten minutes and then we came back to the room and slept for another few hours. At 10am, we left the hostel. I took a train back to Tokyo and Kate began her solo travels in Kyoto!

Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed chapter 4 and for anyone thinking of coming to visit me in Tokyo, I definitely recommend an overnight stay in Hakone!