Monday morning dawned nice and bright. We were going to take off to other parts of Japan for a few days. Our first stop of was to be Hakone. Hakone is in the Mount Fuji region and if we were lucky, would be able to catch a glimpse of the great mountain. Hakone is also famous for its “onsen” (or hot springs) so we had booked our accommodation at a place that had an onsen.

We wanted to travel light since we were going to visit a few other places before coming back to Tokyo. The people at the hostel were nice enough to let us leave the luggage we weren’t going to be carrying – they’d store it for us until we came back. We took the bus to Ueno station and the JR line train to Tokyo station, where we had to connect to Odawara. It was early on Monday morning and the JR line train was packed with rush hour commuters. It took quite a bit of effort to get into the train; now, I think I understand what it means to be packed like sardines We didn’t have to move an inch to exit the train – the crowd automatically pushed us out!

From Tokyo station, we were to take the Shinkansen (a.k.a “the bullet train”) to Odawara junction. It was our first ride on the Shinkansen and R was especially excited. We waited on the platform at Tokyo station, watching in wonder as the trains sped by past us, clearing the entire station in a few seconds. There are 3 types of Shinkansen – Kodama, Hikari and Nozomi – in increasing order of their “express”-ness. The Nozomi trains aren’t covered on the JR pass so we had reserved seats the day before, on a Kodama. The inside of the train was better than any flight I’ve ever been on. The seats were very comfortable and there was ample leg room for us to stretch out and have a pleasant journey. The ticket checkers were extremely polite – they would bow to everyone in the compartment on entering and leaving it and very respectful while interacting with the passengers.

We reached Odawara in less than an hour. We bought ourselves the Hakone free pass, which covered all modes of transportation in the area for 2 days. We boarded the bus outside Odawara station to get to Senkyoro Mae, where our ryokan was located. It took about 45minutes to get there, though beautiful, lush green mountainside. We checked in at the ryokan. The lady running the place gave us some tips on what to see and do around the place. We were most interested in getting a view of Mount Fuji and asked her what the best place to do that would be. She smiled and said our best bet would be Owakudani but then “Fuji-san is very shy” and that we would have be very lucky to get a glimpse

We followed the standard tourist route by riding the bus to Gora, the cable car from Gora to Owakudani, where we could see the hot springs and then on the ropeway to Togendai, followed by a boat ride across Lake Ashi, to Motohakone and Hakonemachi – looks like we were taking every possible mode of transportation!

We stopped at Owakudani for some pictures. However, much to our disappointment, we weren’t able to see Mount Fuji The lady at the inn was right – Fuji-san is pretty shy!

We stopped at Hakonemachi for lunch – we hadn’t eaten since our departure from Tokyo that morning. We walked around a little bit and then set forth to Motohakone on the boat. At Motohakone, we wanted to walk along the old Tokaido highway, which was an Edo-era highway connecting Tokyo and Kyoto. It was a stone-paved highway which was pretty hard to navigate. You could easily twist your ankle if you weren’t watching your step carefully. I wonder what the accident rate on this highway was in the Edo era!!

Old Tokaido highway

We walked a short distance on the Old Tokaido highway, before heading back to the town. We wanted to stop at the Hakone shrine which is another landmark in the area. The entry into the shrine was lined with lanterns, all of which were orange in color. The shrine was pretty empty and incredibly peaceful.

Hakone shrine

After our visit to the Hakone shrine, we decided to head back to the ryokan. It had been a long day and dinner followed by a soak in the onsen sounded incredibly tempting! On reaching the ryokan, we rested for a little bit and then set out to find some food.

The village of Sengoku was a short walk away and there were several restaurants there. We walked a bit and finally settled for the one closest to our ryokan. The people that ran the place were very friendly. On learning that we were from India but living in the US, the host brought out an Indian flag and an American flag and set them at our table. The food was decent, the service spectacular – the Japanese could teach restaurants in the US and India more than a thing or two about customer service! When we were paying for our meal, R told the chef “oyshi katta” (Japanese for “it was delicious” – he’d quickly whipped out the phrasebook and found it ). The gentleman was delighted and asked if we spoke Japanese – I answered cheekily “wakarimasen” (Japanese for “I don’t understand”) ! As we left the restaurant, the hosts gave us each an origami crane and doll as a gift. Very hospitable and generous of them! We felt very welcome and happy as we left the restaurant.

We went back to the ryokan, and spent some time planning for the next day, when we would head to Koyasan. We spent some time soaking in the onsen (that was SO relaxing!), to round off the busy day.