We hopped on the train and made our way to Hakone. It took 3 separate trains to get us there but we made it in good time.
Our hotel was only a few minutes walk from the station up a big hill in the trees. The place looked like a real dive but was apparently a famous onsen (hot spring). We unloaded our bags into our tatami rooms and headed back to the train station to meet with Kei and Hiroshi who we had met on our first day. They live close to Hakone and offered to meet up with us and of course we agreed.
First things first was some food. They took us to a Ramen restaurant that was over 100 years old. The place had excellent ramen and for great prices. Eliza and I split a ramen and side order of gyoza.
We then took the train 2 stops over to kamaboko land (kamaboko is cooked fish paste). There was a kamaboko museum there as well as a big store that had plenty of free samples! I must have tried half a doze or so. All delicious.
Next was a trip to the main Odawara station where we took a walk to Hakone castle. It was too late in the evening to go inside but we were content with walking around the grounds and looking from the outside.
By this time it was pretty late in the say so we took the train by ourselves back to the ryoken hotel. At the front of the hotel outside overlooking the town was a good sized foot bath filled with super hot hot spring water. Eliza and I relaxed and soaked our feet for a while. It felt great on our barkin' dogs :p
Next we went back to our room and to our surprise there were thick comfy futons laid out with bed sheets in the room. There were also some traditional Japanese robes spread out for us to wear. Eliza and I had a photo shoot with our new clothes and then went to bed for a full day of touring the next day.
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