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We awoke the regular time and checked out bound for Nikko. I didn't realize it before we left, but Nikko is far away! It's not that far on the map but we needed to take 6 different trains to get there totalling a bit over 3 hours.
It was a long trip but we were happy when we arrived at our fancy Japanese ryoken. Staying at this place was my birthday gift to Eliza from her birthday back in June.
The place didn't look like much from the outside but the inside was nice and the rooms were great! The biggest rooms we had ever stayed in. There was a lobby nook and a bathroom with our main sleeping area and tea table and then a separate eating room with a balcony. And it was all furnished Japanese style. We loved it.
We explored around the are for an hour or so to kill some time before our scheduled dinner time. Eliza an I went to a Japanese restaurant the equivalent of a Denny's. We had a tasty cake bowl before heading back to the ryoken.
When we arrived back we bummed around for 30 min and then went down to the hotel restaurant for our fancy dinner. The food was already layed out for us. The spread looked delicious as you can see below.
We gobbled up everything and I ate a lot of the food that Eliza didn't care for. We then headed back to our rooms stuffed.
This ryoken also had the nice Japanese robes so my parents and us decided to have a photo shoot! It was a lot of fun and we got some nice pics out of it :D
I had booked the private onsen so that Eliza and I could go in a hot spring together without having other naked people all around us. It was great having own little onsen. Though holy crap the water was hot! It wad almost scalding hot. Liza went in right away but it took me a bit to go in. We then noticed a tap by the onsen that runs cold water to help cool the temperature. We hung around there for maybe half an hour then made our way back to our room still wearing our comfy Japanese robes.
It had been a great day and we had our nice little tea set in our rooms so Eliza suggested we have some tea. She got everything ready and we had a really nice cup of tea really just enjoying ourselves before going to sleep. We did our usual review of the day's pics on the camera and then fell asleep.
We awoke early to the sun rising and I wanted to go up to check out the outdoor hotspring at the top of the ryoken for a morning dip. You could really see that all the money in the hotel went into the onsen because it was landscaped really nicely with rocks and the water looked steamy and welcoming. There was no one around so I took a dip. The sound of birds and the light rays shining through the trees added to the great and relaxing experience if my first Japanese onsen experience!
After 10 min I got up and dressed for our full day tour with Kei and Hiroshi. They offered to drive us all around Hakone which saved us a lot of money on transporting ourselves aroun for which we were grateful (above getting our own private tour).
We met K&H at our hotel lobby and headed to their cars parked close by. Hiroshi drove a 2 seat convertible so I called dibs.
We started our driving tour by driving through the twisty mountains to a little town with a great bakery and famous Fujiya Hotel. Many Japanese celebrities stay here and we took a tour through the lobby. It was built in 1930 so it itself was a museum.
Next we stopped off at a wild flower sort of garden park area in the mountains. beautiful place to walk around and it was lots of fun spotting the bugs and lizards!
We then headed off to Hell Valley, a volcanic hit spring up in the mountains. When we got out of the car and started hiking up towards the springs the sour stench grew stronger. It smelt pretty bad. Lol.
As we were walking up there was a little cable car full of black boiled eggs making their way back down the hill. The boiling and eating of eggs boiled in these sulfur springs are fairly popular. Kei and hiroshi bought us a 5 pack which we split. The egg tasted pretty much like a regularly boiled egg except it had a slightly different taste to it. It was good.
When we made it to the top of the hot springs the smell was in full force and we quickly took some pics and headed back down the hill.
We drove back down the mountain to Ashi no ko, which is an elevated lake in the mountains. We parked and walked along the little town by the lake.
It was very scenic and we ended up on an old footpath that used to be used 100's of years ago for Japanese traveling between Tokyo and Hakone. It was a 2 day trip. Trains are great.
We then toured around an old checkpoint used back in the day to regulate passage through the area.
By this time we were getting hungry so we stopped at an old local diner for dinner. Eliza and I had the Japanese curry which was more comfort food than anything. It tasted great and was just what we were
craving.
It was getting late and we decided to head back to the hotel. After a scenic drive back down the mountains we arrived at our hotel. Eliza and I took another break at the foot bath before heading to our room.
I told Liza that I wanted to go into the onsen so we went upstairs to check if it was busy. There was noone in either elizas or my onsen (girls and boys are separated) so both of us stripped down and went for a private soak. The water was nice and hot but not too hot. It was really relaxing and a great way to end the day and get all warm and sleepy.
Dressed in our Japanese robes we went to sleep after another great day. Big Thanks to Kei and Hiroshi for driving us around. We hope to visit them in Seattle if they visit their daughter.
Kazutaka kindly picked us up from our hotel this morning to drive us to the train station. We took some final pictures at the station and even Shozo and his wife came to bid us farewell. I forgot to mention but Kazutaka is my mom's 2nd cousin and Shozo is her great uncle.
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.
