Day trip to Hakone (Feb 15)

Our day trip to Hakone was perhaps, my favorite day so far in Japan.  The weather was beautiful and the sights were simply amazing.  To begin our adventures, we left at approximately 6 am, transferred trains in Ofuna, and arrived in Odawarra.  Here we purchased our Hakone day passes that allowed us to ride all the other trains, cable cars, trams, tour boats, and buses for the rest of the day with just one pass.  It was still quite early, as you can see the train station is still fairly deserted.

At our next stop we switched to the Hakone railway where things really got interesting.  The train literally makes switchbacks up the side of the mountain.  It will come to a stop, switch tracks and directions, and then continue up the mountain.

With all the trains, Tristan was having a great time!

Allowing another train to go past us before switching tracks.

The views are getting nicer.

It was a small train and later in the day it was standing room only (and barely any at that)

Our first stop for the day was at the Yunnessen, which is a hot spring resort.  Japan is known for their Onsens (hot springs), but normally they are gender separated because you bathe naked.  This is a family oriented, swim-suit one with several different themed spas, a large pool, a little kids play area, and a set of water slides.  Oh, and they also had an area where you could have little fish eat the dead skin off your feet (Chad and Jamie did this).  We stayed here for 2 hours and tried all the different spas (wine, chocolate, sake green tea, and coffee!).  If you'd like to see some pictures of inside the resort, go here.

Jamie is posing while we wait a few minutes for the resort to open.

When we were done, we got dressed and headed back onto the Hakone railway to the last stop.

This is where we took the cable car (this train was still on tracks but pulled up the steep incline by a cable)

Looking back down the cable car tracks.

At the end of the cable car, we boarded a tram to take us even higher up the mountain.

This is where we had the best views of the scenery, including Mt. Fuji

At the top we top took a hike up to where the hot springs activity can be seen up close and where they cook eggs in the sulfur pools.  Doing this causes the shells to turn black but inside it remains a perfectly good hard-boiled egg!  At the sulfur pool, we purchased some eggs and ate them, however, I couldn't stomach it with the smells of the sulfur all around us (the hard-boiled egg smell not contributing to this fact).  Everyone else enjoyed their egg and Jamie even got some black ice-cream at the end of our hike.

Black egg Hello Kitty!

There was steam rising out of rocks all around us.

Mt. Fuji was beautiful

Here is the pool that they cook the eggs in

I was getting warm on our hike so I simply took my arms out of my jacket - Chad thought it looked funny so he had me stick out my arms.

Here's what the eggs looked like

When we were finished, we headed down the mountain this time on a different tram, heading towards Lake Ashi.

Here we took a tour boat to other side of the lake where a town was located.

I think Jamie is putting on his best pirate face.

I really think we should get one of these swan paddle boats for the lake!

The lake was very scenic.

The tour boats were pretty ridiculous looking.

Once on the other side, we took a walk through a park as the sun was setting.

From the lookout point in the park

 And that was it!  We got a few snacks and took a bus back all the way to Odawarra station (thus making a huge circle) and then returned on the normal JR trains.  Tristan was exhausted and fell asleep on the bus :)