Hakone, black eggs and naked guys!

Well as ever we had a very busy week end, Tuesday is our "night off" so I have time to write about what we have got up to.

On Sunday we woke at the ridiculously early hour of 6am ready to meet Nishimura-san and Yoshio-san at Oji station. Why? A day trip of course, off to Hakone, the nearest big "holiday spot" for people living in Tokyo, it has mountains , lakes, black eggs(more on them later) and an onsen (Japanese hot spring spa).

We got to Shinjuku station at 8:30am to catch the Odakyu express to Hakone, it took about 1hr30mins, it was an enjoyable train journey. There were trolley dolly's just like a plane, how novel. I was expecting Hakone to be a remote, old, quiet place, it was to an extent, but there were just so many tourists, luckily this didn't spoil the day.

Our first part of this trip was to take the cable car to the top of the mountain to reach the sulphur hot springs, the ride was a scenic one, with my first sighting of Mount Fuji (Fuji-san).
Fuji-san is an incredible mountain, it has the perfect shape, exactly how you imagine a mountain to be, and you could only see the top snow covered half due to clouds round the base. This just added to its beauty . But Fuji-san wasn't what we were here for, the sulphur springs were.


England doesn't have any active volcanoes so there isn't anything nearly as interesting as this, there were jets of sulphur gas and bubbling hot water coming straight from the ground! Hakone is famous for its black eggs (eggs cooked in the sulphur springs and so turned black) each one apparently adding 7 years to your life, I had 2 so thats another 14 years right there!

Next it was off to the lake for a boat ride to take in the sights, it was a really nice trip, seeing as the leaves had just started to change colour, so it gave a really nice autumnal image. The weather was also perfect, sunny but not hot at all, just pleasant. The lake ride made me remember being in Switzerland, something about the lake and lots of mountains, I dunno but it was a really beautiful place.

After all this we were pretty tired and so headed for our final and possibly most troublesome destination, the Onsen! Onsen is a spa which uses the hot water from the hot springs to fill the pools, traditionally you enter naked (that was the troublesome part, or so I thought). We arrived at the Onsen and it looked like a traditional building, you entered and took off your shoes (as usual) then were were taken behind a wooden barrier to the actual onsen, there were 3 different pools, each with a slightly different temperature.

I thought we would be taken to some kind of changing room before the actual onsen, but nope, there are just lockers by the side and you change there, which in a way is better as you don't have to "brave" coming out of the changing rooms naked. But all this worrying was kinda silly, as no one really cares that your naked, and I didn't either.

The next hurdle was to figure out what to do, luckily Nishimura-san had it covered, he showed us how you are ment to wash yourself before getting in and then the hard job of how to sit back, relax and enjoy the height of luxury.

I can see why the Japanese love onsen so much, it is unbelievably relaxing and such a great way to wind down after doing anything, after the onsen I was ready for bed! One word of warning though, the onsen can be at times too hot and can make you feel a bit strange, the top tip is to stay in for say 10 mins then step out and sit on the bench and cool down and relax then get back in again.

Potentially the worst part of the day turned out to be the best part of the whole trip, if you ever have the opportunity to go to an onsen in Japan I say GO! don't be hung up on the nakedness factor, no one cares and you will seriously regret not experiencing this relaxing part of Japanese culture.

Here is the out side of he onsen:



Now all was left was to return (reluctantly) to busy Tokyo, of course the train ride couldn't be boring, not with Yoshio-san beer connoisseur, he made sure we had beers and a collection of canned cocktails on hand to make the train ride blur by!

We got home and I just collapsed in heap, I was so tired, but had such a great day and I am really glad we had the opportunity to go.

Well I think thats enough blogging for today, its time to make dinner! yay!