Today it was time to get get my worth out of this Hakone free-pass.
Breakfast was a trip to the konbini for some egg sandwiches and a croissant.
Checked out in the hostel but could thankfully leave my luggage there for the day.
Bus ride was a 40 minute to lake Ashi where I explored the area for a bit and visited the Hakone Palace. The view from there was stunning.
From there I headed back to the pier for the cruiseship to the start of the ropeway up the mountain.
Near there I had the chance to take a picture with three attractions in one, Mt. Fuji, Tori in the water and the pirate ships!
Unfortunately when taking the ropeway clouds formed around Mt. Fuji, so it was a Fuji-less view for me. Did have the whole gondola for myself when heading back down. I eventually made my way back to the hostel and started my travel to Tokyo.
In Odawara station I had lunch, some quick Katsu Kare before stepping onto the Shinkansen towards Tokyo.
There I immediately went to my Air BnB place near Ikebukuro and went shopping for tomorrow’s breakfast and my dinner as it was raining again.
Anyways, made my way to the 9h30 Kodama Shinkansen on the way to Odawara where I had to take another train to Hakone itself. Bought myself the free-pass as that should save me some money in the long run. It’s basicly a pass you buy for Y4000 that lets you use most public transport without any extra costs. This includes trains, buses, the cruise ship, rope-ways, cable cars. If you use all once, you’ve got your money out of it. So that’s the plan for tomorrow as the current weather doesn’t really allow for it.
In Gora I had lunch at the Ninja café… basicly an excuse to sell ninja-related merchandise in their bar and walk around in all black, wouldn’t recommend. Then I took the cable car and the rope-way up the mountain. Even though it was raining you could still see the nature around.
At the top of the rope-way there’s a small volcanic museum, like 2 rooms. But entrance was only Y100 and it had some cool basic info (in English) and microscopes with ash, magma, sulfur and other plates to look at. With also a bit of history thrown in about Mt. Hakone.
Dinner for the night was Teriyaki chicken with sweet potato. All I can say about the sweet potato is that they fill like a bomb and have the taste of a sugar coated pancake.