hakone!

So this post is way, way late, but last month, my friend and I took a weekend trip to Hakone, a town (city?) a few hours away in Kanagawa Prefecture (not too far from Yokohama). We only stayed for one night, but it was super fun!

Hakone is actually a very popular travel destination, and after having been there it's easy to see why: it's a really gorgeous place in the mountains, with hot springs and interesting places to visit - not to mention the fact that they clearly know what they're doing as far as tourism goes, with a well-structured public transportation system that makes it easy to access the many museums and other sites they've built there.

We started out from Tokyo with the 'Hakone Free Pass', which covered our (local) train fare to/from Tokyo plus bus/ferry/train fare in Hakone, and also gave us discounts in other places. Our first stop was lunch, and then we hopped on a bus to the pier to board a pirate ship! For some reason in English it's only advertised as a 'sightseeing cruise' but the Japanese definitely says 'pirate ship', which is much more exciting, I think.




So after a short boat ride across Lake Ashi, we then got onto the Hakone Ropeway to ride a cable car up the mountain! Our next destination was Owakudani, which is a volcanic valley with sulfur hot springs, famous for black eggs that are said to make you live 7 years longer if you eat one. (They're boiled in the springs and apparently turn black because of the sulfur; as it happens, I ate 2.5)

Then we came back down via cable car and headed to our next destination, the Hakone Glass Forest/Venetian Glass Museum. Which doesn't sound super interesting, but actually it was pretty cool! There were glass pieces outside in a beautiful garden-like area, plus some delicate and interesting works inside. I think my favorites were the giant glass onions scattered around!

After that we just went to our ryokan and chilled for a bit, had dinner at a Korean restaurant (where we had to wait foreevveerrr but it was tasty so I guess it was okay), had a bath in the hot spring water, and went to bed.

The next morning was the main reason why I wanted to go to Hakone and what I had been looking forward to ever since I learned it existed: the Museum of Saint-Exupery and The Little Prince in Hakone! I spent most of the time freaking out about everything, which included statues of characters from the books, a stamp rally where you had to collect stamps and create your own Le Petit Prince book, and a lot of interesting information about the author. Needless to say, it was great, and I will happily go back sometime if anybody wants to see it! :D

We continued by taking a bus to Gora and having lunch at a cute little cafe called Woody, before wandering around the Hakone Open Air Museum, which was huge and awesome. There were tons of sculptures outside and exhibits inside, plus a free hot spring foot bath!

With that, our trip came to an end because it was Sunday and we both had to get back for work, but there's still a ton of things in Hakone that we didn't get to visit, so I'd like to go back someday! Maybe in the winter next time, when I'll really appreciate the hot springs. I got the feeling that my family would really enjoy being there too, so maybe if they come visit again...? :)