The forecast for today was that it would become overcast later in the day so we set off in search of Lake Ashi to see if we could see Mount Fuji, we had a circular route worked out that would use most of the transport options in the area which would make the most of our Hakone value pass. We started by walking round to the funicular railway which they call the cable car in Japan, which took us to the bottom of the hill which is the town of Gora we didn’t bother looking round as we thought we would do that later. Our next mode of transport was a bus – which they do call a bus! which I thought would take us to the lake but we actually had to change to another bus, luckily I had taken a photo of the route with my phone and showing this to the driver meant we were pointed in the right direction for the next bus stop. On the way down to Tongendai-ko we got a glimpse of Mount Fuji, hopefully it will still be visible when we get to the other side of the lake. After getting off the bus we got on the pirate ship – yes really! which took us to Hakone-Machi-Ko which is basically the other side of the lake. We stood up on desk for the ‘voyage’ which meant we had some really spectacular views, unfortunately the clouds were gathering but although we could see Mount Fuji quite well because it is snow covered it didn’t come out very well in the photos against the white clouds which it is a shame. After we left the ship we decided we would stop for a coffee, we found a great place with a view over the lake where you got service by pushing a buzzer which would be okay but it rang though the whole restaurant which was a little disconcerting! After coffee we set off for the Edo checkpoint which was made to ensure that weapons and soldiers were not being smuggled into Edo – present day Tokyo. It was also to ensure that family members who were being held hostage were not being smuggled out of the old capital. We didn’t bother going into the museum as all the exhibit explanations are only in Japanese but we did walk through the checkpoint then we had planned to walk to Moro-Hakone-Ko but first we took a detour around Onshi Hakone park. We walked up to the Lakeside Panorama hall which was built as a European house which seems very strange in this setting, from there we went to Benten-no-hana Tenbodai (viewing platform) which has fantastic views of Mount Fuji, unfortunately the clouds had really gathered by this time so although we had a fantastic view, capturing it on film was a bit more of a challenge – one that as always Chris was up to so we have a couple of great pictures of it. From here we went down the Nihyaku Kaidan or stairs of two hundred steps to the Azhikawa bridge. From here we should have joined the Cedar path which is actually the main road but is lined with Cedar trees, but we decided to follow the lake shore path instead which we think was much nicer. Once we reached the town of Moto Hakone we decided to stop for lunch, we had planned to go to a restaurant but as we weren’t that hungry we went to the local supermarket and got a salad and noodle roll (yes noodles in a bread roll!) plus a couple of drinks and we sat on the lake edge eating our lunch. Fully rested we decided it was time to head off up the Tokaido highway which is the most intact section of this rock paved highway. This was heavy going as the rocks are very uneven. This road was mostly used by wives and children trying to escape their feudal husbands and rebels trying to get weapons into the capital. We walked quite a way up then decided to turn round and come back down – rather than getting to the top and catching the bus back, which turned out to be a good thing as it started raining just as we got to the bottom so we headed to the pirate ship for the return journey only to find out that they actually stopped running at 4pm! Once back on the other side of the lake we got on the Ropeway (cable car to us) which took us to the top at Owakudani where in 2015 there was increased volcanic activity causing a number of vents to be exposed, work is currently underway to try and shore up the mountain but the number of exposed vents makes it quite a noxious area. We had to change cable cars here and when we got on the one for Sounzan where we would meet up with the funicular railway again to return to the hotel. It was actually raining quite hard by the time we got back making the walk back uphill quite hard work, but we rewarded ourselves with a beer (or two) before heading off to the room for a relax and our Japanese meal tonight!
