Wednesday October 14 2009, Tokyo, Hakone

Wednesday October 14 2009
Tokyo, Hakone
Clouded skies 25C, Evening Thunderstorm and Rain
We go with the ultra fast train to the mountains near Hakone. The
train ride is exciting, but also watching these great and fast trains
is already fun. Transports today will consist of normal trains, Cable
Train, Shinkansen (fast train), Bus, slow train into the mountains,
Cable car(like ski elevators), feet and even a pirate cruise boat.
We buy tickets to have all of this transports payed in advance and as
a bundle. A large amount, 3900 Yen per person, but with what you get
in return its a good deal and you are active for the whole day. The
mountain train goes back and forth up the mountain and has to wait now
and than to let the downhill trains pass on the double tracks. At the
end of this 30 minutes trip we take a cable train, a train which pulls
itself up the hill with a cable. At the end of that track we move
between mountain peaks with a cable car. We "fly" over the volcano
activities, that small like the famous rotten eggs. Interesting stuff.
The last bit to the top, we walk, in the mist of the volcano sizzling
and boiled water. On the top there is a boiled water mini lake, where
they have baskets with eggs, being boiled. You can buy the eggs and
eat them. Because of the chemical reaction, the eggs become black, but
do taste like normal boiled eggs. They only are sold per 5 eggs, but
some couple from New York that we met, are willing to share a bag of
eggs. Pictures proof we ate the black eggs. We walk back and take an
other cable car that brings us down on the other side of the mountains
and the large lake. There we get on a big pirate cruise ship that
brings us to a little village on the other side, in about 30 minutes.
From their we take a bus back to the train station where we take the
train back to Tokyo. There we were really in the mood for some fries,
so we ended up at Kentucky Fried Chicken and had some nice fried
chicken wings. During the way back to the shuttle bus, it started to
rain heavily and thunder. The water was coming down the streets like
little waterfalls in no time. The one moment the streets were crowded
with people, and the other moment they were all taking shelter. We
too. :-)
An other interesting, fun and nice day in Japan comes to an end.
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Marcel de Koningh
Photo KingH

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